Rock Band Unplugged dated, detailed

By Tom Bramwell Published 8 April, 2009

PSP version due out in June.

Harmonix, EA and MTV have announced that Rock Band Unplugged for PSP will be released in the US and Europe "beginning 9th June", which should put it on European shelves by Friday, 12th June.

As previously reported, it includes an in-game downloadable content store along the same lines as the one featured in Rock Band on home consoles.

Rock Band Unplugged also includes nine songs that will be exclusively available on PSP before they become DLC for other versions. There are 40 master recording-based songs on the UMD in total.

As for gameplay, the trio claim that "your hands are the peripherals", so presumably you press buttons, a bit like Amplitude. You'll still control lead and bass guitars, drums and vocals, although there are few details on how exactly this will work.

Modes in the box include World Tour, Band Survival and Warm Up, and we're also promised a robust character creator.

We're trying to find out more details at the moment about whether PS3 and PSP owners have to buy content separately for both versions and things like that, so we'll let you know. Look out for our review closer to release.

You can also catch a glimpse of the game in our Rock Band Unplugged screenshot gallery.

The game's been co-developed by Harmonix and Backbone Entertainment.

Oh, and those nine exclusive songs are:

  • 3 Doors Down - "Kryptonite"
  • AFI - "Miss Murder"
  • Alice in Chains - "Would?"
  • Audioslave - "Gasoline"
  • Black Tide - "Show Me the Way"
  • Blink 182 - "What's My Age Again"
  • Freezepop - "Less Talk More Rokk"
  • Jackson 5 - "ABC"
  • Tenacious D - "Rock Your Socks"
Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (14) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Zomoniac #1 3 years ago

    a) what's the point?

    b) Kryponite is one of my favourite songs to drum IRL. I was actually playing it about 14 hours ago, by coincidence, very handy for working on off-beat triplet accents and whatnot. So WHY do they bring it out on the one version on which it is POINTLESS? Cunts.

  • Eraysor #2 3 years ago

    More Black Tide and Tenacious D? That's going to be epic on the 360 when the DLC finally arrives.

  • Toothball #3 3 years ago

    Freezepop!

    Also @Zomoniac:

    It looks like the main purpose of this was to continue what they started with Frequency and Amplitude. That alone would have been fine, although I guess the Rock Band label on it won't do it any harm.
    Edited by 2 at 08/04/09 @ 12:40

  • Ignatius_Cheese #4 3 years ago

    I'm a whore for all things Rock Band so might actually pick this up.

    Assuming its got a feel of Amplitude/Frequency about it, it'll finally be worthwhile charging my PSP again :o)

  • kangarootoo #5 3 years ago

    "AFI - "Miss Murder"

    I've played that somewhere, either Rock Band or Guitar Hero.

    So not that exclusive really.


    @Zomoniac

    "a) what's the point?"

    Are you really asking what the point is of a new portable game?

  • frycrayola #6 3 years ago

    Less Talk More Rokk. Excellent, more Freezepop, and this was great on GH2.

    I won't be bothering with Unplugged though, my Rock Band experience is all about the instruments and the multiplayer.

  • Zomoniac #7 3 years ago

    @ Kangarootoo

    It was in GH3.

    And pointless in that they put great exclusive songs on a version that will be rubbish compared to the other two. I've played Parappa on PSP and GH on DS and both just felt wrong.

  • kangarootoo #8 3 years ago

    @Zomoniac

    Going by the gameplay movie, this is really just Frequency / Amplitude with a Rock Band skin on it. The player switches between all instrument tracks, including the vocal line.

    I think it could work quite well on PSP, mainly because it isn't exactly the same experience as you would find on a living room console.

  • myiagros #9 3 years ago

    I absolutely love Frequency & Amplitude, so this has jumped right to the top of my Most Wanted list.

    If EA allow you to use the same purchased tracks as for the PS3 version then this would be a GOTY candidate in my eyes.

  • Toothball #10 3 years ago

    Can't deny that some DLC connection between this and Rock Band on PS3 would be nice, but would leave quite a lot of 360 owners in the lurch. Seems a little unlikely though, as I'd imagine the games use completely different note charts.

  • RobotRocker #11 3 years ago

    I can see the review already

    "Well. Its Frequency/Amplitude again with a Rock Band shell and its being released in Europe at the same time, but Harmonix are still c**ts. 2/10"

  • kangarootoo #12 3 years ago

    @RobotRocker

    /confused

    I thought that Activision were the villains in guitar game circles (for their stroppiness over cross platform controller licensing)? What have Harmonix done wrong recently?

  • Zomoniac #13 3 years ago

    I thought that Activision were the villains in guitar game circles (for their stroppiness over cross platform controller licensing)? What have Harmonix done wrong recently?

    They are. And for other reasons. People are just still perplexed by EG's GH-bias (or rather that GHWT came about 8 places above RB2 in their 2008 top 50 despite everyone in the world other than EG realising it's vastly inferior in every way).

  • kangarootoo #14 3 years ago

    @Zomoniac

    That is why I was confused about RobotRocker taking umbrage with them.


    As for bias, I think you are falling into the usual behaviour on here of calling bias when someone doesn't agree with you. Surely we can be a little more objective about these things?

    Guitar Hero as a franchise brough the genre of guitar games to the masses (regardless of who owns them now). If you ask anyone on the street in the US about Guitar Hero, they will likely know what you are talking about. The same can't be said for Rock band outside of gamer circles.

    Guitar Hero 3 had Slash in it ffs. Is that not significant? Gameplay is not the only factor when deciding these lists surely.

    Plus the fact that people will always disagree on gameplay anyway. Many people prefer the gameplay of Guitar Hero to Rock Band. That isn't bias, it is simply preference. EG's list was THEIR list. It wasn't ours, we didn't vote for it. Should they try and predict the majority view of their readership, or simply tell us what they think in their own minds?