Konami's idea to siphon the then still big rock game bubble is to get Zoe Mode, the developer of some SingStar games, to make Rock Band, but worse in almost every category. All but two of the songs are decent to horrible covers, all made by a hideously rushed Steve Ouimette, in a time where master tracks were the norm. The flat interface, standard for GuitarFreaks but definitely not standard for the market it was going for, is just unimpressive and hard to read at times. Worst of all, the charting is hit or miss on guitar and absolutely dreadful on drums. That last part is weird, as the only Rock Revolution peripheral is a drumset; the game requires you to use a Guitar Hero or Rock Band guitar to play guitar or bass. It's hard to not compare this game to Guitar Hero and Rock Band when the game requires one of their peripherals, and it's just as hard to find anything this game has to offer that Guitar Hero and Rock Band didn't do better. It has an additional timing window besides hit and miss, I guess?

A rather big disappointment is that this game could have had something to only itself that no other game could officially have: Bemani songs with Guitar Hero-like charts. While we did get the former in a Bemani Pack, the charts for them were worse than anything else in the game, with intricate solos being charted as simple tremolo sections. It made sense in GuitarFreaks because that game didn't have hammer-ons and pull-offs, but this game does and has no excuse not to use them. (Note: I've only played the two free songs, but I've seen videos of the paid pack and they're about the same in quality.) Probably wouldn't have saved this game nonetheless, but it would have been something cool. I paid about $3 for this, and I got maybe a day or two's worth of semi-enjoyment out of it. Don't even bother.