The day has finally arrived. Green Day: Rock Band is now available! Back in the days of Columbia House and BMG Music CD Club, I never thought when I was picking “Dookie” as one of my free CDs that I would one day be “playing” their music in a video game. While “Dookie” was the first and last Green Day album I owned, I am familiar with most of their other hits based on the sheer amount of radio airplay they receive. My knowledge of “21st Century Breakdown” is very limited, so the music from the third venue, the Fox Theater, was new to me.

Many of you reading this are HUGE fans of Green Day. Many of you are, like me, more of a casual fan of the band, which is the perspective of where most of this review is coming from. And some of you don’t like Green Day at all. As big of a fan I am of the franchise, I have to say that if you don’t like Green Day, this may not be the game for you. But similar to what I said about the Beatles, if you’re not familiar with them, give the game a try, you may be surprised. If you don’t like Green Day because it’s “trendy” to not like ‘em, I think you’re doing yourself a disservice and should at least rent/borrow the game before passing judgement on songs you have probably never heard. So with that out of the way, let’s get into it, shall we?

Menus & Cinematics

If you tried the demo that came out a few weeks ago, you’ll probably already have a good feel for the aesthetics of the game. The menus and transitions you see there are indicative of what you will find in the final game. Song loading is quicker than Rock Band 2, and more akin to loading times for the Beatles. The loading bumpers include animated graphics of graffiti-esque “American Idiot” bombs, as well as Green Day’s concert “ruining” Drunk Bunny.

The opening cinematic, posted on to the internet mid-May, fits well with the rest of the game. If you haven’t seen it yet, take a gander here, but it really is meant to be seen on your HDTV at home.

Venues

About midway through playing it, it finally dawned on me that Green Day: Rock Band is not a sequel to The Beatles: Rock Band, but more like it’s little brother.  Even Harmonix has acknowledged that there’s no way to properly follow up the Beatles. Instead, I see games like The Beatles and Green Day as extensions of Rock Band 2. One could argue that Green Day is a very elaborate and beautiful “reskinning” of The Beatles, and I don’t think that’s too far off. Gone are The Beatles’ Dreamscapes, but the venues that replace it are absolutely beautiful.

You have the option to play at any of the three venues right away in career mode, although I choose to progress through the game in chronological order, similar to The Beatles. The first venue is the Warehouse, a fictional venue that is more or less an amalgamation of the dive bars Green Day played in before they “made it.” I have to admit that I was not floored with the first venue. My initial impressions were that it is very reminiscent of the venues from Rock Band 2… which I guess was the vibe they were going for. It almost appears as if there is a “gritty” filter overlay for this venue. But to be honest, this early in the game I was concentrating more on the songs than anything else. I’ll have to go back to this venue and see if my opinion changes from concentrating more on the venue and less on gold starring/FCing the song. It was very cool to see the personalities of the boys come out during this venue. Tre amps up the crowd in the front row and messes with Billie Joe while he’s playing at the beginning of “F.O.D.” and is pretty funny to watch.

The second venue is Milton Keynes, and right away I was blown away. At first glance, it seems similar to one of the venues from Guitar Hero: Metallica, but the lighting cues, pyrotechnics, video wall, and crowd antics help turn this venue into something never seen before in a Rock Band game. If the boys from Green Day aren’t hamming it up on stage before, during, or after the song, the crowd will pick up the slack and chant along, or even sneak up and do a stage dive every now and again. Playing songs in this venue alone is worth checking out this game for. THIS is the type of stuff I really hope to see in Rock Band 3!

The final venue is the Fox Theater, and is similar in the attention to detail, but smaller in scale, as the venue is indoors. The lighting cues for each song are amazing. As I played through the game in one marathon session, I was starting to get a little “antsy” towards the end (plus, it was LATE), but the subtle changes to the venue from each song kept me engaged.

Also, I want to say this. Many people were disappointed with the lack of Woodstock as a venue, but after playing the game and witnessing how much is done with inside the dark club and outdoor at night venues, you’ll also realize that it just wouldn’t have been up to par with the other venues. Outdoor lighting at real-life concerts is usually pretty non-existent. The venue would have had the trademark mudfight and then everyone playing the game would have been begging to play a new venue.

Gameplay

For each venue, you start with a single 4-5 song set. Once you complete every song in the set, another set for the venue will unlock with additional songs. The band has unique walk ons and send offs for each set change in a venue. For each song completed with three stars, you’ll get one “cred,” which are used to unlock various challenges such as “The Dookie Album Challenge.” When a song is completed with five stars on an instrument, you’ll get an additional “cred.” And you’ll get another “cred” when you complete a set. Each “cred” also unlocks a behind-the-scenes image of the band, most of which have never been seen before. When you complete a challenges, you’ll win “awards,” which are exclusive Green Day live performance videos.

A nice addition is the option to check your achievement progress, which was also included in The Beatles, but this time you can check your progress right in the pause menu. When you return, you’ll see a similar countdown.

For family, friends, and newcomers not as good as most of you reading this, the No-Fail mode is on by default when selecting Easy. You can toggle it in the instrument selection screen if you want it for other difficulties, as well.

Lefty flip is in the difficulty select screen for those of you who use it (or are achievement hunting).

Finally, “Super Speed” and “Performance Mode” options are toggleable in the Extras menu (if I recall correctly).

Instruments

I only played one song on vocals and it is probably the instrument that I’m least familiar with. I would have to defer to someone else for a full analytical breakdown on this, but the vocal mechanics seemed to be more accurate than in previous titles. I don’t remember encountering any “shaky arrow.” If you want to finish the game, you will all have to complete one song on vocals, “Song of the Century,” which is vocals ONLY, off of “21st Century Breakdown.” The tuning of the dial sound effect at the beginning of the song has some very cool corresponding visuals to start the venue. While I didn’t notice any changes to the guitar, bass, or drum lanes, the vocals did appear to have a redesigned aesthetic that worked well with the game, and felt much more fresh and vibrant than in previous games. No chance to check out harmonies yet, but they are there, and expect them to work similar to The Beatles.

I’m slightly better on drums, and I gave a few songs a shot. No changes to the layout of the drum lane, so it appears that Harmonix stayed with what has worked for them in this iteration. The overdrive activation uses the Rock Band 2 method, rather than The Beatles method. What I can say is that drummers will definitely have fun with this game… as I wanted to play a lot more songs that I normally do on drums, but forced myself to stop… neighbors probably don’t appreciate Rock Band drumming after midnight during the week.

I’ll take a crack at guitar and bass in the same paragraph here. No changes to the layout of the lanes for these instruments, either. I normally default to guitar, but on “Dookie,” there are a lot of songs with the quick triple-note strumming that I am terrible at, and my pride forced me to sometimes try out the bass if the chart seemed easier. Often times I was right, but unlike most songs in the Rock Band library, bass is no slouch here. In my opinion, Dirnt’s bass seems to get washed out by guitar when Billie Joe is playing most of the time, but when it’s Dirnt all by himself, it’s a REALLY fun instrument to play with a lot of great sections on most of the songs. On “Dookie” alone, there’s the intro to “She,” as well as the solo in “Welcome to Paradise.”

Music

OK, this section is going to be mostly personal opinion, so if you know how you feel about the music, you can probably skip this. Personally, I loved “Dookie,” and like I said before, it was the only Green Day album I own (and still own). I haven’t listened to it in awhile, so hearing it again recently prior to playing and then in game was not only great to hear, but a bit nostalgic for me, and highly appreciated.

The Milton Keynes venue features songs from “American Idiot,” as well as singles from other albums. With some of the length of the songs from “American Idiot,” as good as many people seem to think the album is, it got to be a little self-indulgent for my tastes. While Milton Keynes was my favorite venue, be prepared to spend a lot of time there, based on the total quantity of music played. I did save “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” for the end, and I recommend you do the same, because it is the perfect send off for the final venue.

I don’t know much about “21st Century Breakdown,” but I have to admit that I REALLY enjoyed it and will probably be picking it up soon. To be honest, I really wasn’t expecting much, because I haven’t liked their singles from this album that have been attracting significant airplay. Not sure why I like the song “Peacemaker” so much, but I have a feeling it’s related to all the Red Dead Redemption I’ve been playing recently. A VERY pleasant surprise this late in the game.

Also, the previously released DLC imported into the Fox Theater venue is SEAMLESS, and you would swear that it was built natively into the game. Very impressive.

Summation

If you’ve made it this far, I can at least assume you’re a casual fan of Green Day, and and since you like Rock Band so much (why else would you be here), you probably won’t be disappointed by picking this game up. I have a feeling you will be as pleasantly surprised as I was with how much I did enjoy the music. If you are a big fan of Green Day, I shouldn’t have to tell you this is a MUST BUY. And what about all the Green Day: Rock Band haters? Keep an eye on them… as soon as they see and hear how much fun you have while playing the game (and it is), they’ll sneakily give it a shot at some point, too.

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