The title of the game pretty much sums the whole thing up - rock out to ACDC songs by selecting them from a list and pressing coloured buttons on a plastic instrument of your choice as their corresponding coloured oblongs move down the screen, optionally while duckwalking around the room. It's the classic Rock Band/Guitar Hero gameplay formula. As always, it's a laugh, as you pretend to be Angus Young, sitting in a beanbag chair pressing buttons, like he does on-stage. Fair enough, it's been done in previous games, but if something isn't broken, don't try and fix it, or you'll just end up with nails and bits of shelf everywhere.
As Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock showed us, this method of gameplay is only fun if there's some good music in the game, rather than all that new-fangled indie rubbish that assaults one's eardrums like an audio barge-pole. Fortunately, as the first paragraph conveyed, this is ACDC Live Rock Band's strongest point. There are nineteen tracks in the game, all classic songs like You Shook Me All Night Long and Thunderstruck. They're all great songs, if you're into the genre, and most of them are a lot of fun to play. The exception to this is the song For Those About to Rock. It's not that it's a bad song, but anyone playing guitar will have to put up with sitting around in the lengthy, non-guitar part.
So, great music and same old Rock Band gameplay. Why, then, the criticism earlier? I'll tell you why, guy who asks his computer questions - it's the fact that ACDC Live Rock Band is far too insubstantial. There are no songs to unlock, and the career mode is just playing through all of the already-unlocked songs one at a time, linearly. There's also no character customisation, only one venue, and only one set of characters on the stage in the entire game. Other than on the game's box, there aren't even any cameos from any of the band members. On the plus side, if you already own a copy of Rock Band or Rock Band 2, you can transfer the songs onto those games and sell this game to get some money back, but otherwise it's a rip-off.
While the game does have a great tracklist, there's very little content to be found. It's a minimal single and multiplayer Rock Band game with a small list of songs to play and no customisation at all. My advice to anyone interested in this game, or rather, expensive song pack, would be to pick up the far better Rock Band 2 instead, and put some ACDC on Youtube. It's sad when Green Day get better treatment from Harmonix, as there was potential for a far better game here.
Rating: 2/5
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