Wii Review: Battle of the Bands
In Battle of the Bands available on the Nintendo Wii, you have the ability to select from a few genres of music: rock, marching, latin, country, and hip hop. After choosing your genre you play your first song against a different genre. This is interesting because you and your opponent are playing the same song but in different genres of music. Based on how many attacks you or your opponent launch your song changes between the two genres. You have to hit a certain number of correct notes to be able to launch an attack on your opponent. You do not choose the song you play unless you are in “vs.” mode. To do this you don’t have to have someone there playing with you, instead you can choose “vs.” mode and make the console player 2. You also have to contend with “face-offs” which require you to block your opponents notes because their notes will turn into attacks. To block these you must press the “B” button as they come at you.
Overall I thought this game was really fun. It has a pretty good song list with: Feel Good Inc, Blitzkrieg Bop, and Coming Undone being my favorites to play. It is an interesting change of pace having the song you are used to hearing as a rock song being played as a hip hop song although The Ramones do not sound particularly pleasing as a country group but Feel Good Inc kicked some serious trash as a marching tune!
This game is not for everyone and it can get a bit annoying having to block attacks when really you just want to play a song, but it is definitely worth a rental. It won’t replace Rock Band but it is a fun little distraction.