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Rock Band Unplugged is a spin-off of the Rock Band franchise released exclusively on the PlayStation Portable. It was developed by Backbone Entertainment and published by MTV Games and Electronic Arts. The game was released in North America and Europe on June 9, 2009.

Gameplay[]

The game plays in the same vein of Harmonix's Frequency and Amplitude, with the player in charge of all instruments of the band as the song is played, each constrained to their own highway (bass, drums, vocals and guitar, from left to right). Whenever a highway is ready to be played, a white frame will appear around the highway; that is the phrase indicator. The player must hit every note within the phrase indicator to keep the music going. Once all notes are hit, that instrument's highway becomes temporarily blocked and its respective audio track starts playing automatically; the player must then switch to another available track and repeat the procedure. There are also Solo Sections, which will lock gameplay to only the instrument which is to perform the solo; the phrase indicator does not appear until the solo is finished.

Success in gameplay is dependent upon players' efficient management of all four highways; if one note is missed, the phrase indicator will move up the highway, giving the player a new chance at completing it. However, other tracks become available once enough time passes for the player to finish a phrase, so staying too long on one instrument means that the notes for another (or others) are not being played, bringing the Crowd Meter down even if your misses on that one instrument are minimal. In addition, every completed phrase brings the score multiplier up, regardless of how many notes it contains, to a maximum of 5x (11x if Overdrive is triggered), whereupon the band enters Band Groove state. The same band failure conditions from the main games also apply: if an instrument fails, it can be saved by any other once Overdrive is deployed; failing three times blocks out that instrument; and if all instruments reach the bottom of the Crowd Meter, the song is failed.

Controls[]

Note: These are the standard control bindings; there are three other configurations available in the Options, as well as the option to freely assign buttons.

Control Action
L1 button Switch instruments left
R1 button Switch instruments right
Left dpad Red note, move selection
Up dpad Yellow note, move selection
Triangle button Green Note
Circle button Blue Note
Right dpad Move selection
Down dpad Move selection
Cross button Overdrive, confirm selection

Game Modes[]

  • Quickplay: The basic game mode. The player can play a single song or a setlist composed of up to 10 tracks. Only the Warmup and Apprentice songs are available by default, with more being unlocked as the player progresses through the Tour. The venue can also be changed by pressing Square button and selecting from those available.
  • Tour: A slightly stripped-down adaptation of the Rock Band 2 Tour. The player can only select San Francisco, Boston, Dublin or Amsterdam as their hometown, from which other cities' unlock progression is the same as the original game. All 24 cities appear in the game, but each has only one venue. The mode also incorporates the fans and staff mechanics of the original, rather than only taking stars into account like the PlayStation 2 version of RB2. Character customization can also be done here, with any changes to the band applying across all modes.
  • Training: Contains only gameplay tutorials; it is not possible to practice songs.
  • Options: Change control bindings and audio levels. The "Other Options" sub-menu has three other settings:
    • Track Wrapping - allows the player to switch between the guitar and bass tracks, which are on opposite ends of the playing screen; with this option off, one has to cycle through all other tracks to alternate between them.
    • Quick Switch - the game will automatically switch tracks for the player; this mechanic, however, is faulty, as the tracks aren't always switched, and the game does not always pick the track that needs the most attention at a particular time.
    • Saving Enabled - turns autosave on or off. If a game modifier is used, this option is turned off and cannot be turned on again until the next session.
  • Extras: Contains two extra game modes (both of which are played on the same structure as Quickplay), game modifiers and the credits.
    • Band Survival Mode: All four note highways scroll at the same time without phrase indicators or track locking, meaning the player must keep alternating play between them in order to keep the band afloat.
    • Warmup Mode: All highways scroll at the same time in this mode as well, but there is no penalty in letting notes pass by on an inactive track, essentially meaning the player can play the whole song on only one instrument of their choice. Solo Sections will still shift gameplay to their respective track, though.
    • Game Modifiers: Turning any of them on will disable autosaving until the next playing session.
      • No Failure - Equivalent to the No Fail Mode of the console versions.
      • No Solos - Solo sections will not trigger, so you continue playing the songs as normal even as a solo comes up.
      • Unlock All Songs - This is already present without needing to be unlocked by a cheat code.
      • Bot - Technically a game modifier, is only accessed in the developer builds of the game. It will play the game for you.
  • Music Store: Where DLC for the game could be bought.

Soundtrack[]

Main Article: Rock Band Unplugged Setlist

The game has a total of 41 tracks, being 22 from the main Rock Band 2 setlist and 19 selected from the DLC catalogue up until the game's release.

Gallery[]

Prototype[]

Trivia[]

  • Before the game was set to release, was leaked by hackers. [1]This release was fully playable except for lack of online connectivity.
  • The game was originally referred to as Rock Band 2 during alpha stages of development.[2] In fact, much like Lego Rock Band, its visual identity is derived from RB2, which was the most recent release at the time.
  • You can access the debug menu on development builds of the game by pressing Select button.

External Links[]

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