The Babble Review: The Beatles: Rock Band

“Hey, Dad, what’s your favorite Beatles song?”

“Tomorrow Never Knows,” for sure. Why, buddy?

“I want to play it!”

Never mind that my 9-year-old son and I are both too young to have experienced The Beatles firsthand — with The Beatles: Rock Band in our Xbox 360 for the past week, we’ve bridged that generation gap as well as our own, bonding over the Fab Four as we try to recreate a little Beatlemania in the living room.

Though it’s rated “T” (specifically for “mild lyrics and tobacco references”), The Beatles: Rock Band is absolutely a family game. For kids, it’s also an easy inroad to the Beatles’ catalog — which, it’s worth noting, also hit stores this past week in newly remastered form. Ironically, even though they may be further removed from the source material, younger listeners will probably master the game faster than you will — by now, kids are practically coming out of the womb with the ability to hit multicolored buttons in time to music.

Which brings us to the gameplay. As with other Rock Band titles, you earn points by “strumming” or hitting the right color at the right time. (Your existing Rock Band instruments will work just fine here, too.) But The Beatles: Rock Band introduces a few new elements particular to John, Paul, George and Ringo’s oeuvre.

No longer limited to just one microphone, you can team up across three mics to try hitting those classic three-part harmonies. And harmonize you must; merely getting close to the right vocal patterns doesn’t count in this game. The stakes have also been raised for the drummer’s chair: You’ve got to nail Ringo’s beats just as they were originally played — no improvisations here, bub.

Ringo’s bank of “Beatle Beats” is also open for solo practice sessions, allowing you to adjust the tempo until you’ve mastered those legendary rhythms. (And despite what you’ve heard, Ringo’s way better than he lets on.) Same goes for the game’s vocal-training mode — kids can learn basic harmonies as they work their way up to three-part mastery. Best of all, there’s no booing or hissing when you drop the ball — or the beat. Positive feedback abounds when you’re in training mode, and a simple “Song Failed” tells you it’s time to start over during regular gameplay.

Much has been made of The Beatles: Rock Band’s dreamlike cutscenes — and for good reason. Lush, beautiful, and increasingly psychedelic as the game advances, the scenes and accompanying images enrich your experience as you work your way up from the Cavern Club to Shea Stadium to the Apple Corps rooftop where the Fab Four’s last public concert took place. But don’t just take my word for it — check out the game’s already-famous intro video, which encapsulates the band’s career and spirit into a mind-bending two minutes:

In addition to Xbox 360, The Beatles: Rock Band is also available for Wii and PlayStation 3 — and if you have $249.99 to spare, you can even buy a limited-edition Premium Bundle of the game featuring replicas of some of the Fab Four’s original instruments. Happy playing, and be sure to get by a little help from your friends.