Green Day: Rock Band

Green Day: Rock Band features gameplay similar to other games in the Rock Band series, played by avatars of the Green Day band members at recreations of venues from their concert tours. This screenshot shows "Are We the Waiting/St. Jimmy".

Green Day: Rock Band allows players to perform simulated rock music by providing up to four players with the ability to play three different controllers modeled after music instruments: a guitar controller for lead guitar and bass guitar gameplay, a drum controller and a microphone for vocals. Players simulate the performance of rock music by using their controllers to play scrolling on-screen notes. For lead and bass guitar, this is accomplished by holding down colored buttons mimicking guitar frets and pushing the controller's strum bar. For drums, this requires striking the matching colored drumhead, or stepping on the pedal to simulate playing bass drum notes. When singing vocals, the player must sing in relative pitch to the original vocals. A pitch indicator displays the singer's accuracy relative to the original pitch. The game supports harmonies as introduced in The Beatles: Rock Band, allowing multiple singers to perform the vocal portion.[2] Harmonies will be added to the six songs already available as downloadable content for the game when played in Green Day: Rock Band.[3]

As in previous Rock Band games, successfully hitting the proper notes in sequence earns points for each player and boosts their "performance meter". If a player fails to match the notes, their performance meter drops. If the meter empties, that player is forced to drop out of play, temporarily silencing that instrument and causing the band's overall performance to drop. Any player to drop out can be "saved" if another player activates "Overdrive", which is collected by successfully completing specially-marked phrases, and for guitar and bass players, using the controller's whammy bar to alter the pitch of marked sustained notes. Overdrive can also be used to temporarily increase the number of points the band earns. Activating Overdrive is specific to each "instrument". For guitar, the controller must be temporarily shifted to an upright position; for drums, a specific drumhead must be hit at the end of a drum fill when prompted; and for vocals, a noise must be registered by the microphone when prompted.[3] The game does not feature any "Big Rock Endings", which allowed players to improvise at the end of a song for additional scoring as in the other Rock Band games, nor includes any clapping or tambourine sections for the vocalist player, due to lack of places in Green Day's songs to include the features.[3] Immediately before playing a song, players must choose their difficulty level; ranging from "Easy" to "Expert". A "No Fail" mode has been carried over from Rock Band 2 and is accessible from the difficulty menu. Players are also able to identify their handedness for guitar, bass, or drums before the start or during a song via the game's "pause" menu. Upon completing a song, the players are given a star rating, from 1 to 5 stars, or 5 gold stars for very high scores if all band members are playing on Expert.

Green Day: Rock Band features a Career mode, similar to The Beatles: Rock Band. However, it allows the player to immediately select any of the available songs and records to play from the start instead of stepping through specific sets.[4] The Career mode has a "meta-game" through various challenges that subsequently unlock additional rewards (photographs or videos contained on disc), such as by completing every song in a specific set with a 4-star rating or higher.[3] Some challenges require the players' band to earn enough "cred" to unlock them; these additional challenges three or four song challenges built around certain themes.[3] A Quick play mode allows players to select one of more of the songs available to the game to play outside of Career mode.[5] A drum trainer mode is available to help players become accustomed to the instrument controller. The trainer includes a set of stock rhythms that are generic for most songs, and a set of "Tre's Greatest Hits" with drum patterns and solos taken from Tré Cool's performances, including one "ferocious" solo that runs across two different lessons.[5]

Green Day: Rock Band features avatars of the band members, including Mike Dirnt (top, center) and Tré Cool, and two real-life venues based on the band's tours, including the American Idiot World Tour performance on Milton Keynes National Bowl (top) and the 21st Century Breakdown World Tour performance at the Fox Theatre in Oakland, CA on April 14, 2009 (bottom).

Prior to mid-2009, only some music from Warner Music Group (which includes Green Day's label, Reprise Records) had yet to be included in games like Guitar Hero or Rock Band, with the gaming industry believing that the music publisher was boycotting the music game genre over how little money they saw from the sales of the game. However, Warner Music Group and MTV Games stated that the lack of songs from the publisher was due to current negotiations over new licensing costs. The two companies had reached a deal by June 2009, when a downloadable pack of Green Day songs was made available to the Rock Band series, heralded by both companies.[7][8][9][10]

With the release of the song sack, speculation arose about more band-specific Rock Band titles to accompany The Beatles: Rock Band, and Green Day was mentioned among them most often. Though this was denied, MTV and Harmonix, the team who worked on all Rock Band titles, stated that they were working with a few artists and announcements were to be made soon.[11] This was followed by Green Day's frontman Billie Joe Armstrong leaking that the band was working on a Rock Band project, but details were scarce. This was originally thought to be a track pack disc similar to the AC/DC Live: Rock Band Track Pack or another pack of downloadable songs.[12]

Drummer Tré Cool later confirmed that the band was approached by Harmonix during the development of The Beatles: Rock Band for the band-specific game,[13] while Armstrong stated they first experienced a Rock Band game, specifically The Beatles: Rock Band, at a cast party for the American Idiot musical performance in Berkeley, California.[14] The game was formally unveiled on December 12, 2009 at the Spike TV Video Game Awards 2009. Green Day announced the game via a video and showed the first trailer.[15] A subsequent press release by MTV Games confirmed that the game would arrive on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii with the entire setlist being exportable to other Rock Band titles. A 2010 release date was also stated.[12] In addition, previous Green Day downloadable songs released for Rock Band and Rock Band 2 would be included in the game as well.[16]

Paul DeGooyer, Senior Vice President of MTV Games, stated that Green Day was selected as the next band to focus on due to input from fans of the game.[2] DeGooyer also claimed that the band's music lent itself well to the format, as the music is both "fun to play" and also covers a range of genres from the band's early days in punk rock to their modern, alternative-based works.[2] MTV Games' Global Head of Sales Scott Guthrie believed the band had a larger awareness for their target market (16- to 34-year-old males) than The Beatles, and expected Green Day: Rock Band would see better sales as a result.[17]

Harmonix's Chris Foster noted that the opportunity for making a Green Day-specific game was a matter of happenstance; at the same time they had completed The Beatles: Rock Band and were considering another band-centric game, the licensing deal with Warner Bros. Records presented the opportunity to include a large amount of Green Day's work into the Rock Band series. The Harmonix team felt it best to provide this as a stand-alone game as opposed to large DLC packs.[3] The full game would also allow the developers to capture the "energy" of the band's members, Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tré Cool, as they perform their songs.[5] Armstrong noted that Green Day was approached "a long time ago by people who will remain anonymous" near the time of release of American Idiot, prior to the popularity of rhythm games, but declined, believing it "didn’t feel right" due to the "cutthroat" nature of the video game industry at that point.[18]

The game features 47 tracks spanning the band's career, including two full albums—Dookie and American Idiot, and twelve out of eighteen tracks from 21st Century Breakdown (with the remaining six tracks available in the "Plus" edition of the game, or via pre-existing DLC).[1] For Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 owners, every song in the game can be exported for use within Rock Band, Rock Band 2 and Rock Band 3 for a $10 fee, or included in the cost of the "Plus" edition of the game or for pre-ordering the game at select vendors.[1] Wii users can only export the songs into Rock Band 3. The remaining tracks can also be acquired from the Music Store as of November 13, 2012, as stand-alone or in packs corresponding to their respective albums (in the case of the three complete Green Day albums available).

Green Day: Rock Band was generally well received by video game critics. Many critics noted the game follows the previous dedication to presentation, audio, and playability that were seen in The Beatles: Rock Band,[26][31] though some believed it followed the formula too well to make it indistinguishable from the previous titles. Jack DeVries of IGN could not think of any easy way to identify the game from other Rock Band titles; "People kept asking me how the game was and all I could think to say was 'It's Green Day: Rock Band.'"[30] Ben Kuchera of Ars Technica called the game "paint by numbers rocking", commenting that the feature set is essentially the same as The Beatles.[32] Patrick Klepek of G4TV stated the game was "not as ambitious as The Beatles" but still came to help him appreciate the band more.[28]

While the two games have similar content, some reviews felt that Green Day was a weaker title due to the limited number of venues compared with the Dreamscapes used in The Beatles, among other aspects.[26][31] Johnny Minkley of Eurogamer felt the additional content unlocked by playing through songs was "supplied in a way that feels separate rather than woven in to enrich understanding and appreciation" of the band, and considered the game a "backward step" from The Beatles.[27] 1UP.com's Justin Haywald considered the title less of a tribute to the band and more of a video game due to the need to repeatedly play content over and over again to unlock all of the included band's photos and videos.[26] Critics felt that Harmonix were successful at capturing the sense of being at a live performance of Green Day through the detailed venues, animations of the band members, and banter and antics with the virtual crowds.[27][26]

From a musical perspective of reviewers, the limited range of Green Day compared to the Beatles creates a much less diverse experience compared to the previous game, diminishing the interest level for those not familiar with Green Day's music. Many stated that one's personal enjoyment of the game would strictly depend on their preference for Green Day.[32][33] While the inclusion of full albums was well received, some reviewers wished for more songs to be included in the game, particularly from their mid-career albums.[30] Minkley considered that by skipping over these albums, "the experience is robbed of any real insight into Green Day's evolution" between Dookie and American Idiot.[27] However, despite the song selections, reviewers found Green Day's songs to be better suited to Rock Band than The Beatles', in part to how enjoyable it was to play all the songs regardless of the instrument used, and without having to chart atypical instruments, such as piano or cello, to the instrument parts.[27][30] Reviewers found the guitar portions to be challenging but not impossible due to the endurance of the chord-heavy part.[28] DeVries found the vocal harmonies mechanics to be better suited to Green Day, as with the lyrical trade-offs in many of the songs, "it's less about trying to sing at a slightly higher pitch and more about just having fun".[30] Critics also commented the use of censored radio edits to maintain the game's Teen rating, and felt this weakened the music included in the game.[30][32] The ability to export the game's songs to other Rock Band was well received.[28][26][31][33] However, Lou Kesten of the Associated Press noted that the added cost to export the game, as well as the cost of the additional six tracks available as downloadable content, made it feel that "MTV is nickel-and-diming its loyal audience".[34]

Sales of Green Day: Rock Band within the month of June 2010 were considered "paltry" by industry analysist Doug Creutz, with only 82,000 units sold in North America.[35]

• Official website
• Green Day: Rock Band website