I’m going to go ahead and say it — the new Beatles Rockband game is revolutionary. It’s the kind of revolutionary that changes the face of an industry and starts a new art form. While many people may pick up the game just for the songs, or swing by and play it with a friend just for fun, the game offers a new and possibly genre-changing approach to the Rockband/Guitar Hero games.

While the game itself doesn’t deviate very much, if at all, from the typical Rockband setup, it’s the small changes they made that really make The Beatles Rockband different. Take, for instance, the story mode. While a typical Rockband game puts you in charge of creating a rock band and then leading it into fame, The Beatles don’t need any such help. So instead, the game’s story mode puts you in the band’s shoes, allowing you not only to see every big performance they gave, but also to see the changes the band went through with both their look and music.

The true genius of the story mode is in the details. There are no set lists to make or challenges you have to meet. You simply play through each major era of The Beatles’ music, song by song, following the band musically and visually in a way that simply wouldn’t be possible in any other medium. Because the tracks for the game were taken directly from the original recordings, you get glimpses behind the scenes by hearing them tune up before a song. 

And with the game boasting an impressive photo album, you truly get a glimpse at what the band went through, picture by picture.

Perhaps most impressive of all are the “dreamscapes” featured during songs that were created in the Abbey Road recording studio. The Beatles stopped creating music about a decade before the creation of MTV, meaning they never had the chance to create the kind of music videos that most bands take for granted these days. 

The game helps make up for this, allowing the band to express itself in a way that was otherwise unavailable during their time.

The Beatles Rockband has managed to blend the interactive musical nature of the Rockband and Guitar Hero games with the historic experience one might otherwise only get in a Biography special. This allows old and new Beatles fans to experience the group in a way they never could have before, and it manages to open up a genre for other classic bands to join in. The Beach Boys Rockband? Elvis Rockband? We can only hope.