Do You Want to Know A Secret? Beatles Rock Band Is Out

By Geoff Duncan September 9, 2009

Beatles Rockband — Image used with permission by copyright holder

It’s September 9, 2009: do you know where Paul is? If you’re like untold thousands of Beatles fans, the answer may be on your Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, or Nintendo Wii: The Beatles: Rock Band video game is now available worldwide, and the title is expected to be a top-seller throughout the remainder of 2009.

The Beatles: Rock Band marks the first time the Fab Four have licensed their music for digital distribution: the Beatles have famously shunned iTunes and other music services. But The Beatles: Rock Band isn’t just cuts from Beatles CDs set to the regular Rock Band video game: Harmonix has gone all out, offering remastered versions of some 45 Beatles classics ranging from early tunes like “I Saw Her Standing There” and “Twist and Shout” through tracks off Sgt. Pepper’s and the White Album, including “With a Little Help from My Friends,” “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” and “Come Together.”

Recommended Videos

The game lets players track the Beatles as they advance from a struggling club band to a full-fledged psychdelic culture-changing phenomenon; while the game play is highly reminiscence of Guitar Hero and Rock Band titles, the game offers new twists, like the ability to sing three-part harmonies. The game also offers Beatles-themed hardware, including controllers based off instruments used by the Beatles—although the game can be played with most third party controllers and mics, including those from Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and titles like SingStar and Lips.

Beatles: Rock Band is expected to be a top seller this year, with industry estimates having the title pushing more than 5 million copies by the end of $2009: at almost $300 apiece, the game might represent over $1.5 billion in revenue all by itself. However, the question remains how much translating the Beatles to a video game will appeal to a younger generation raised on gaming and digital music: while the price tag may not be incredibly daunting to the Beatles’ ever-aging fan base, are kids really going to wander through strawberry fields forever…with their parents? Or grandparents?

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…

Gaming

Firaxis wants to make sure you actually finish a Civilization 7 game

A walled city sitting behind a mountain.

Civilization games are easy to get lost in, so much so that I don't think I've ever actually finished one of them. This is apparently a common problem because developer Firaxis Games wanted to address it with Civilization 7.

In an interview with Game Developer, creative director Ed Beach said that less than 50% of players completed a game of Civilization 6 due to its drawn-out pacing, something that many absolutely "hated." Tasks took longer and longer to complete as you went, and as the game became more complicated, players became overloaded with things to do to expand their empires. So Firaxis made some changes.

Gaming

You’ll want to wish-list all 7 of these games we saw at Tribeca Fest

A baby levitates a bunch of scientists in Goodnight Universe.

Usually after an event as busy as Summer Game Fest, I'd crawl into my bed and sleep for a week straight before thinking about another video game. I didn't have that luxury this year. As soon as I returned home to New York City, I was eager to head over to Tribeca Fest to see even more games. While the media festival is most known for films, it expanded into video games over the past few years that appear as official selections. Some of those games go on to become award-winning hits and critical darlings, like Immortality, A Plague Tale: Requiem, Venba, and more.

This year, the festival featured seven games, which were playable for attendees. This year's crop included several anticipated indies that have been on our radar for years. Though I may have been exhausted from a full week of demoing games at Summer Game Fest, I was excited to see what the festival had on top this year. It did not disappoint. The seven games on display all represent a bright future for the independent game scene. Trust me: You'll want to add all of these to your Steam wish list.
Goodnight Universe

Gaming

You know cyberpunk. Now let Nine Sols introduce you to ‘Taopunk’

Nines Sols main character, Yi

A studio known for creating horror games pivoting to a new genre isn’t unheard of. After all, Tango Gameworks shifted from creating games such as The Evil Within and Ghostwire: Tokyo to the goofy and colorful Hi-Fi Rush. The Taiwan-based studio Red Candle Games followed a similar trajectory on the way to its newest game, Nine Sols.

Red Candle Games was founded in 2015 and debuted with the side-scrolling horror game Detention in 2017. In 2019, the studio released Devotion, a psychological horror game that received quite a bit of attention after it was banned from digital PC storefronts like GOG and Steam for containing an easter egg referencing Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party.