Just in case you haven’t heard of the “Rock Band” franchise here is a short synopsis: you and several other friends pick up plastic instruments and jam out, in various ways, to songs that span across the decades.

That is the definition of simplicity, and, somehow, I wish that was just my review.

I wanted to give this game such a highly regarded rating and keep it close to my top list of video games I would recommend to people, but there are two glaring issues when it comes down to this game franchise.

Number one is the dreadfulness that accompanies everyone who hooks up this game to any TV with any sort of stereo hook ups and the incessant need to calibrate the instruments. Over the span of eight years, Rock Band has forced its players to manually, or the lucky few who can automatically, calibrate the controllers, so the accuracy does not wane.

I spent this last Friday with two groups of people: experts (people who have played this and know how each controller functions) and newbies (people who have no idea what is going on), and both groups suffered under this impending heel of the lag that, no matter how many times I calibrated it, seemed to make the enjoyment level suffer just too damn much.

This leads to my second biggest issue: the 250 dollar price tag. You get the game, 30 “free” (already picked for you) songs, a wireless guitar, a wireless drum and a wired microphone. Who starts a band with three people?

Honestly, for that price we should be getting two guitars, whether it be wired or wireless, and the game should not function so poorly right out of the box that I need to update the firmware on both the drums and guitar just to have them running a little less like I’m a homeless man using soup ladles and a tissue box for a drum kit and guitar.

I hate to apologize, but folks I want to enjoy this game. I’ve spent countless hours and real life money buying songs to hang out with friends and have a good time, and while the selection for music seems to have improved dramatically (up to 1,700 downloadable songs currently) it seems that for such a hefty price tag we need something a little more stable. Especially because this is the 4th iteration in a wildly popular franchise.

I base my games on a buy, rent, wait-for-sale or never-talk-about-again rating system. For now, I say, wait for the sale.

This game is going to be on shelves long enough that even if you want to jump into the fray again, a $250 price tag is just unnecessary and will not waiver your ability to enjoy this game whenever you do decide to pluck it off the shelf.