Fourth quarter is always exciting, as even a weaker year in gaming yields very positive results for my recreational time. I always try to pinpoint the game that kicks it off — somewhere around September, I’m usually met with much entertainment. The Beatles: Rock Band (move over Guitar Hero 5) is as good a place as any to start holiday gaming, and this ambitious attempt at bringing one of the most beloved bands of all time and one of the best rhythm games of all time does nothing but impress.

In one corner, you have The Beatles, which has influenced a generation in almost immeasurable ways, and in the other corner, you have Rock Band, which has entertained gamers an almost infinite number of times. When you think about a merge, the premise is promising. The game celebrates all things Beatles with the design of Rock Band; play along to lots of music, enjoy the same process with friends, eat, drink and be merry. Career mode follows The Beatles from the band’s early British roots, all the way through its “audition” on top of the Apple Corps Building at the end of the 1960s. There’s multiplayer, of course, and you can play on any number of instruments that would best fit your tastes.

The Rock Band formula has you hitting buttons in time with the music, and you can do that for however long it amuses you. The Beatles: Rock Band let’s you become Paul, George, Ringo or John by yourself or with a group and jam to more than 40 carefully selected Beatles tracks. You might not hear some of the group’s more experimental stuff from some of their later albums, as Harmonix tried to sift through the songs and choose what would be best-suited for the basic four-instrument configuration.

Although the “difficulty” of the instruments in the game are considerably easier compared to the game’s big brother counterpart Rock Band 2, I was amazed at how enthralling it was playing on any of the four instruments. The set list is solid — it is The Beatles after all — but none of the instruments failed to do anything but capture my rhythmic imagination as I enjoyed the music. The guitar and bass were carefully crafted to offer a variety of note charts and posses a solid final tier of songs. The drums are as engaging as ever, and the singing is fun as always. Rock Band has near perfected singing engines, and joining in to the very memorable tunes with such smooth accuracy is exactly the way to get those scared of a microphone directly in the middle of all the music goodness.

The songs are all masters, so no worries about any loss of quality in transition when it comes to audio. The game even has ample amounts of real sound clips from The Beatles themselves and their live performances. The graphics only complement the entire experience and live up to The Beatles imagery by portraying the band’s artistic side in a very fashionable manner. The Beatles never looked or sounded so good, which will be evident the very first time you see the glorious intro movie that sets the mood for the game.

The online multiplayer is fun as always, as getting together with friends and jamming is the name of the game. I think The Beatles: Rock Band is a testament to quality over quantity. There may not be as many songs as other recently released music games — though Harmonix has promised many if not all of The Beatles albums — but you would never notice a lack of songs with all the fun you’re having.

Being a fan of both Rock Band and The Beatles, it’s hard to imagine how someone could enjoy either medium of music or gaming and not be a fan as well. The two mix brilliantly, and Harmonix has made sure to do so with the utmost respect and enjoyment. The nitpicking I would showcase here is that the challenge mode is slapped on with little purpose and why you can’t play rhythm guitar (John was one of four who made the band possible) is beyond me. Other than wanting even more unlockables (more pictures and movies), I’m incredibly happy with how the game turned out.

In the end, The Beatles: Rock Band may steer away those who are already oversaturated with music games or who might like their music to be more varied with multiple artists, or have a harder edge, ergo a more difficult game. I think The Beatles: Rock Band was designed in mind more for The Beatles fan in all of us but with very grounded rhythmic sensibilities. The fact stands that the game is more of a shoot off of the franchise and therefore takes little risk with any new features and therefore hurts its own replayability by being deadset, albeit in an already proven formula. While some might find more worth in other music games that offer more variation and tasks, I think anyone who enjoys music or games should really get into The Beatles: Rock Band, as it still stands as a beautifully crafted love letter to Beatles fans the world over.