Battle of the Bands - Game Info

Game publisher THQ gave another preview last week of some of their upcoming titles for the Wii.  Two of the titles we don’t care about - we’re not saying they’re bad games, but they’re not related to this site.  The game that caught our attention however is Battle of the Bands.

At first glance, Battle of the Bands appears to be very similar to Guitar Hero and Rock Band.  Notes scroll across the screen and you have to ‘hit’ them in time with the music.  The major difference being that the notes scroll up as opposed to down, and to hit the notes you have to move your wiimote in the proper direction as opposed to pressing down a fret on a guitar controller.

More info, screen shots, and product links after the break.

San Francisco-based Planet Moon Studios are responsible for the development of Battle of the Bands.

While Battle of the Bands is similar to Guitar Hero and Rock Band, the main focus of the game however is the ‘battling’ aspect.  After selecting your band, you have to select your weapon. 

Here’s where strategy comes into play.  When selecting your weapons, which are shown in the center of the screen during gameplay, you will see that stronger weapons demand that you hit more notes in combination before you can launch them, whereas weaker weapons need less notes hit in combination.  You can select 3 different weapons to use, and select between them during the songs.

What we really like about Battle of the Bands is that five different musical genres are available:  Hip Hop, Rock, Country, Latin, and Marching Band.  But that doesn’t mean you are neccessarily playing songs from those genres.  All of the songs in Battle of the Bands were recorded in every genre.  Whoever’s band is winning the battle, that’s the style of music you’ll hear being played - for example, expect your songs to switch from Country to Hip Hop while you’re playing.

The controls of the game seem easy enough.  You shake your Wiimote up, down, left, or right depending on the note.

We don’t have the full lineup just yet, but here are the songs that we know of;

Gorillaz - “Feel Good Inc.”
Tag Team - “Whoomp! (There It Is)”
Tenacious D - “Master Exploder”
The Ramones - “Blitzkrieg Bop”
The Commodores - “Brick House”
KC and the Sunshine Band - “That’s the Way (I Like It)”
Texas Tornados - “Adios Mexico”
Black Eyed Peas - “Dum Diddly”
Cypress Hill - “Insane in the Brain”
Kool & the Gang - “Jungle Boogie”
LL Cool J - “Mama Said Knock You Out”
The Fixx - “One Thing Leads to Another”
Soundgarden - “Spoonman”
Def Leppard - “Photograph”
The Soggy Bottom Boys - “Man of Constant Sorrow”
B-Real - “Fistful of Dollars”
Ram Jam- “Black Betty”
Korn - “Coming Undone”
Electric Six - “Danger High Voltage”
Rick James- “Give It To Me Baby”
Wet Willie - “Dixie Rock”
Keane - “Is It Any Wonder?”

We don’t expect Battle of the Bands to be a giant killer, nor do expect this to be a top seller.  We are hoping for a fun game to add to our library…   I guess we’ll find out soon as it’s being released April 21, 2008.

We’re really just buying this to hear Cypress Hill’s “Insane in the Brain” all “Countryfied”

Related Products:

Screen Shots:

Related Links:

THQ Home Page 
Planet Moon Studios (Developer)

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