Contrary to f.i. the game built around Metallica you only get to play songs of The Beatles themselves. No "inspiration sources", friends or other crap, only the real deal in beautifully sounding, remastered versions that impress both in stereo and surround. The songs by The Beatles are also diverse enough to occupy even the most sceptical or youngest players for longer than one time through the Story Mode.

The second difference is the unequalled attention for detail the makers have put the game together with. The band members were brought to life with a lot of sense or realism, both in appearance as animations, and you get beautiful venues that were piece by piece modelled to historically correct and o so familiar locations from the long history of the band.

To wrap the gameplay a lot of beautiful, creative and colorful movies were made that dress up the different chapters and add the right atmosphere. Especially the animation that gets shown at the start of the game is a memorable piece, but it's also impressive how many songs have received perfectly suiting unique images, backgrounds and effects with as highlights for instance "Yellow Submarine" and "Octopus's Garden". Next to that you can also collect a lot of information and pictures of the band which is a welcome extra for the fans and passers-by that want to expand their knowledge of The Beatles. All this makes that the world, career and many successes of the band gets brought to life in a very unique way and that you eagerly get immersed in the joy by playing the songs or watching the screen while someone else does all the work.

Next to the beautiful presentation some other differences can be noted compared to a normal Rock Band game; The Story Mode is linear and you'll have to work your way through the timeline, divided into chapters that cannot be skipped. This never bothers though, especially as the difficulty degree can be adjusted with every song and because this episode is a lot easier than previous ones. I had no problem playing all songs on Expert, even with five stars in a first attempt. Hardcore players will therefore probably be disappointed a bit but newcomers will no doubt applaud this.

Notable innovation are the harmonic songlines. This allows to sing with more than one person. While you maintain a lead songline, now and then additional ones will pop up if you've selected this option. That moment someone else (with up to three at the same time) will have to fall in and sing the harmonic lines. Especially fun about this is that you can now play guitar or drums easier while also doing a short singing part. also for the first time you can now play with up to six people together, which is fun for those that are holding a party as well as for those that don't like only holding the mic.

The Beatles: Rock Band is for us an undisputed success. The unique atmosphere of the band and the accompanying fun and creativity are brought to life in an unequalled way. On top of that the game is very accessible for newcomers as well as veterans in both gameplay and content. If we get really critical we would have preferred to have some additional songs by the band included in the game - some top titles are still missing - instead of having to pay for them later on as DLC.