14 DAY TRIAL // Harmonix is not only trotting out Ringo Star and Paul McCartney on public occasions so that they can, rather awkwardly, shower praise on The Beatles Rock Band. The developers are claiming that there are four persons, the two surviving members of the band and the two widows, who have had a special say in the creative development of the music game.
Chris Foster, who is a lead designer on The Beatles Rock Band, stated that “They were involved in picking and approving the song list, the venues we went into. With the dreamscapes, they saw storyboards of all of the material, and gave feedback on whether or not they felt like those interpretations supported the songs in the way they wanted.” Their involvement sometimes went beyond the development process as “Sir Paul McCartney heckled our project lead's bass-playing when he saw one of the game demos.”
The Beatles Rock Band is facing tough competition from Guitar Hero 5 but the project lead is hoping that the star power of the band and the already proved Rock Band way of dealing with songs will attract both those who are interested in the biggest band in the world and those only interested in new tracks to play around with.
Foster refused to say whether downloadable content for The Beatles Rock Band would include the various solo projects in which members of the band were involved. He stated that, at the moment, the focus of Harmonix was on the initial release of the game and delivering an experience managing to be true to the music of The Beatles.
The Beatles: Rock Band is set to be released for the PlayStation 3 from Sony, the Xbox 360 from Microsoft, and the Nintendo Wii on September 9. Get ready to queue outside of game stores when it comes out.