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Nintendo: Wii Reviews

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Review

Battle Of The Bands

48%

Format Nintendo Wii

Developer THQ

Publisher THQ

Genre Rhythm Action

22-May-2008 The worst music game on Wii

22 Comments

Ever wondered what Keane or the Black Eyed Peas would sound like played by a Mexican Latino band? Or how Gorillaz would sound if they were given the country and western treatment? If so, then what's wrong with you? That's a terrible idea.

Either way, it seems that someone else had the same idea because now we have Battle Of The Bands, a rhythm action game where various diverse bands fight to make their genre of music reign supreme. Rock versus rap, marching band versus country, Latino versus Chinese orchestra... it's all here and it's all disappointingly dull.

It's not that it's a bad concept, it's just far too simple. All you ever have to do to trigger the beats is flick the Remote left, right or down, or waggle it from side to side. That's about it. There's the odd occasion where you have to make a thrusting motion forward but those don't work very well, which is probably why they conveniently don't appear very often.

Down At Waggle Rock
The whole battle concept is also badly imbalanced. Before each song you choose from a list of weapons and as you play you trigger them after you hit a few notes in a row. When you trigger a weapon it flies over to your opponent's side and they have to block it with a timely press of the B trigger otherwise they'll take a hit, adding to your score.

Problem is, one of the country bands' weapons (Rapid Fire) is needlessly powerful. Any time you trigger it, every single note you hit fires a bullet to your opponent. Invariably they'll fail to block more than a few and you'll end up racking up points like nobody's business, effectively putting victory out of their reach.
As for the music... well, it's dire. We appreciate that it's tricky to record five different versions of each song, but we reckon the country version of That's The Way (Uh Huh) I Like It by KC And The Sunshine Band is one of the worst things we've ever heard.

Battle Of The Bands is not worth the money, plain and simple. It's enjoyable for a while but its simplistic gameplay is more suited to WiiWare. Disappointing.

Chris Scullion

Not so much "Wii Will Rock You" as "I Can't Get No Satisfaction". If you must play Battle Of The Bands then rent it: you'll be bored after a day.

The controls work, at least

Simple to pick up and play

Weapons are badly balanced

Some of the music is embarrassing

The switch between bands sounds ugly

Screenshots

Interactive

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Screens

1 / 9 Screenshots

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