Four instruments. Dozens of songs. Two midnight launches.

MTV's very own video game, "Rock Band," launched Monday night at the stroke of midnight — well, two strokes of midnight.

The MTV game, which offers a score-based four-instrument karaoke experience for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, was developed by Harmonix, makers of the first two "Guitar Hero" games. And appropriately enough, it launched at the MTV store in New York's Times Square, where a handful of fans snatched up their bundled video game guitar, drums, mic and disc.

But the real crowds gathered a couple of mountain ranges away in a Los Angeles Best Buy. That's where Hellanor Brozevelt, a not-so-real four-man band that won the game's official prerelease championship tour in New York, played the Ramones' "Blitzkrieg Bop" and Faith No More's "Epic" to help hype the game's West Coast launch.

"We're the first fake band to play coast-to-coast shows," Brozevelt pseudo-guitarist Freddie Wong told MTV News.

The Seattle-based Wong won the "Guitar Hero II" championship at the World Series of Video Games earlier in the year. Since then he and his friends discovered "Rock Band." They played it at the E for All Gaming convention. "The first time we did it, [drummer] Bobby Ray here broke the bass pedal and I broke the strap on the guitar. And I'm like, 'That's it, we know we got it.' " The band's performance "impressed some bigwigs up top" at MTV, according to Wong, and landed his act a face-off on "TRL" two weeks ago. Winning that competition earned them the gig at Best Buy.

"We're going to be rocking the faces off of every single nerd who's out here wanting to buy the game at midnight," Wong said.

"Literally halves of dozens of people will be here," added singer Brian Firenzi.

Actually, approximately 100 people showed up to buy copies of the game.

"Rock Band" is now available in the U.S. for PS3 and Xbox 360. A PS2 version will launch on December 20, which is also the game's release date in Canada.

For more coverage of "Rock Band" and its competitors, see " 'Rock Band' In The Restroom — Covering MTV's Big Game For MTV" and "Where's 'Hip-Hop Hero'? Plus 'Rock Band,' Wii Zapper & More, In GameFile." And check out MTV's "Rock Band" page here.