Developer - Planet Moon Studios
Publisher – THQ
Available On - Wii

It’s hard to discuss a game like Battle Of The Bands (BOTB) and not compare it to the likes of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, the market dominators in music games both now also available on the Wii. Though after a brief session with BOTB one realises such comparisons are inappropriate, BOTB does not attempt to emulate any form of real life instrument and instead employs a very light hearted approach to some simplistic arcade command timing against re-mixed versions of popular licensed music.

So BOTB isn’t one of those serious ‘try to get 100%’ music games. Instead each song is played as a battle between two bands of preferred genre, each competing to dominate the track in their style of play. Battles are won by accumulating the most points, achieved through hitting successful notes, launching successful attacks and blocking your opponent’s. This eradicates a large portion of the technicality behind most music games, no longer are songs expected to be audible or played professionally, instead we have a chaotic mish-mash of incoherent timing and indecent attacks (such as a smoke grenade that veils all notes).

At no point is the Wii Remote explained as any particular item other than a device you shake left, right, and down when prompted. Apart from these 3 note varieties there’s the jab (jabbing the Wiimote inwards) and defence/attack commands. The low amount of notes in BOTB make it a very simple music game and frustratingly so, ultimately leaving no note sequence sounding anything like the original tune at all. Again, we’re not playing instruments, but that doesn’t excuse the sordid mess of note sequences for each song in this game, they just don’t match the song at all.

All the covers in this game sound horrible. It’s a struggle to recognise any of the 30 licenced tracks used in BOTB but this is another downside that seems to be done entirely on purpose. For each band that is dominating the song at the time, a different cover of that song will be played for that genre. Admittedly it is quite funny and interesting hearing a country-yokel cover of AFI’s “Miss Murder”, or a rock cover of Cypress Hill’s “Insane In The Brain” but after a few songs this gets very annoying and tiresome. Especially when it switches back and forth several times in a song, the resulting being a track butchering the originals so hard I’m surprised to see artists allow it. Not that it matters anyway, again, none of the beats are actually mapped to the songs.

The substantially basic gameplay of BOTB certainly begun to take a toll on my arm, too. Perhaps the continual suggestions of taking a break after nearly every damn song wasn’t entirely due to how unenjoyable this game is, but the fact of how poorly designed this Wiimote-jerking is and the eventual result on your arm. Harder difficulties can prompt some pretty swift jerking of the Wiimote and when you’re only going left, right and down, it starts to hurt. No matter which hand you use, you’ll also often be required to jerk your hand outwards, which isn’t really comfortable for anyone. You’ll always notice a huge increase in accuracy on whatever notes involve jerking your hand inwards, as hands are supposed to do that – and not the other way. It’s just not right.

At least BOTB spices things up a little from the old formula. Those not familiar with the more difficult and sophisticated peripheral-based music games may enjoy bringing this home for their kids, with the character design and dialogue very fitting for a younger audience. It is also a lot easier than the other music games out there, a turn down for Guitar Hero veterans looking for more rocking. Being a self-proclaimed GH veteran, I completed medium difficulty on BOTB without failing one song.  There is some action involved that can spice up multiplayer, switching and launching items through lengthy combos is the key to winning a band battle and this ensures each song will be a different and interesting battle. While attacks spice up battle, they’re still only executed though long combos so the same gameplay repeats and remains throughout.

If only the actual mechanics weren’t so jerky, simple and repetitive there may be some lengthy fun hidden in BOTB. There’s 30 licenced tracks serving a good variety of genres and songs, if only the covers didn’t sound like complete ass. “If only”, “If only”, those are the two words in this case – Battle Of The Bands is a shameful attempt at creating a peripheral-free music game on the Wii.

Battle Of The Bands

62%

The Good -

* 30 Licenced tracks.
* Alternate genre song covers serve brief amusement.
* Doesn’t cost twice as much for a guitar-shaped plastic recepticle.

The Bad –

* Doesn’t come with an awesome guitar.
* Horribly basic and painful gameplay mechanics.
* Terrible sounding songs.