"Rock Band" Across the Ages Trivia Quiz

Answer: False

While the 'band in a box' kit released with several instruments, it did not come with a bass guitar; players could purchase a second guitar (as it was the same controller in a different role) separately.

Released in 2007, "Rock Band" quickly took a front-running position in the music game field. Developed by Harmonix, who helped create the "Guitar Hero" franchise, it pushed the rhythm gaming genre to a new level by building a band instead of just setting a guitar into a gamer's hands. In a year and a half it sold over four million copies.

Answer: World Tour

Regarded as the bread-and-butter rhythm game of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, "Rock Band 2" took everything good about "Rock Band 1" and put it in a more appealing package. In addition to an extensive on-disc setlist, the game came with a popular World Tour mode for in-house players culminating in an 'Endless Setlist' consisting of all eighty-four on-disc tracks. Completion resulted in gold player icons and achievements.

The game was released in 2008 with weekly additions to the library via downloadable content.

Answer: AC/DC

While "Guitar Hero" licensed Aerosmith's music for their own stand-alone rhythm game, Harmonix continued to build up their "Rock Band 2" library with downloadable content and pre-packaged track packs available for purchase in stores and downloaded to console hard drives. Perhaps the most successful of these was the 'Live at Donington' AC/DC pack which contained many of their greatest hits performed live.

There was no other way to purchase these songs due to strict licensing agreements between the band and retailers.

Answer: Three

Appearing in 2009 with support from Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr (and the families of John Lennon and George Harrison), "The Beatles: Rock Band" was a treat in exclusivity. Only playable as stand-alone, the game featured not only the chance to sing and play along with classics Beatles tracks across their entire discography, but it gave access to many easter eggs and never-before-seen and heard archival tracks and footage.

The game was also the first in the series to feature tri-vocal harmonies; three microphones could be plugged in to sing along to the Fab Four's tracks.

This would later be a common feature in the series, arriving in time for "Rock Band 3".

Answer: Lego

"Lego Rock Band" combined the game mechanics of the original "Rock Band" with less heavy songs and the fun sensibility of Lego. In all fairness, the game had a solid soundtrack of forty-five songs, all of which were transferable into any other "Rock Band" library for further play. So while you could have had boss battles to the tune of "Ghostbusters" in the "Lego" story mode, you could've just loaded the songs up and run with it on your console.

Harmonix later teamed up with Disney to create the game "Fantasia: Music Evolved" in 2014 on the Xbox 360 and Xbox One (for use with Kinect).

Answer: A downloadable music service

RBN (and RBN 2.0 when "Rock Band 3" released) began in 2010 and somewhat changed the game for many. While downloadable content was released regularly from the outset for "Rock Band", RBN offered up the opportunity for bands and independent musicians to author and engineer their own tracks to be purchased and played in-game.

While this attracted famous bands like Third Eye Blind, OK Go, Evanescence, and The Tragically Hip, it also brought numerous independent artists across various genre into the game. RBN ended service before the release of "Rock Band 4", partly due to lack of resources to construct it on a new generation of consoles.

Answer: Keyboard

While "Rock Band 3", released in late 2010, received the tri-vocal harmonies addition, it also received a completely new instrument-- a keyboard. Many songs introduced on-disc and as DLC for this iteration of the game included opportunities for piano rock classics and keytar solos, allowing tracks to be charted to the proper instrument and, unlike in earlier games, not on guitar.

Unfortunately, the keyboard did not reappear for "Rock Band 4", likely due to cross-compatibility issues heading into the next console generation.

Answer: Green Day

Striking a licensing deal, Harmonix set to work bringing Green Day's classics (and some of their deeper cuts) to the series in 2010 (though certain singles were available as downloadable content earlier, specifically from their "21st Century Breakdown" album). What resulted was a forty-seven song game (more than "Lego Rock Band") that could be played on its own, much like "The Beatles: Rock Band", or incorporated into the player's existing "Rock Band" library via an export code. Like with The Beatles, Harmonix added in extras for fans to track the band's career to that point.

Answer: Xbox 360 or PS3 controllers

A rhythm game for a more casual player, "Rock Band Blitz" is unlike the other games in the "Rock Band" franchise because it's treated as more of an arcade game than a music game. Players follow the track of the song, tapping buttons on their controller to the beat of the song (much like the "Tap Tap Revenge" mobile game) to get higher scores.

The game was available on PSN and XBLA on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. For players of the regular franchise, anyone buying "Blitz" could instantly export the songs into their regular "Rock Band" library.

Answer: Rivals

After a couple of years without "Rock Band" updates, Harmonix announced and released "Rock Band 4" on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. A lot had changed. With Harmonix scaling back its team and rediscovering its indie roots, "Rock Band 4" was a bit more barebones than its predecessors, but nonetheless made up for it over time, reconstructing tracks and bringing back almost all old downloadable content and exports from previous games on the new consoles.

In 2016, the game's first expansion, "Rivals", brought back online quickplay and a Rockudrama 'Behind the Music' campaign mode alongside its World Tour.