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Hot on the heels of other music-related games such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero comes Battle of the Bands.
The game’s ’play for your life’ premise isn’t without promise: an assortment of bands with varying musical persuasions (rock, country and marching band) go head to head in a sonic battle with weaponised guitars.
It’s Battle of the Bands’ use of music that proves to be its finest concept: chain enough correct moves together and your band’s instruments will drown out your opponents’ and vice-versa, resulting in an amusing musical tug-of-war as the songs switch between the two styles. Hearing The Ramones’ Blitzkreig Bop alternate between country and rock is both jarring and highly amusing, at least for a while.
Without the novelty of a plastic guitar-shaped peripheral, it doesn’t take long to work out just how simplistic Battle of the Bands is - the music and background graphics are essentially window dressing for what is a pretty basic reaction tester. The way the songs change styles is amusing enough, but at no point do you feel as though you’re contributing to the music or even playing an instrument.
A special mention must go to the genuinely ugly graphics: even taking into account the Wii’s relatively meagre hardware capabilities, Battle of the Bands looks unacceptably last gen. Games like Super Mario Galaxy and even the budget price LostWinds have demonstrated what the humble Nintendo is capable of given enough care and imagination, so to find such shoddy visuals on a full price title in 2008 is unacceptable.
Of course, poor graphics don’t particularly matter if a game is genuinely fun to play, but there’s bad news on the gameplay front too. I found some odd quirks in even the most simple of gestures - for some reason the game failed to register a right-flick movement of the wiimote with frustrating regularity.
While there are plenty of opponents to beat and thirty songs to unlock, there’s little here to keep any but the most undemanding gamers amused for long. Apart from the grim aesthetics, the game’s unengaging interface also detracts from the enjoyment; anyone who’s played Donkey Konga with a joypad instead of the drums will know that it’s just not the same without a peripheral to interact with. By the same token, waving a wiimote in time to some on-screen prompts isn’t as much fun as playing, say, Rock Band with a plastic guitar.
It’s certainly possible that, given a living room full of friends and a ready supply of beer, Battle of the Bands’ versus mode could provide a few hours’ entertainment, but the title remains a weak addition to a console already overcrowded with party games.
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