Take Your iPhone On Tour With Rock Band (Updated)

Posted by Tyler Tschida on: October 19th, 2009, 5.32 am

rockband

Thanks to EA and Harmonix, you will no longer have to be sitting (or standing) in front of your TV at home to experience full rhythm game magic because Rock Band for the iPhone and iPod touch has landed in the App Store.

rockband_screen1Rock Band for the iPhone and iPod touch looks and feels like its console counterpart, except there aren’t any plastic peripherals to plug in.  The game allows you to play guitar, bass, drums, and even sing.  But this isn’t just your everyday iPhone rhythm game, Rock Band allows you to play all four of these instruments together with friends.

Rock Band features 2-4 player local multiplayer via Bluetooth, which means that you can harmoniously play together to earn unison bonuses and activate overdrive to save a failing band member, just like in the console version of the game.  Rock Band also allows you to challenge friends over Facebook if you can’t get together in person, but the games aren’t played in real-time.  Rock Band features both single song game modes and a World Tour career mode.

As with all rhythm games, Rock Band is all about the music selection.  The game features tons of licensed music by bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Beastie Boys, Smashing Pumpkins, Foo Fighters, Blink-182, and more.  You can also download more songs via in-app purchases from bands like Devo, Social Distortion, and OK Go.  They are priced at $.99 and are available in packs of two.

The Bluetooth multiplayer portion of Rock Band is not available for the first generation iPhone and iPod touch.  Rock Band also requires iPhone OS 3.0, and EA recommends that you have 3.1 or later for optimal performance.

Rock Band is now available in the App Store for $9.99.

UPDATE: EA is now offering two free songs for Rock Band.  To download them, open Rock Band and then tap Music Store.  The two free songs should be displayed near the top of the screen and are titled Science Genius Girl and Super-Sprode by Freezepop.

3 Comments

  1. cool… nice… awesome.. BUT! Can somebody please try to explain why this app is NOT available in my country’s AppStore???? I’ve been waiting for this for a long time! :(

  2. This game’s play is much better than TTR, in my opinion. I love that you can choose the different instruments and I can’t wait until I’m around my friend so that we can play together! The song selection leaves something to be desired, but I’m sure that will improve in time. Totally worth the $9.99.

  3. RockBand is certainly charging the most in this product space and based on the screenshots of the UI I am not convinced that they actually have the best product.

    I play TTR with 3 fingers. I don’t think I have big hands but I can’t fit 4 fingers across my iPhone screen. Can anyone who has RockBand for the iPhone and plays the same way comment on how well this UI functions?

    Yes, I know some people play these games with just 1 finger but I’m not going to play a game of dexterity with just 1 finger.

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