Publisher: THQ
Developer: Planet Moon
System: Wii
Genre: Rhythm and music
Release date: Available now
Review by: Ed Humphries

Ever since Harmonix proved there were millions to be made in the rhythm and music genre with the meteoric rise of the original Guitar Hero, a war has waged between game developers looking to launch the next hot music game. Of course, Harmonix moved beyond the guitar and assembled a full-on band with their latest hit, Rock Band, while Neversoft picked up the reigns to Guitar Hero III and kept gamers rocking all night. While those two franchises represent the apex of this formerly niche genre, there’s plenty of competition looking to make a name for itself. Into the fray comes Planet Moon’s Battle of the Bands.

In Bands, the player assumes the role of front man for a fictional ensemble and must journey across the map and take on other garage bands. The character designs take a page from the Guitar Hero playbook, with the bands and characters projecting exaggerated cartoonish personas that are emblematic of their musical stylings — hence the Goth group that has sold their souls to El Diablo or the Day of the Dead skeletons that inspire a Mariachi band.

Battle of the Bands differs from its competition in its choice of instrumentation. Instead of employing a peripheral controller (like the replica guitars, drums and sambas of other rhythm games) all of your actions are controlled with the Wiimote.

Bands‘ game play is set up similarly to Guitar Hero, with your characters occupying the top third of the screen, while your musical cues stream up along a bar from the bottom of the screen. The objective is to mimic the directed actions as they hit a target line with a corresponding Wiimote motion. The majority of the notes call upon the user to flick their controllers up, left or right while every once in awhile being directed to employ a more complex action such as pushing the Wiimote toward the screen or shaking it back and forth in time with a longer section of the music.