Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

Rock Band, the new entry from Harmonix Studios, takes the guitar motif past 11, by adding drums and singing to give players the sense of a true band. On all merits, Rock Band takes the challenge from Guitar Hero 3 and dishes out a game that soundly beats the veteran at its own game.

In Rock Band, the game is about music and image. You start the game by creating a rocker. You can create all kinds of options to make sure that you end up with a unique character. Then you pick a style. Are you glam rock, or maybe goth is more your style. The choices again add to the image experience. Once you have created a rocker, you then move to the training stages or straight to Solo or Multiplayer modes.

Looking over the set list, there are some great choices. Blue Oyster Cult, Rush, The Police, Beastie Boys, The Who are all in the extensive set list. The songs are laid out in a logical fashion with each tier moving the difficulty bar up just a bit. The extra songs were good, with an awesome cartoon surprise being one of them, as well as the inevitable Freezepop song.

The difficulty levels in Rock Band feel a bit easier than in Guitar Hero. I have never been one to five star a game in Hard or Expert, but I have already five stared several of the songs in Hard mode in Rock Band. I think some of the easier difficulty might have to do with trying to push the game to casual enthusiasts that will most likely play the game. Part of it just seems to be the fact that the frets seemed to be position better in the game. I came off finding this fret bar easier to read. A lot of times on harder difficulty, the notes come so fast that you get into a panic and just start pressing frets. Here, the board just looked cleaner and easier to read.

MTV is the new owner of Harmonix and the presentation shows in the game. In Rock Band, nothing feels canned once you hit the stage. The panning camera, filters giving different looks at the band, everything has a feel of an MTV production. You never feel like you are just getting repeats of the same dozen shots of the band. It always feels like you are on a real stage. As your prestige starts to grow, the fans start singing along in the crowd which just adds to the presentation. When the crowd started to sing along with Sabotoge, I was blown away. It was one of those moments where you wonder why no one thought of that before. It makes you want to play the game more, looking for more little details that add to the experience. Even the loading screens feature your character in them, not just a canned screen.

Visually, the game is good. The video edits that show up while you are playing add to the realism of the game. Character models are not overly detailed, but they have a good sense of movement and often seem to mimic the notes that are being played on the instruments in question. The clubs and arenas that you play in are good, but don