"Rock Band Unplugged" Coming to PSP

Rock Band is set to go portable as MTV Games and Harmonix revealed plans to release the music video game exclusively for Sony's PSP handheld system. According to a press release, Rock Band Unplugged will take advantage of "the PSP system's Wi-Fi capabilities and becomes the first PSP game to include a fully-featured in-game store for downloadable content in the North American and Europeans markets."

No other details, such as gameplay or track list, were officially revealed. Rock Band Unplugged exclusively linking with Sony PSP is likely a response to the Guitar Hero: On Tour game that came out exclusively on the portable Nintendo DS. Whereas the Guitar Hero: On Tour takes advantage of the DS's touchscreen and microphone capabilities to sort of replicate the Guitar Hero experience, Rock Band Unplugged will reportedly require gamers to touch buttons to match up with the musical cues, Primotech reports. After successfully completing one "phrase" of the song on one of the instruments, the instruments will then change for the next "phrase." To quote the Twitter of Harmonix designer Dan Teasdale, "Phrase-based lane-switching beatmatch lives again!"

While the press release didn't elaborate on what songs may appear on the game, Primotech says tracks by AFI, Kansas, the Polic, Boston and Blink-182 will be featured. The game is due out in fall 2009.

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Song Stories

“Baby Got Back”

Sir Mix-a-Lot | 1992

While watching a Budweiser commercial during the Super Bowl, Sir Mix-a-Lot thought the skinny female models in the ad didn’t represent reality. So he wrote this ode to ample bottoms, featuring its famous to-the-point lyric: “I like big butts and I cannot lie.” MTV banished the video, featuring shaking booties and sexually suggestive fruit, to 9 p.m. or later. “I thought my career was over,” he told Rolling Stone. “Then I called Rick Rubin, and I told him the video was banned, and he was like, 'Great!' We sold another 2 million records.”

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