By Mary Whitfill
Staff Writter

The Beatles: Rock Band hit stores on Wednesday, much to the delight of waiting Beatles fans around the world.  

The Beatles are known for influencing pretty much every sector of the music industry. From record-breaking concerts to the huge numbers of fans, to music games and top selling records, it is nearly impossible to be unaware of The Beatles and their making of music history.

The Beatles: Rock Band is fully compatible with most of the original Rock Band equipment, and can even be played with a few pieces of the Guitar Hero equipment. For example, the Guitar Hero: World Tour microphone, drums and guitar are all able to be hooked up to this new Rock Band system.

The band members have all been given a unique avatar keeping with the bands original image, while the virtual instruments are almost identical to those  played by The Beatles in real life. John Lennon’s Rickenbacker guitar, George Harrison’s Gretsch Guitar, Paul McCartney’s Hofner Bass and Ringo Starr’s Ludwig drums are all available to play and purchasable for Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii. Top scores are available online.

The 45 songs chosen for The Beatles: Rock Band are keeping in tune with the most popular songs from the time when The Beatles ruled the music world. All proceeds from the downloadable song “All You Need is Love” will go towards Doctors Without Borders, a charity chosen by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono Lennon and Olivia Harrison that provides medical aid to over 60 developing countries.

The Beatles: Rock Band is likely to make top selling history, in keeping with everything else The Beatles touch. Paul McCartney showed a clip from the game at his last show in Dallas, which got the fans even more pumped up.

The game is available at Fry’s, Best Buy, the Rock Band Store and Amazon.com and costs $59.99 for the game itself, and $249.99 to include all of the equipment.

I know that for me, the game will be worth every penny.