I figure, now that I've had Rock Band for the Xbox 360 for almost a week now, I can safely give my two cents on the release without any hesitation. In core, the game play is much like you'd expect. It's "Guitar Hero" with different shaped notes, and guitar lines that don't look like a 12 year old just kind of took the Lead Guitar and Rhythm Guitar lines and took the most prominent parts and mashed them together. Oh, and you can actually play the Bass Guitar on any song, along with the option of Singing or Playing the Drums, and those are fun and all, but I'm going to go on here about how great and terrible it is that Harmonix was gobbled up by EA, and separated from Red Octane/Activision.

Lets start with the first of their old partnerships, Red Octane. A mighty fine company, and if you're going to make a music based game, I think there is no finer company to go to for your peripherals. They've been making quality products for as long as I can remember the name, and they're built to last (their DDR Metal Pads are second to Cobalt Flux, but you're also paying out the arse for a Flux). Which could mean one of two things for Rock Band. EA would either do a bang up job on the controllers, or they would choke and die. The drums have been rockin' pretty hard for me, at a pretty consistent rate on Hard/Expert, with absolutely no issues, the guitar, on the other hand, has been an absolute nightmare. Much like everyone else, I've been suffering from the "Red Strum of Death", I.E. my down strum is shot to ballocks. From what I've read, It's a really stupid issue, and something that EA should have known better than to do, and put the proper craftsmanship into, I'm pretty impressed with the Drums outside of the flimsy unrealistic Bass Pedal. I've heard people complain about the Mic, but let's be completely honest with ourselves- if you REALLY want a good quality microphone, you're gonna go out and buy a USB Mic. I've had no problem playing around with the Mic. EA has been very responsive about the Guitar issue, and I'm currently awaiting a new Controller (Free 2 day shipping!), let's just cross our fingers that they've made the connection stronger.
I'd love to give EA points for effort but it's quite apparent that they didn't put the necessary play testing into it, or any at all (It appears that 4-6 hours is the average life span of these things...)

Lets move onto the change of publisher, EA compared to Activision. I feel like it was a good move. You've got a talented team, now backed by one of the largest video game companies in the market, who seems to be willing to lets Harmonix have their creative freedom. I fail to see how this can be bad. I could turn out to be wrong, and EA could turn into the big terrible monster that kills games, but as of yet, the downloadable content for Rock Band done much more to impress me than Guitar Hero's bundling of different songs, and forcing you to buy bundles. I'm thinking this was by choice of the publisher, rather than developer, means we're seeing pick and choose individual songs downloadable through Rock Band. Also with the variety of downloads, and vast selection so close to launch, it's only more fuel to the theory that EA is a better publisher for these kinds of things, I mean, c'mon, when was Atreyu "indie"? Big kudos to EA for giving us the freedom to pick the songs we want, along with releasing packs of songs from different artists.

I'm going to end on a note, a completely irrational complaint. Where is my Ska, bitches? I want a Keasbey Nights download. NOW (the Streetlight Manifesto one, not the Catch 22 one. Much MUCH cleaner.)

Oh, and HAI DESTRUCTOID!