You might have noticed recently in Europe that Rock Band still isn't out. Again the game has been continually pushed back because of hardware shipping requirements. The game is now set for a Q2 fiscal release which is anywhere between April and the end of June. We do have some good news of DLC confirmations. On the 18th of March you will be able to download the earache track pack which contains:

There all masters which is cool but I'm still holding out of Message In A Bottle.

Anyway have a good week and keep rocking.

R-S.

For all you eager RB fans in other continents ready to get rocking the date is now set. For Europe the game will come out March 6th and Australasia April 1st. The delay is again due to hardware shipping problems and such. Thank god we have a final date set now.

In other news the DLC for next week has been announced, on the 29th of Jan you will be able to download Working Man by Rush, Siva by Smashing Pumpkins and Ten Speed by Coheed and Cambria.

Hope you all have a good week.

R-S.

OK first up apologies for being gone so long. I'm back and I will be staying back this time. I had one crazy Christmas with so much going on, recently I just had exams and been doing so much overtime at work to buy my MacBook. But anyway, lets get 2008 rolling with some Rock Band goodness!

The first big update is that Rock Band released All The Small Things by Blink 182 as DLC last week and despite the fact I don't like Blink 182 anymore, I still can't wait to play that. Furthermore Rock Band downloads have reached an excess of 2.5 million which is a crazy figure. Jump here to find all that out. I'm gonna be starting up some Union tournaments soon. That will be created on my personal board I think... I'll figure that out.

Well I hope you all had a good Chirstmas and New Year!

I'm back for good.

*sings that awful Take That song*

R-S.

TIMM-TAMM-TIMMAY!!!

Here it is boys, in all it's glory (minus most of the bonus songs..still TBA)

1960s

• Rolling Stones "Gimme Shelter"

• Aerosmith "Train Kept a Rollin'"*
• The Who "Won't Get Fooled Again"
• Boston "Foreplay/Long Time"
• Mountain "Mississippi Queen" (cover)
• The Police "Next to You"
• David Bowie "Suffragette City"
• Black Sabbath "Paranoid" (cover)
• Blue Oyster Cult "Don't Fear the Reaper"
• The Ramones "Blitzkrieg Bop"
• Deep Purple "Highway Star"
• KISS "Detroit Rock City"
• Molly Hatchet "Flirtin' With Disaster"
• The Outlaws "Green Grass & High Tides" (cover)
• Sweet "Ballroom Blitz" (cover)

• Rush "Tom Sawyer"*
• Bon Jovi "Wanted Dead or Alive"
• The Clash "Should I Stay or Should I Go"
• Faith No More "Epic"
• Pixies "Wave of Mutilation"
• R.E.M. "Orange Crush"
• Iron Maiden "Run to the Hills" (cover)

• Foo Fighters "Learn to Fly"
• Metallica "Enter Sandman"
• Nirvana "In Bloom"
• Stone Temple Pilots "Vasoline"
• Weezer "Say It Ain't So"
• Smashing Pumpkins "Cherub Rock"
• Radiohead "Creep"
• Beastie Boys "Sabotage"
• Hole "Celebrity Skin"
• Garbage "I Think I'm Paranoid"
• Soundgarden "Black Hole Sun"

• The Hives "Main Offender"
• Queens of the Stone Age "Go With the Flow"
• The Strokes "Reptilia"
• Jet "Are You Gonna Be My Girl"
• OK Go "Here It Goes Again"
• Nine Inch Nails "The Hand That Feeds"
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Maps"
• Red Hot Chili Peppers "Dani California"
• Coheed & Cambria "Welcome Home"
• Fallout Boy "Dead on Arrival"
• The Killers "When You Were Young"
• New Pornographers "Electric Version"

• Bang Camaro "Pleasure (Pleasure)"
• Twelve more yet to be revealed

Thanks to

Ok so some of you may be aware that there was a competition on IGN to represent them at some press event. I entered. I got chosen to London and try out for the IGN superband. So I didn't get in, I still had an awesome time. I'm just gonna talk about the game a bit in a non professional like preview.

First of all I got play in a 90% finished build of the game, I'm pretty sure it was the same that was at the Gamespot Players Ball but it might have had some more songs than that. At the EA offices in Westminster me and the 3 other people in my group were all competing to get the highest hit % as we could to get into the IGN superband. We practiced a few times and then played in front of judges. The song we played was Should I Stay Or Should I Go by The Clash.

So the controller was a bit weird for me. I was surprised how much it was like a real guitar and then not at the same time. The whammy and the look were all like a Fender Strat but the feel and weight were a lot like a toy. Definately the hardest part for me was that there was not click for the strum bar. That pretty much messed with my head a bit but I got used to it and liked it in the end. We played on the wired 360 one with the adapter that hangs out of your 360. Overall I would say the controller was good although the action was very different to the Guitar Hero controllers which also took a while to get used to.

I'm not really gonna talk about the songs that much because they are all covered in proper previews. What I will talk about however is the gameplay from a non professional perspective. Rock Band emulates the "band" experiance in such a perfect way it's almost unbelievable. What I did not realise is how much you have to play attention to what everyone else is doing. In our case our drummer was sucking, he failed and because we were so tuned in on what we were doing we failed. This was because if one of your band mates fails your rock meter thing slowly decreases unless you bring him back in by getting overdrive (star power basicly). After a while we got the hang of it. I played bass and as boring as most people might think it would be, it's actually not. The bass has to make up for other people mistakes through being able to gain a 6X multiplyer. I 100% all my songs accept for the one that actually counted (which sucks) but that was mainly because I was having to much fun. I knew I wasn't gonna get it because the other bassist got 100% and a wicked score so as soon as a messed up I just thought **** it, i'll make this as much fun as I can. Which it was. The special drum solo sections were awesome because even though our drummer sucked generally, he was a real drummer so he could rape those parts and make it sound so cool. There were a few places where they didn't sound right but hey, it's rock & roll.

I guess if you have any questions, head to the boards. I didn't go into too much detail because there are many awesome previews out there. The only thing I can say officially is that Rock Band will not be out in the UK until March 2008. This is due to the companys not being able to manufacture enough hardware. Shame but trust me. Rock Band is worth the wait.

Also to anyone who isn't too impressed with the setlist, don't worry. I played some songs I didn't like but they were so fun with 3 other people rocking out with you.

Lastly shout out to Dan the singer in our band, he was ****ing awesome, and thanks IGN for the chance to play the game.

R-S.

"ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?" "I SAID ARE YOU READY TO ROCK!"

Yes i hella am, give it to me now Harmonix.

download the video preview NOW

In case you missed all of the cool Players Ball stuff that's happened this week heres a Rock Band Stage Demo. Includes a short interview and a 3 song set inlcuding Wave of Mutliation, Main Offender and Suffragette City.

R-S.

http://kotaku.com/gaming/budget-rock/rock-band-officially-priced--dated-305025.php

The US version (Sorry UK guys ) Will be officially released on Nov 23, with a retail price at $169!!! So save that extra thirty bucks and buy your mom a house.

Mark it on your Calendars!

Thanks to PoolShark for the initial heads up.

Quick post just to say we now have 100 members!

Awesome round number.

Also some DLC confimation, Nirvanas Nevermind, One by Metallica and 18 songs by Grateful Dead.

R-S.

Hey everyone, just gonna give you lot a quick update and stuff.

First up the total announced songs has increased since my holiday, were now up to 27.

The songs are listed here, sorry I can't be bothered to type them.

This list just keeps getting better and better, especially because of Here It Goes Again as I'm a huge OK Go fan. Pumpkins and Radiohead are also a great addition.

Other than these Rock Band has also got Grateful Dead and Pixies in pipe though which songs are not actually confirmed yet.

In the bad news section, Rock Band has currently been delayed til Q1 in EU and AU. This is a shame but for all you lucky Americans you will be able to get the game on Nov 20th!

In other crazy news Rock Band is going on a tour around US to promote the game in various states and cities. The tour dates can be found here.

If you are able to go to one of these slip me a PM as I might have some requests for you

Anyways, hope you all had a good summer and I'll see you around.

R-S.

Apparently Guitar Hero decided not only to have 3 tracks that are in Rock Band but also to add new "instruments" in 2008. What these instruments are, we have no idea. Your thoughts?

Link.

I know you guys probably have this game tracked but this video deserves it's own RBU article! You can see it after the jump...

A recent preview by Gamespy

http://uk.ps3.gamespy.com/playstation-3/rock-band/802157p1.html

Thanks to Surferbill for this

1up.com Interview with Alex Rigopulos

http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?pager.offset=1&cId=3160823

Thanks to VixDiesel for finding this

Here's the second gameplay footage so far, its very dark so you can't see much but its new footage so you oviously need to watch it

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/80339.html?playlist=featured

It also looks like theres a professional camera filming this gameplay too, so hopefully we'll be able to watch a quality and hopefully light enough version of this song.

EDIT: I found this of looking on the Rock Band forum after some lucky devil saved it, and reposted it. I'm not sure if this is the same video as the one on Kotaku, but this is different than the first gameplay video.

-Ccrow21