GameZone writes: "Guitar Hero's popularity has had a profound effect on the game industry. Everywhere you turn, new music games are cropping up. One of them is Ultimate Band, the Fall Line Studio-developed and Disney Interactive Studios-published title created exclusively for the Wii and DS platforms. The developers say that the basic idea was to create a music game for a younger boy (tween) demographic, and make it entirely peripheral-free. "Remember that when we pitched this, there was no such thing as Rock Band and the Wii was still called the Revolution," laughs Tim Huntsman, Senior Producer.
"Ultimate Band itself, the whole idea behind it was to encapsulate the physicality of playing. Not just playing to a certain rhythm or certain beat, which of course we do because that's where the rhythm side comes from. The performance side comes from what you can actually do with the Wiimote and the Nunchuk. We spent a lot of time, we got a lot of talented people that have been in this industry for a long time and have worked on a variety of genres and different types of games. We put our heads together and kind of picked through good ideas, what would work and what wouldn't. Coming up with the instruments that we came up with, again, coming up with the performance aspect. Because we're Disney, we decided to actually put a story into it."
MyWii writes: "One would think that after the success of music games such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band, a new entry into the genre that didn't include some sort of instrument peripheral probably wouldn't be all that good. After all, we've seen the genre evolve from PaRappa the Rappa and early Beatmania titles in Japan, with most rhythm-based music games nowadays including an add-on so as to create a realistic music-creating experience. When it was announced that Ultimate Band would use only what came with the Wii console, gamers couldn't help but be skeptical – a guitar game with no guitar? A band game with no microphone or mock drums? How exactly would that work? "
GamersInfo writes: "As human beings, we like music. Actually, that's a bit of an understatement. We LOVE IT. No matter what a naysayer might say (like Steven Pinker who calls it "noise"), we spend hours of our lives listening to it. How many times has a bad soundtrack decreased the sensation of something great? How many times has an awesome soundtrack feel like its icing on a cake? Don't believe me? Go read Oliver Sacks' Musicophilia. Anyway, rhythm games need a strong soundtrack (and rhythm, of course), or part of the fun falls to the side. I got my hands on Ultimate Band, a rhythm game for the Nintendo DS. It may not live up to its namesake, but it's a solid game nevertheless."
GamesWeasel writes: "Although it's certainly not as fun as playing actual instrument peripherals, it's certainly an option if you or your kids fancy a rhythm game but don't want to hire a roadie to look after all your plastic guitars, microphones and drum kits".
