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Despite a host of technical problems associated with that particular SKU, the Wii version of Guitar Hero III has become one of the best-selling games for the system (and, if memory serves, the best-selling SKU overall). This conveys a clear message to developers and publishers: Wii owners like rhythm games.

THQ's Battle of the Bands seems custom-designed to be a huge hit with Wii gamers, but... there's something a little off about it. It's a game where it feels like something's missing. Metacritic has Battle of the Bands sitting at a 64% rating, so it seems critics agree that there's just something a little bit off about the game. Now, exactly what happens to be missing? Looks like it's time to pick over reviews to see what we can find.out.

The high score came, curiously enough, from GamePro. This is really unusual, as the mothership tends to review games a bit conservatively. A GamePro score is usually close to the medium or mode of Metacritic's aggregated scores. In Battle of the Band's case, GamePro awarded a 4 out of 5 score, but reviewer Tae Kim was quick to qualify his approach to the game, which seemed to be looking at it as just a basic rhythm title.

Battle of the Bands focuses less on replicating an authentic musical experience and more on offering you a solid rhythm game. You control the game entirely with the Wii Remote and as notes scroll along a familiar looking fret board, you move the Remote in one of six ways to the rhythm: down, left, right, thrust, small squiggle (rapidly moving the Remote side to side) and large squiggle (same as the small squiggle but bigger). As you chain moves together, you can unleash one of three attacks, which you can cycle through on the fly using the A button, to harry your opponent. These run the gamut from simple electric attacks to a devious smokescreen that obscures their playing field for a few seconds. You can also activate a shield with the B button, which lets you deflect your opponent's attack.

Nintendo Power's print review in the May issue actually does an excellent job of summing up the entire game, complete with plusses and minuses, in a single paragraph. The score is relatively mediocre, a 7 out of 10, but Steve Thomason elegantly sums up while it couldn't possibly be higher even if you like the game. Since the review is just a single paragraph, it can be repeated here in its entirety.

Offering a clever new take on the rhythm genre, Battle of the Bands is probably best described as a musical tug-of-war. Players flick and shake the Wii remote in time to onscreen prompts, and launch attacks at the opposing group by hitting a certain number of consecutive notes. Whichever band performs better and lays the aural smack down on their opponent gets to play their version of the song until the other group retaliates. You can choose from five types of bands - rock, funk/hip-hop, country, Latin, and marching - and each of the game's 30+ tracks has been recorded in all five styles. As one might imagine, some of the interpretations are pretty amusing. You've got Cypress HIll's "Insane in the Brain" performed with a southern twang, a Spanish-language version of Kool & the Gang's "Jungle Boogie", and some wicked tuba on Tenacious D's "Master Exploder." Unfortunately, some of the cover work is genuinely bad (the hip-hop vocals in Def Leopard's "Photograph" may cause neighborhood dogs to start howling), which can put a damper on your enthusiasm for dominating a song. The game's a bit one-note in nature, as well, but at least it's a catchy little ditty.

Game Informer's enthusiasm ratchets one point lower, awarded Battle of the Bands a 6 out of 10 score. Reviewer Ben Reeves enjoys the wacky gimmick covers that seem to be Battle of the Bands's strong point, but calls out the gameplay for being utterly devoid of... well, anything.

Gameplay is simple. Gems scroll up from the bottom of the screen and youll match the songs beat to motions of the Wii remote. Music games tend to require a higher level of precision than most other games, but the motion-based gameplay, feels devoid of skill. For the most part, youre waving the remote in one of three different directions: left, right, or down. And thats it. You dont build up a combo score for accuracy or gain any power-ups that dramatically affect your score. If fact, you probably wont care what your score is as long as you beat your opponent, so there isnt much incentive for replaying songs.

The low score came from Destructoid, who boldly made use of their entire review scale to award Battle of the Bands a 5 out of 10 for being uniformly, brutally average. Nick Chester had fun with the music mash-ups and, typically, disliked basically everything else about the title.

The thing about Battle of the Bands is that, despite its simplicity, it's actually pretty fun the first time you pick up the remote and start shaking along with a Country-Western version of Kool & The Gang's "Jungle Boogie." But after about twenty minutes of play, the novelty starts to wear thin, and you're wishing there were a bit more to the game. Listening to the various remixes is a blast, but the gameplay itself becomes tedious, and even worse, begins to wear down your wrist. If you're among the group of people who complained about Wii Tennis elbow or other Wii related medical issues, stay away from Battle of the Bands. The quick flick motions this game requires is hell on the wrist, and the developers were even aware of this fact -- after every few songs, the game will actually remind you that it's probably a good idea to take a break.

Now, this is the rare case of the gaming press doing its job completely right. Even the negative reviews give you a good idea of what to expect from the game and whether or not you'll like it - since an average title's appeal is going to depend almost completely on personal taste. I probably wouldn't buy this one, but I might snag a rental sometime to play with some friends, and maybe THQ can get enough buys to fix its problems in a sequel.

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