The Rock Band franchise, from its dynamic and ground-breaking beginning, to its present day worldwide renown, is a heavy-weight in the music/rhythm game genre, and one that is undoubtedly here to stay.

After two crazy successful home console installments and over 40 million tunes sold via the online music store, the series finally wades into the waters of portable gaming with Rock Band: Unplugged.

Developed by Harmonix in association with BackBone Entertainment and published by MTV Games, Unplugged separates itself from the contender the genre, Guitar Hero: On Tour, by requiring no additional controller input to play and an in-game ability to download additional tunes, marking the advent of in-game commerce abilities on the handheld.

Rock Band: Unplugged will be aesthetically reminiscent of its big brother counterpart but will eschew the need for band-mates, instead challenging gamers to master guitar, bass, vocals, and drums at the same time as a one man band.

A total of 41 tracks, all masters will be playable on the final build and will include the following:

  • 3 Doors Down — Kryptonite
  • AFI — Miss Murder
  • Alice in Chains — Would
  • Billy Idol — White Wedding, Part 1
  • Blink-182 — What’s My Age Again?
  • Bon Jovi — Livin’ On A Prayer
  • Boston — More Than A Feeling
  • Foo Fighters — Everlong
  • Jackson 5 — ABC
  • Modest Mouse — Float On
  • Nirvana — Drain You
  • Pearl Jam — Alive
  • The Police — Message in a Bottle
  • Weezer — Buddy Holly
  • The Who — Pinball Wizard

When Unplugged launches on June 9th an additional 10 songs will be available as DLC, but no mention as of yet has been provided by Harmonix as to what the tunes will be.

The software itself will set you back $39.99, but if you’ve been in the market for a PSP and are an avid Rock Band fan, the Special Edition Bundle which will include a piano-black PSP 3000 system, a plentiful 4GB memory stick, a download voucher for the film “School of Rock,” and the game looks very attractive at $199.

About The Author

Eddie Makuch is a Blast staff writer. Reach him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @EddieMakuch.

One Response

  1. ricky

    my question is how is it going to work, will you have to use the psp buttons, or they will include mini instruments or whatever to play it??

    Reply

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