Go freestyle with Rock Band

Rock Band, the stunning new rhythm action game from Guitar Hero creator Harmonix, will give you the chance to polish off a track with your own twiddly guitar lick or skin-beating drum solo. All the note bars will fill with color, and you can bash out anything you like.

Songstrels won't be left out of the noodling madness, though. As a Rock Band singer, you'll be able to "call out the crowd" by ad-libbing or shouting to the audience to bring your fans to their feet. While drummers will also get regular freestyle slots allowing for mid-song fills.

Finally, intriguingly, we've discovered just howthe extra fret buttons on the Rock Band stratocaster controller will be used. By changing to these keys, you'll be able to finger tap notes in solos, with no need to strum - although we're fearing that Expert mode will demand you learn tofinger tap properly.

Check back here nextWednesday for more on Rock Band,as we'll berevealing the fullhands-on details then.

July 5, 2007

Ben Richardson is a former Staff Writer for Official PlayStation 2 magazine and a former Content Editor of GamesRadar+. In the years since Ben left GR, he has worked as a columnist, communications officer, charity coach, and podcast host – but we still look back to his news stories from time to time, they are a window into a different era of video games.