LogFAQs > #951286023

18. The Beatles: Rock Band (Xbox 360, 2009)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbe5mpI16KA

We jokingly say stuff like its a miracle this movie/game/album/book even exists but in the case of The Beatles: Rock Band, it is unequivocally true. There are a million reasons this game shouldnt exist.

Heres a short, non-exhaustive list of hurdles:

*Beatles music is incredibly cost-prohibitive to use. It cost Mad Men $250,000 to use Tomorrow Never Knows in a 2012 episode!
*Michael Jackson owned 50% of the publishing rights to the Beatles music. You may recall that he died in early 2009, during the production of the game.
*There was a global recession, which prompted the sale of Harmonix by its brief parent company, Viacom/MTV, shortly after the release of the game.
*Harmonix had to convince the remaining Beatles, aged 69 and 67 when the game came out, as well as Yoko, aged 76, to participate in the creation of a video game with plastic instruments.
*Those same people, once convinced, then had to approve every single creative decision that went into the game.
*Oh, and so did Apple Corps.
*The first half or so of the Beatles career was recorded to two-track and four-track equipment, which meant that you had multiple instruments and/or vocal parts on the same track, rather than a separate track for each part, as became common in the later 60s to present. A great number of engineers headed by George Martins son, Giles, took months to create usable stems.

Somehow, all those pieces fell into place and stayed in place for three years, starting shortly after Viacom/MTV bought Harmonix in 2006, in the wake of Guitar Heros success. Dhani Harrison, son of George, happened to be familiar with Guitar Hero, and happened to have a conversation with the head of MTV at the time at a Christmas party, and happened to suggest a Beatles video game. This conversation led to a discussion with Alex Rigopulos, which led to Dhani talking to Apple Corps, Yoko, Paul, Ringo, and his mother Olivia. Eventually, Harmonix and Dhani presented a prototype of the game to all of the above parties, and got them all on board. Dhani Harrison was the lynchpin to getting this game in production.

But it was a challenge, even once they had the approvals they needed. They had a hard deadline: September 9, 2009, the day the entire Beatles catalogue was to be released in remastered form. They had to get the aforementioned Giles Martin working on the master recordings of the early works to make them usable. They programmed and tracked songs based on low fidelity versions of the upcoming remasters, because Apple Corps, still reeling from Danger Mouses Grey Album, was terrified of hi-fi leaks getting out ahead of the release of the remastered catalogue. They brought in some of the creative minds behind several Gorillaz music videos (including Feel Good Inc, I believe) and the opening title sequence to Quantum of Solace (you know the one) to work on the dreamy animatics. The game was first publicly shown off at Coachella, of all places, as Sir Paul used elements from the game in the visuals of his headlining set. They created an entirely new three-part harmony vocal system to accurately represent the Beatles vocals, which has remained in the series to date. They had Rock Band controllers that were replicas of the Beatles' iconic instruments (one of my greatest gaming regrets is not getting one of these). It was the largest project the relatively small Harmonix had ever undertaken, and the margins were smaller than ever.

And then, finally, the game came out.



And it was incredible. It was an ethereal, stunning game to experience. The gameplay was sharper than Rock Band 2, and not as overcooked as Rock Bands 3 and 4 would turn out. On the loading screens, bits of studio chatter or audience noise, all pulled from the actual recordings, bridged one song to the next. The venues, both real and imagined, are captivating enough that you want to watch them even while youre playing. The Beatles themselves appear through the various eras, in a sort of heightened, idyllic way that glosses over some of the strife of the later years, but still suits the music they produced during each period. It was a staggering homage and monument to one of the most important bands of all time, and Harmonix hit every mark.

The rhythm game market waned along with the global economy not long after The Beatles: Rock Band was released, but this game was an absolute high water mark for the genre as an artistic and commercial force, and Im not sure another game could have matched it, even if the conditions had been equally favorable. It was a magnificent miracle, a confluence of every right person being in the right places at the right times.

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The Thighmaster