Rock Band Unplugged – A Rip Off?

A couple of weeks ago I played Guitar Hero for the first time and quite enjoyed it, although admittedly I was a bit naff! Then when I was trawling through the Playstation Network the other day I noticed a similar game for the PSP called Rock Band Unplugged. And it was only a few pence over 3 quid! An absolute bargain!

Ok, so you only got 5 songs bundled in with it but at least you didn’t have 30 songs of which 25 are ones that you’ve never heard of/can’t stand/annoy the hell out of you! Extra tracks can be bought for only 99p (why does that sound so much cheaper than £1? It’s psychological I tell you!) but at least it gives you the chance to kit your game out with those songs you like.

So after splashing about £6 on the game and a few tracks it was time to start playing. And after a while I’d managed to get the basics down, albeit on Easy setting – you only play 2 different notes! “But how can you play a band on a portable device?” I hear you ask! Well with this version you hit specific keys to play the ‘notes’, while switching between all 4 different instruments – bass, drums, guitar and vocals. you get the chance to create a band and go on tour playing different gigs and set-lists while building up your fan base, and more importantly your money!

And all of this is very well for about the first 5 cities, and then the game delivers you a swift kick in the nads! You can only play certain countries and gigs by downloading more songs!!

So although you’ve already bought 4 or 5 tracks you still have to spend more money on songs that you’ve never heard of/can’t stand/annoy the hell out of you! It is absolutely disgraceful, forcing your customer to spend even more money. You wouldn’t get that with any other industry. You don’t buy a DVD and get half way through watching it for it to stop and ask you to spend more to get the rest of the film!

This has really spoiled my enjoyment of the game as I don’t intend to spend any more money and after going through the game on the hard setting will probably not play it again!

Activision you should be ashamed!