Battle of the Bands

Music games are big, big business right now. Guitar Hero and Rock Band are some of the most popular games on all the consoles including the Wii and every developer is hoping for a piece of the action.

Battle of the Bands is intended as a comical alternative to the more serious games. Unlike Guitar Hero and Rock Band there’s no free instrument bundled in with the game, instead it makes use of the Wii remote and Nunchuk, which is at least cheaper and easier.

Rather than strumming on a fake guitar Battle of the Bands has you waving the Wii remote around in the air to match the on-screen directions. But there are a few problems with this approach, it has little to do with the music and it’s really easy, especially to anyone who has rocked their way through Guitar Hero.

To differentiate itself further the game also provides you with ‘weapons’ that can be utilised to gain more points, disrupting your opponent to give you an advantage. You also have to fight off attacks from the other band, leading to an unusual juggling as you ‘play’ along to the music, launch attacks and deflect threats.

Battle of the Bands is an easy game to get to grips with and has plenty of unlockables and music tracks, but its main problem are the very shallow motion controls. This is the core of the game and the very limited range of movement means that Battle of the Bands gets very tedious after a while.

Verdict: 70%

Not an awful game, just somewhat bland and shallow. It’s a decent concept though and it will be fun for younger children.