I often hear a lot of talk about how music games need to die, and on a certain level, I can agree with them. It was great when Guitar Hero first came out, when the entire soundtrack was awesome, the characters and the atmosphere was all very rock n' roll, and the controller, though pretty unique at the time, worked. As the genre went from the Amplitude games to the Guitar Hero games, more people caught on. Then it got out of control. We are now going to be watching E3, listening to info on Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, Rock Band 3, DJ Hero 2, and probably more. One thing I will definitely say to defend music games is that the leader of the genre, currently Harmonix, hasn't done a thing wrong yet. Rock Band was a huge hit, and so was it's sequel. Guitar Hero made band-specific games to get a little more unique with Aerosmith and Metallica, but Harmonix struck back using the same strategy, but using possibly the ultimate musical weapon: The Beatles. Aerosmith and Metallica were leaders of their genre, but they weren't game changers, at least not to the level that the Beatles achieved in their short decade of success before disbanding. Rock Band obviously knew the bands to support and how to support them, but how do you follow up a showstopper?

Green Day? Really? These are the questions that I'm sure went through everyone's mind at one point or another. I was the same way. Yeah, I grew up with my brother listening to the Dookie album, along with Nirvana and the Ramones, and American Idiot was an absolute success, but really? The Beatles followed by Green Day? AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Iron Maiden, and you go with Green Day? My skepticism lasted until I played the game. It then hit me as I played how deep their career has been. Many of their songs are great, and it should be credited to Billie Joe Armstrong's songwriting. I admire three songwriters in their own way: Kurt Cobain, Jack White, and finally Billie Joe, who can take chord progressions that you've heard many times and make them work in a new way. Even back during their punk years, their was something that felt right about it. The song "In The End" is a perfect example; it's fast and punk, but the melody is done in such a way to make the song something else entirely. Such songwriting, as it ages from 90s punk to late 00's alternative rock, makes many, if not all, of the songs in this game worth playing.

The career is a bit different from the Beatles, in that you have a slight amount of control on what you play; you're not exactly forced to play chronologically. You still have to unlock songs, but you don't go through each by year. It's more like going through the stages that Green Day went through. A lot of the new features in the Beatles game is still found here: Challenges, Drum drills, Harmonizing, and very detailed characters resembling the members of Green Day. This adds even more depth to the great setlist that is Green Day's career. I'd like to take this moment to reccomend using the harmonizing feature if you haven't used it in the Beatles: Rock Band yet. Singing is fun, but trying to find the vocals you never really hear and then matching with the lead singer can be an experience.

After beating the game, my band and I continued to play, even after our voices had been blown out. Green Day's music makes the gameplay you've seen before many times unique and fun all over again, even after you thought that couldn't happen again. There's no bundle that tempts you to buy their instruments when you've got enough plastic in your closet, which I'm sure many welcome. There's even online multiplayer, a feature that was absent from it's predecessor. However, just like all music games, you will get much more out of this if you play with others, especially if you're one of the potentially three singers.

If you like Green Day, or just good music, and enjoy Rock Band, this game will most likely not disappoint. It's all that you love, unless you don't like Green Day, in which case why are you reading this review? You might also not like Rock Band, in which case why are you such a terrible human being?

9.5