Rock Band 3

It’s been nearly two years since we’ve had a full sequel to the popular Rock Band franchise. But rather than just add a bunch of new tracks for us to rock out to, Rock Band developer, Harmonix, has taken that time to listen to feedback from the previous entries and overhaul the entire game to try to make it all things to all gamers.

If you used to pull out Rock Band at a party, but stopped because you were tired of being a tyrant ordering people to stop pushing random buttons that backed you out of the game entirely, only to have to start the song selection process all over again, you might want to think about having people over because Rock Band 3 makes it easy for the casual faux rock star. Someone walking by while you’re playing and feels like playing a little drums? Or maybe someone accidentally picked expert when they meant to pick easy? Or maybe that guy who had a little too much to drink passed out while on bass? Rock Band 3 solves all those problems by allowing players to drop in and drop out at their leisure and even change difficulty without having to start all over again. If you find yourself failing out of songs because someone can’t strum properly, the game gives you the option to keep continuing with the song from the point at which you failed so you don’t have to keep playing the intro 50 times in a row. Little enhancements like this and a ton of others really makes it easier for you to just enjoy playing the music.

And the music is probably the most important feature of these games and historically, this is where Rock Band has excelled. There are an impressive 83 songs on the disc that span not only decade and genre but now with a pinch of international flair. (I honestly didn’t think I’d ever hear Rammstien’s Du Hast ever again...) Whether you want to recreate that scene in Wayne’s World with Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody or play along to (the now kind of ironic) Rehab by Amy Winehouse, there’s a little something for everyone here. If you feel like playing some of your old Rock Band DLC or songs from previous releases, the vast majority of them are importable into Rock Band 3 (though a handful of songs won’t be available in Rock Band 3). It’s also much easier to find a particular song from your potentially vast song catalog with the game’s more robust sort and filtering options.

If you’re a gamer who’s looking for more of an actual music game instead of a music experience, the campaign mode has been completely overhauled in the form of Road Challenges. You still tour with your band and work your way up to being international rock legends, but now the challenges are broken down into bite-sized pieces of two or more songs with varying goals (i.e. complete a target streak without missing a note, staying in overdrive for as long as possible, etc). Each stop on the Road Challenge gives you some options for what songs or kinds of songs you can play to complete the challenge. No more having to complete a particular song to progress. As usual, gaining more fans gives you access to longer tours but now you can gain fans by casually playing songs as well as through the campaign mode so you can work towards furthering the campaign without having to actively play through the campaign.

But Rock Band 3 isn’t just a combination of changes and refinement to the tried and true formula, there are a couple additions in the way of a new instrument, the keyboard , and a new mode. The keyboard peripheral is a two octave, 25-key keyboard, which feels nice and sturdy. The majority of the songs on the disc have keyboard parts (which consist of the usual five colored gems), but if you’re exclusively keyboarding, you may be waiting for long stretches of songs waiting for the keys to come in. Luckily, you can also opt to use the keyboard to play the guitar and bass parts as well. The keyboard does a good job of imitating what it’s like to play an actual piano, albeit without the aural feedback of playing the wrong note.

One of the major criticisms of games like Rock Band from naysayers was “why not just learn how to play a real instrument?� I guess Harmonix was as tired of those complaints as everyone else and included a new Pro mode where you forego the multicolored gems for more complex notes and start playing actual instruments. Each instrument (except vocals) has it’s own Pro mode and each song has varying levels of difficulty from easy to expert just like the normal tracks.

Pro drums are the easiest to get into, although if you have an older Rock Band drum set, you may need to purchase the cymbal attachments (or even a whole new drum set if you have the original Rock Band 1 set). Although the pro drum tracks and the normal drum tracks are similar, the pro drum tracks introduce different gems for the cymbals and another layer of complexity (but also a sense of accomplishment when you get it right).

Keyboards are another story all together. The level of complexity jumps exponentially from only having to play five keys in the normal keys to potentially 25 keys in the pro keyboard mode. Having actually had piano lessons when I was younger, I figured I’d be able to jump right into pro keys... and boy was I wrong. There were a few differences from playing an actual keyboard. The first was the aural feedback. Playing a wrong note on a keyboard, you can hear that it’s either too high or too low of a note and readjust. In the game, all you get is a clink or klunk telling you that it’s the wrong note, but nothing telling you how far you are from the correct key. The second is the level of precision that the game demands. In playing piano, if you accidentally hit the wrong key slightly, it doesn’t really matter since it might not effect the song. But in the the game, even if your pinky accidentally rests on one of the wrong keys, it counts as a missed note.

What I found was playing complex keyboard parts in the songs was akin to actually having to learn the song before playing it. Luckily the game includes training for each song piece by piece so you can practice parts over and over until it becomes muscle memory. (Interestingly, the trainers for the regular guitar/bass and singing parts are gone. I guess they figure if you’re playing Rock Band 3, you must have already played through Rock Band 1 and/or 2?) After spending an evening training on John Lennon’s Imagine, I think I could probably sit down at a piano and feel my way through it for real. (Although I haven’t had a chance to try out the pro guitar or pro bass, I figure they’re probably the same way.)

With all these enhancements and additions, Rock Band 3 feels like the only music rhythm game you’ll ever need. It has options to cater to however you like to play, whether it be casual faux rocker, competitive gamer or burgeoning musician. Yes, it’s the pinnacle of the music rhythm genre... that is until the inevitable Rock Band 4 comes out. Which hopefully won’t be for a while...

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