If you like music, then definitely put Rock Band on your holiday 2007 wish list! This awesome game from Harmonix is going to meld Guitar Hero with Karaoke and let four people play real songs together!

If you haven't tried Guitar Hero yet, then definitely give that a try to see how amazingly addictive this is going to be. In Guitar Hero I and II, you hammer away on a guitar controller, playing music with your PS2 or XBox 360. The only downside here is that you needed the Guitar Hero II version for the XBox 360 to play with friends - and that many of the songs were "reproductions". They sounded pretty close to the original, but it wasn't quite the same.

With the huge success of Guitar Hero and the many Karaoke games out there, it was perhaps inevitable that the next step would come along. With Rock Band, up to four people will be able to play together! One person sings. Two people play the guitar. Another plays the drums! Harmonix, the maker, has cut deals with several major record labels to get the REAL recordings of songs. Big names like Fender have signed on licensing deals, so the instruments that you play in the game will look amazing and be "authentic" to the sounds created by those instruments.

This is going to be both the ultimate party game as well as the ultimate play-on-your-own game. With online gameplay, you could call up a friend across the country and jam together. If you're a guy and your girlfriend isn't a gamer, she still might simply adore singing along with her favorite artists while you strum gently in the background. Parents can play killer guitar riffs while their tykes bang on the bongos. It's an all-age, all-gaming-skill bonanza.

I have to tell you, I'm really psyched about this game coming out. A lot of games have become same-old same-old. Yes, I want to play the new Halo 3, but will it really be different than Halo 1 or Halo 2? Zelda is great, but it's always the same style of gameplay. Here we have an offering that is truly genre-creating. Now I just have to learn some patience to wait the months until this is actually out!!

Rock Band Website