Rock Revolution

The console versions of Rock Revolution are, at best, an outdated attempt to cash in on recent music rhythm successes like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. At worst, Rock Revolution is an instantly irrelevant exercise in broken gameplay and subpar design; all this from Konami, the company that almost single-handedly defined the genre with its Bemani franchises. So it’s not that unheard of to expect that a handheld version, which blatantly disregards the two redeeming qualities of the console offering—instrument peripherals and HD presentation—would be even more worthless.

Whereas Guitar Hero opted to include a Guitar Grip for its DS iterations, Rock Revolution once again refuses to innovate and sticks exclusively to touch screen controls which are, in a word, shoddy. Each instrument is assigned a different type of mini-game: The guitar is the least realistic of them all, requiring a flood of consecutive notes to be hit in the score zone by swiping the correct direction of the touch-screen; the drums have seven different pads which correspond to icons scrolling rapidly across the top of the screen; the bass has four different strings to pluck to the beat; and singing is done directly into the DS’s built-in mic.

With the use of two styluses, actual drumming can be replicated in the vaguest sense of the word, but the confined play area makes it more of a frustrating chore than a thrilling experience. Especially on the harder difficulty, the small touch screen becomes too cluttered for players to effectively do well. Difficulty withstanding, the input method is simply not that enjoyable, particularly when taking into account that the guitar and drum peripherals make up for a majority of the popular console experience. Singing into the DS is similarly uneventful, and more than a little awkward, if we’re honest.

As a testament to just how audacious the developer truly is, Rock Revolution sports some of the worst graphics in video game history; imagine if a 12-year-old kid was spun around repeatedly and then given a box of crayons. The horrid 2D animations are primitive even by 70’s cartoon standards. Not only are they aesthetically displeasing, they do little to enhance the experience. Useless power-ups—which inexplicably decrease your score multiplier—show a close-up of your rocker for a few seconds. Why? What did that accomplish? The world may never know.

To add insult to multiple fatal injuries, Rock Revolution is packing a scant 20 tracks, all of which are covers, and almost all of which are punky pop garbage from obsolete artists such as Avril Lavigne and Blink 182. Following in the console versions’ footsteps, Rock Revolution also refuses to tell you who each song is performed by. With games like Rock Band massively increasing sales of real life music, doesn’t hiding who’s responsible for each playable track completely negate the purpose of this game altogether? The answer, like everything else Rock Revolution gets wrong, is yes, and therefore it simply cannot be recommended...to anyone.