The Beatles Rock Band: Help! Dad has Hard Day's Night on my console!

The Beatles Rock Band. Photo / supplied

With a new marketing-driven Beatlemania set to blitz this week, baby boomers are in line for a surprising discovery at the joys of gaming.

Those who have tolerated their teenagers spending time playing perceived menacing-looking games on their PS3 or Xbox 360, but haven't shown any real interest in what's going on, may well find themselves getting an excuse from later this week to be more involved in their kids' downtime.

They may find their kids playing the songs of their childhood in a totally fun atmosphere.

The launch of

Beatles Rock Band

could do for gaming what Wii Sports did - go down a previously untapped long and winding road, opening up new revenue opportunities in older demographics.

Retirement villages now sport Wii machines as seniors find playing bowling or golf on the Wii a lot of fun and helping their energy and exercise regimen.

A

ridiculous survey

the other day claimed the average age of a gamer was 35 and that they were fatter and more depressed than the general population and were also reliant on the 'net for finding friends.

The survey (of '500 adults') was by the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. You would think in an age of swine flu, the Centre would have bigger things to investigate than confirming the stereotype myth that us gamers are sad lonely people who only stop committing suicide thanks to our games and with a little help from our fat friends - if we can find any.

Baby boomers may struggle with some of the tracks I love on the original Rock Band but the Beatles is smack dab in the middle of their musical world and a core reference for them as to where their musical tastes have gone.

Finding how easy it is to pick up the gaming guitar or bash on the drums or even sing a tune for which they know the words backwards, it should see them in a new ecstasy.

They'll find no new tracks from the group but a completely new way to experience it. In all there are 45 songs to choose from - mostly from the early catalogue but in the near future they can download exact albums including

Sgt Peppers

,

Abbey Road

and

Rubber Soul

.

A new innovation for Rock Band fans is the ability to perform vocal harmonies.

Those like me who missed the Beatles revolution but quite like a few of their songs, the chances are we will bond better with the music or at least respect the music wasn't quite as simple back then as we thought it was.

Here's someone who got an advanced copy trying to play the Beatles

Helter Skelter

but at least it gives us a good idea of what's in store:

As we're still waiting for

Rock Band 2

to officially appear here, it also gives us the chance to get our hands on some new instruments and probably sturdier drum kit.

The Beatles sang that happiness is a warm gun. I think some parents will soon be defining happy leisure time as a warm console after a night of Beatles Rock Band in between playing their newly remastered CDs.

Watch this space.

The Mad Gamer