Rock Revolution for Nintendo DS Reviews by Gamers

With two critically and commercially successful "band" games already competing in the market, one wonders why Konami felt it necessary to also throw its hat into the ring. Rock Revolution is ugly and the cover songs are terrible, resulting in an entirely unnecessary experience. While there is nothing really wrong with the touch screen gameplay, there is nothing exciting about it, either.



The portable version of Rock Revolution sports a different (terrible) art style and interface, making for a completely different game than the console editions. Players can tap out rhythms on guitar, bass, or drums, and the microphone is used for vocals (a feat the console games somehow couldn't manage). But if you're not going to do the music game thing better than Rock Band or Guitar Hero, why even try? Strumming the guitar is boring, tapping one virtual drum head at a time is nothing like playing the real thing, and singing into your DS is awkward.



Another cardinal sin is that Rock Revolution doesn't contain any master tracks. In an age where Rock Band and Guitar Hero offer original recordings almost exclusively, who wants to listen to amateur hour cover versions? While the guitars and vocals are respectable, the bass parts are some of the cheesiest midi tracks I've ever heard. You hired a guitarist and vocalist but no bass player? Really? Making the audio even more ghetto, the drums are programmed and washed out so that they offer no punch. Amazingly, a media player is included so that we can freely listen to this crap any time we like.



Instruments are "played" on the touch screen while your band stands around on top. The designers couldn't even be bothered to animate your band -- they just cycle through a few still images that don't translate to what they're supposed to be playing. The artwork is also truly horrendous, looking like rejects from old Hanna Barbara cartoons. That art on the game's box? That has nothing to do with the actual product.



Rock Revolution's track list includes a paltry 20 songs, many of which are cheesy teen pop like Blink 182 and Avril Lavigne. If you actually like a song here, good luck figuring out who performs it -- the interface and manual can't even do us the favor of letting us know who the artists are. We also aren't given a preview of a song before choosing to play it.



With the money you earn from playing gigs you can buy power-ups to use during a song. But all these do is show a still image of your musician on the touch screen for a few moments and keep you from playing.

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