PSP World

Rock Band: Unplugged PSP Preview

When we heard that the Rock Band franchise would finally be making its way to the PSP, we were excited at first, and then a little bit puzzled. Rock Band is a worldwide sensation on home consoles, with over 4 million units sold worldwide. Putting it on our favorite handheld makes absolutely perfect sense from a business perspective. Heck, we even admitted jealousy at the amount of music rhythm games already available on the Nintendo DS, a lineup that even includes the mega-franchise Guitar Hero. While a PSP port could be the diamond in our game library tiara, we were left wondering exactly how Harmonix plans to pull this game off.

The biggest obstacle standing in the way of a successful handheld version of Rock Band is the controller. Guitar Hero DS solved this problem by including a peripheral that plugged into the extra GBA slot. The touch-screen was used for strumming with a special pick that also came bundled with the game. The PSP, with no tough screen and limited peripheral attachment options, seems like it could be at a disadvantage here. Harmonix have solved this problem by tweaking the gameplay to rely entirely on the four face buttons. Every instrument – and even vocals – can be simulated with button input. In fact, the game’s creators will force players to master all of the various inputs in the game, by switching between guitar, drum, bass and vocal tracks during play. Changing between the various tracks is done by using the L and R buttons on the PSP.

The developers at Backbone entertainment have taken a cue from Harmonix’ earlier game Amplitude, and broken the game into shorter “Phrases” which the player must master in order to score larger point multipliers. After a phrase is successfully completed, the player can switch instruments to do it again. The “Overdrive” mechanic will remain in this title, allowing players to rack up big points by increasing their band meter more quickly.

According to the developer, there is currently no plan to include a multiplayer mode for this game. There has been no word yet on a release date, but Sony’s PR materials suggest that we should expect this title later in 2009.

Rock Band Unplugged lets gamers take the show on the road.