Only a few bands have catalogs deep and versatile enough to carry their own version of "Rock Band." The Beatles? They've already pulled it off. Beyond the Fab Four, it's a short list: the Rolling Stones, the Who, maybe Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin.
Green Day? Not so much.
And this is a band I like a lot - far more than Aerosmith, Metallica and Van Halen, the acts that have anchored "Guitar Hero" editions. The problem is that despite Green Day's ambitions and accomplishments, there's not much variety in its set list. You have your fast, punky songs and your slow, melancholy ballads, but a sort of sameness settles in after a few hours of "Green Day: Rock Band" (MTV Games, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, $59.99; Wii, $49.99).
That becomes more apparent when you play the career mode.
Developer Harmonix pulled out all the stops when it came to the Beatles, producing elaborate, psychedelic animations for the songs. Green Day, however, gets just three venues to play in: a club called The Warehouse, the National Bowl in Milton Keynes, England, and the Fox Theater in Oakland, Calif.
The disc has 47 songs, including every track from 1994's "Dookie" and 2004's "American Idiot." There's a smattering of singles from the period between those two landmarks, including "Brain Stew/Jaded," ''Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" and "Minority." And there's about half of last year's "21st Century Breakdown" - if you want the rest, you have to pay to download it.
[Full article at CBS News]
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