
	Platform Playstation 3 Genre Music Publisher UFO Interactive Developer Epicenter Studios ESRB T (Teen) Released October 19, 2010

- New interesting take on the genre. - Rob Zombie’s music is featured prominently in the game - Some fun in multiplayer

- Gameplay gets old quickly - Flat presentation

Review: Guitar Hero 5 (PS3) Review: DJ Hero (360) Review: Dead Rising 2 (360)
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Rock of the Dead

Score: 5.0 / 10

The last two years have not been kind to the music genre. Guitar Hero is now officially finished for the time being and Rock Band is struggling to capture the audience it once had in 2007. Music game sales have fallen dramatically from sales of 10 million units to a paltry million units. Even Rock Band 3’s innovation has had trouble revitalizing the struggling genre and 2010 saw the eventual collapse of Activision’s once proud Guitar Hero franchise. Rock of the Dead follows the same formula as it’s predecessors but attempts to introduce it’s own take on the genre. Rock of the Dead is an interesting idea, but like listening to the same song over and

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over again, the formula grows stale quickly.

Thankfully, no new music controller’s are required to play Rock of the Dead. The game works with the existing Rock Band guitars and should work with the Guitar Hero controllers as well.

Rock of the Dead is perhaps the first real music game to involve a story. The game tells the tale of radioactive meteors crashing into

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earth, which raises the dead. You play the role of a wannabe rock star, who finds that the only useful weapon against the risen dead is his trusted guitar and the sound of rock n’ roll. The game’s story isn’t particularly deep and no explanation is really given as to why your guitar works the way it does.

The game follows a simple formula which sees you take on scores of enemies while trying to get from point A to point B. Enemies are killed by simply strumming the notes appearing over the enemies heads.. Bosses are thrown in to the mix as well, but overall the game gets old very quickly. The entire game feels like a very long on-rail segment. You can play the game cooperatively with a friend and there is some fun to be had, but unfortunately, the multiplayer cannot compare with game’s like Rock Band and Guitar Hero.

Presentation wise, Rock of the Dead falls extremely flat. The environments and the enemies look very last gen. The audio, with the exception of the licensed Rob Zombie tracks, do little to help the game as the voice acting is downright bad. I am a Neil Patrick Harris fan, but even I had trouble tolerating his voice acting. Also, there are times where the notes you are strumming don’t really appear to correspond to the music playing in the background. Also, during certain parts of the game you’ll see hordes of enemies approaching you from the distance and sometimes the notes above their heads are difficult to read.

Rock of the Dead does little to rejuvenate the struggling music game genre. Rock of the Dead is an interesting idea, but unfortunately the execution falls flat. If you want a new interesting take on the genre and want to learn a real instrument, you’re money is better spent on Rock Band 3.

- Siddharth Masand
(February 28rd, 2011)