Being a massive Beatles fan (as I'm sure are most people) I jumped at the chance to have an hour at E3 with the new Beatles Rock Band game at the MTV Games booth. They had one of the fanciest setups on the show floor and the game preview began with us all being ushered into a replica Abbey Road to have a live demo of the game in action.

Once inside and seated, we were treated to an intimate set by some of the team at Harmonix who performed three songs - "I Saw Her Standing There", "Day Tripper" and "I am the Walrus". The demo showcased a number of interesting things, not least the attractive leather-clad girl signing backing vocals - nice touch! One of the new features for this Beatles incarnation of Rock Band is three-part harmonies. Players aren't assigned a particular vocal line so can swap between but when singing together in harmony it is possible to earn "double fab" and "triple fab" bonuses.

One of the aspects that Harmonix were most proud of was the faithful recreation of the stages used in the game. To begin with you follow the Beatles early career in live venues such as the Cavern Club, Shea Stadium, The Ed Sullivan Show, Budokan and Abbey Road Rooftop. Later songs, from the period when the Beatles stopped doing live gigs, have venues replaced by musical soundscapes - the one we saw for "I am the Walrus" was especially trippy and disturbing!

Downloadable content has already been confirmed for the game with the rest of the Abbey Road album being made available shortly after launch. A special release of All You Need is Love will also be made available exclusively for the Xbox 360, with all proceeds going to "Doctors Without Borders".

Playing the game itself was a familiar experience to anyone who has played a previous version of Rock Band, with one of the main differences being the special edition replica instruments - John Lennon’s Rickenbacker 325 guitar, Sir Paul McCartney’s trademark Höfner bass, George Harrison’s Gretsch Duo Jet guitar and Ringo Starr’s drums with classic black oyster pearl finish and Ludwig-branded Beatles kick drum head. The game will be shipped as a bundle with themed instrument controllers and as a standalone game for which all existing Rock Band and compatible music game accessories can be used.

It is clear that Harmonix will have an enormous hit on their hands with Beatles Rock Band. Fans such as myself will love the attention to detail in the game - from the accurate venues to the special edition instruments and rare songs - there is enough here to keep even the most obsessive Beatles fan happy. The game releases on September 9th coinciding with the release of new, remastered CD versions of The Beatles albums, and we're sure that both Rock Band and Beatles fans will be happy. Check out the game trailer below.