Do people read this thread? Probably not. Do people play third party Wii games? Definitely not. Battle of the Bands came out maybe a few days ago, and I needed to entertain myself for some lulz. One of the many future Guitar Hero clones, Battle of the Bands is just embarassing, even for being a simple rhythm game. While the game was developed by Planet Moon Studios (who you probably have never heard of, as usual), the best part about this game is the one thing that the studio had no part in - the songs.
What's it about?In Battle of the Bands, you can choose from various bands, each from different music styles, such as Rock, Hip Hop, Latin, Country, and a Marching Band. These groups typically consist of the stereotypical hicks, black people, goths, mexicans, and marching bands. Real original, for sure. There's some sort of excuse of a story here, involving having to go through the single player mode and listen to all the awful song covers (yes, no originals here), to fight the final boss and take control of some imaginary city. And you look stupid doing it. To play, you simply hit the notes as they glide across the screen, and use three different attacks on your enemies, which give you points. You can deflect attacks from enemies as well. The best comparison to this game would be Bust a Groove for the PlayStation, but about 5x as worse. Have the most points at the end of the song, and you win. It's like the developers took the core aspect of Guitar Hero, and made it as horribly embarassing as possible.
How do you waggle?Battle of the Bands is waggle exclusive, but it does not use the nunchuk. While you are playing, notes will appear, and you have to flick the remote to either the left or right, or slam down when it is in the center. The other two notes require you to make a stab motion, or simply wiggle the remote. None of this makes you feel at all in rhythm, and instead you feel like you're the conductor of a distinguished mentally-challenged back alley symphony.
How awful does it look?It looks like this -- a snapshot taken from my capture card (composite)
Here, my circus freak rock band takes on the hillbilly country band in a battle to the death. I believe we were playing Black Betty.
This game is good for one thing only - the songs. The tracklist is pretty decent, some notable songs on there. What makes this hilarious is that each song has an entire cover in a different tune. Take for example TV on the Radio's Wolf Like Me. Good song, right? Now imagine if you heard it in Latin, as if you were in a mexican restaurant. Flick it over to Hip Hop, and now a mellow beat and lyrical flow comes out of your speakers. Other examples of hilarity consist of Korn's Coming Undone (in Latin), AFI's Miss Murder (in Hip Hop) or even LL Cool J's Mama Said Knock You Out (in Country). This whole game is one big lulz on the music industry. The developers knew this as well, because a music player is available directly from the title screen, allowing you to play every song to yourself, without ever having to actually play this rancid game. To give you a general idea, here is a YouTube video of someone playing Blitzkrieg Bop in all different flavors.
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Overall, I would rate this game a hearty 4.3 out of 9.4 on the Wii suckness scale. It's bad enough the Wii is ruining gaming, but we really don't need it to ruin genres too, thanks.
