Dire Straits By Dire Straits
Rock Band 3 is the next generation of the ultimate social and interactive music gaming platform developed by the category’s leading pioneers, Harmonix Music Systems. Featuring innovative game modes and instruments, Rock Band 3 will change the way fans think about and play music games.
Rock Band 3 is the third main release in the iconic video game series that challenges gamers to live out their Rock & Roll fantasies together in a band situation, both locally and online. The game features an ever expanding song list from every era of Rock & Roll history, easy to pick up yet challenging addictive Note Highway gameplay, compatibility with earlier releases in the series and all platform-specific instrument controllers including most Guitar Hero controllers, extreme in-game character and band customization, and a slew of new features. These new features include: new setlist search functionality, the addition of 3-part harmonies and a keyboard peripheral and expanded play modes, including the advanced Pro Mode.
The Most Music. Period
The Rock Band 3 disc soundtrack contains 83 tracks by the best bands from around the world, including bands that have never appeared in a music game, as well as support for existing Rock Band tracks (Rock Band and Rock Band 2 discs, downloaded songs, track packs, AC/DC Live: Rock Band Track Pack, LEGO Rock Band and Green Day: Rock Band). Additionally, Rock Band 3 gives players immediate access to a music library approaching 2,000 songs by launch, with new content added regularly. With a selection like this, it is clear that Rock Band‘s gigantic music selection dwarfs that of any other music game on the market. The full track list includes:
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Redesigned Music Library
Rock Band 3 allows players to create and save setlists and share them with friends, both in-game and through RockBand.com. In addition, new song filters make it easier to find the types of songs fans want to play and hide the songs they don’t, while a built-in song recommendation system will suggest tracks from Rock Band‘s colossal music library, based on personal fan preference.
Expand the Band
In addition to guitar, bass, drums and solo vocals, Rock Band 3 adds three-part vocal harmony functionality that was introduced with The Beatles: Rock Band and, for the first time ever, a keyboard peripheral to the band. The combination of all these possibilities means that up to seven players can rock together in Rock Band 3 for the ultimate social gaming experience.
Go Pro: Take Your Passion to the Next Level
Rock Band 3 empowers players to develop actual musical skills through the fun of fully scalable Rock Band Pro gameplay. Fans can dive in on the Easy setting to try out basic skills and work their way up to Expert for real mastery. Pro Drums supports three expansion cymbals, with gameplay differentiation between toms and cymbals. Pro Keys (Keyboard) features pitch-accurate keyboard performance across a two-octave range, displayed on an easy-to-read keyboard track. Pro Guitar features noted guitar and bass performances, available for play with either the new Fender Mustang PRO-Guitar simulated guitar controller from Mad Catz, or the Rock Band 3 Squier by Fender Stratocaster guitar controller that is a real guitar/controller hybrid. The Rock Band 3 Squier Stratocaster is a fully functional, full-sized, six-string electric guitar that also functions as a game controller.
New Gameplay Modes
For the casual player, Rock Band 3 has great new party modes that allow fans to get rocking with friends quicker than ever, including party shuffle and persistent drop-in/dropout and difficulty selection from any gameplay screen. For the serious player, the revamped Career Mode features 700+ goals and rewards and seamless leaderboard integration for an endlessly deep campaign experience. Rock Band 3 also adds a suite of social networking tools to the game so fans can engage friends and fellow rockers over Facebook, Twitter and more. Whether players want to jump in for a quick song or take their band to the top, Rock Band 3 has a mode for everyone.
Featured Rock Band 3
- RB3 has great new party modes for quick rocking sessions with friends, as well as a whole new universe of challenges including a revamped Career Mode and 700+ goals and rewards
- Game track list contains over 80 of the best bands from around the world, including bands that have never appeared in a music game, and support for existing Rock Band tracks
- Create and save set lists, and share them with your friends online and enjoy improved song sorting makes it easier to find the songs you like
- Expand the band with the optional keyboard peripheral and 3-part vocals harmonies, together allowing support for up to 7 players
- Take your passion for music to the next level with Rock Band Pro functionality that lets you develop real musical instrument skills through gameplay
Overall Rating:  (Full Reviews Product) List Price: This Product is available at AMAZON for the best Price |
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Many Great Aspects, But Falls Short in Some Areas,
Overall, Rock Band 3 adds some great features and enhancements, but there are a few things you should be aware of before purchasing (I bought on launch day, so I had to experience most of these first hand). I’m not going to chronicle every feature’s positive and negative here (I haven’t tested many of them), but I just want to give you a sense of my biggest impressions.
–The Good
It’s Rock Band with more songs, Rock Band 2 importing, and “Pro” instruments. What’s not to like? I only have the Pro Keys and Pro Drums (no Pro Guitar) and both are a lot of fun. I actually like many of the songs (not all, naturally…that’s how most of these games go, and why there’s downloadable songs available to get more specific tracks).
There are many improvements in basic gameplay and game design. For example, activating “Overdrive” (Star Power if you come from Guitar Hero) is less distracting but still visually attractive. These tweaks are very welcome.
–The Bad
I personally think most of the graphics on RB3 are worse than RB2; it’s a bit of a mixed bag. I’ve seen some very pretty games on Wii (Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Bros. Wii, etc.) and they put this game to shame. I’ve tried both the Wii’s default RCA (composite) cables and special component cables, but still get pretty iffy graphics, even for Wii standards (which are lower than PS3 and Xbox 360). Some details just aren’t that appealing (as in previous games, the notes ‘explode’ when played, but this time they do so in a cloud of cheesy-looking smoke). Sometimes there are weird visual glitches in the menus and during gameplay, like flickering lighting. They aren’t enough to destroy the actual act of playing, but they do make the experience a bit less enjoyable. While the character models are improved, they have similar motions to RB2, and so feel very similar.
The “overshell”, as it is called, lets players log in and out, change difficulty and the like all without disturbing main gameplay. In party play, this tends to be really hard to use; people don’t really want to take the time to log in and out, and due to the limitations of the game’s controller scheme (see my edits to the review on the Rock Band 3 Wireless Pro-Drum and Pro-Cymbals Kit for Wii) there can be issues with getting the right instruments into the game at the right time without conflicts.
–The Ugly
At the time I’m writing this review, there is no import into Rock Band 3 from Rock Band 1 or Lego Rock Band on the Wii (other consoles have import support for those games). RB2 and Green Day Rock Band both are stated to import on RB3 Wii (I’ve only tested the RB2 import first-hand–note that it requires an extra fee). There’s no word on when (or if) RB1 and LRB songs can be imported.
I also found there were a few too many effects during main gameplay. Sometimes this is a minor annoyance, like when it is is hard to see the notes, but it also causes some more issues: I had one or two cases where there were so many flashing lights that I got a little dizzy. But maybe that was because I was too close to the TV.
–The Conclusion
There are definitely some issues with the game; I think it was rushed out for the holiday season. That said, I’ll still be playing it frequently. The Pro Modes are great additions, and I’m looking forward to the new songs they release through the Rock Band store. Still a huge “Buy” in my book, just don’t assume it lives up to all the hype.
–One Last Piece of Advice…
If you have another console, you may want to consider buying Rock Band 3 for it instead of the Wii. You’ll be able to import the songs from previous games without a problem, and some of the bugs I’ve mentioned above may be fixed in your versions with a patch (the Wii being unpatchable) at some point.
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|A must buy, but with some disappointments,
As a Wii-only owner, it’s frustrating to see how the system is so frequently short-changed by developers. Despite being the least powerful system in its generation, the Wii still has potential that goes largely untapped by most developers other than Nintendo. In the case of Rock Band 3, I’m happy to report that, for the most part, it takes full advantage of what the Wii is capable of. Finally, users can download up to 32GB of DLC via the SD slot, take advantage of song exporting (though only RB2 and Green Day Rock Band are permitted now), track packs in the music store, and have all the same modes and functions as the 360/PS3 iterations, including the new Pro mode.
Of course, RB3 also introduces a brand new instrument with the keyboard. I won’t be speaking too much about it, as I’m reviewing the game rather than the bundle, but it is worth picking up if you’re interested in learning the keys, because it’s a Pro-mode instrument out of the box. (Guitar, bass, and drums will require add-ons or all new instrument purchases in order to take advantage of their Pro modes.) The game includes some decent tutorials that attempt to teach you how to play the real thing, and playing Pro mode on each instrument is just like playing the songs in real life…because you’re basically doing just that. It adds a new level of difficulty, but I wouldn’t recommend putting down that kind of cash unless you’re actually interested in learning the instrument or skilled enough to play at that level. If you’re buying the game mostly for the social aspect, your old plastic instruments will work just fine. Also, I’d say buying the keyboard is contingent upon your interest in learning the keyboard and/or your desire to add a new instrument for another player. If you don’t have a second guitar for bass, it can also play those parts (guitar parts as well), so it’s worth picking up for that. But I haven’t found myself too enthralled by the keyboard parts on most of the songs. (Some Ben Folds would change my opinion on this–a huge missed opportunity!) So is the keyboard worth it? It’s really up to you…I bought it, because I’d love to work myself up to Pro mode, but I still find myself going back to guitar and drums most often.
All of RB2′s features such as the character creator are still here, and largely improved. A notable difference between RB3 and its predecessor is that all of the on-disc songs are unlocked from the beginning, which is welcome if you just want to buy the game to play at parties. The career mode is also obviously present, but I personally prefer the way it was in RB2…RB3 just seems like a list of challenges rather than progressing through cities and venues as in RB2, which to me, gave more of a feeling of being in a real band. Another slight disappointment in comparison to RB2 is the graphics…somehow, RB2 looked prettier, which doesn’t make sense because they’ve had two years to improve, and games like Super Mario Galaxy 2 have come along since that really display how beautiful Wii games can look. Also, while I like the drop-in/drop-out style of navigation, the text size of many menus is too small and I frequently have to stand closer to the TV to read it.
In terms of DLC, the catalog is bigger than ever, and while I’m happy to see Rock Band Network tracks finally being released to Wii, both Wii and PS3 owners still don’t have access to the full RBN store, which remains exclusive to 360. Harmonix’s excuse for not including this on Wii upon launching was that it would require a patch to RB2, which is a no-go on Wii, but now there’s no excuse for not having this up and running for RB3. Instead, Wii/PS3 owners get “featured selections” from the RBN store, which is better than nothing, but still leaves room for improvement. It’s also disappointing that as of this writing, only RB2 and Green Day RB are available to export into the Wii version of the game. Everything leading up to launch indicated that RB1, Lego RB, and the track pack discs would be available to export across all platforms, not merely on PS3 and 360. Given that up to 32GB of space is now available on Wii, there’s no excuse to not allow these discs to export.
It’s worth noting that Rock Band on Wii was a lazy PS2 port until Vicarious Visions, the team responsible for the Guitar Hero series on Wii, proved just how much is possible with GH:WT and GH5. Though I consider those games inferior on most levels, they paved the way for DLC, online modes, track packs, song exporting, and more that Harmonix once claimed wasn’t possible due to “the limitations of the Wii.” Giving credit where it’s due, I really believe this game wouldn’t be nearly what it is on Wii without Vicarious Visions showing Harmonix how to make it work on the system. With Viacom’s looming sale of Harmonix, I’m in the minority who is hoping that Activision will swoop them up so Vicarious Visions can take over on the Wii side of things and do for…
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|“The only rhythm game you need to own”,
The title says it all – from improved menus, enhanced graphics, better game play – oh, and don’t forget the entire 2,000+ song catalog (including “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen!), of which you can play almost all of them on this one game!
The new drop-in-drop-out feature is used in both the menus and during songs – allowing anyone to come in whenever they feel like it instead of having to wait till the end of the song/the band goes back to the character selection screen… which there’s none in this one. Almost everything can be done from your personal pause menu, from character selection to modifiers, from extras to online playability.
The career mode has been combined into quickplay – so, you and a few friends play for fun for a few hours? Bam, you’ve dived into the career mode without even trying.
The online DLC store/import menu is a great feature, allowing you to buy any of the songs in the catalog and import songs from (at least) Rock Band 2 (if you have RB2) all in one area.
My only complaint is that the stand-ins for your characters when it’s just you and not your “real” band mates are hard to figure out. They don’t provide the position in the band, just slots for stand-ins.
The graphics – which the Wii’s known for it’s lacking in the graphic area – are great! Second only to The Conduit and (supposedly) Conduit 2, these are the best graphics I’ve gotten out of the Wii in awhile.
Remember the “Unison bonus” from RB & RB2? They’ve got those in single player now. When a gold bar appears on the sides of your track whilst hitting an Overdrive section, then you’ll get twice the Overdrive of normal. The vocals are of the same quality as that of Beatles Rock Band, and guitar, bass, and drums are just the same. Though, you can turn on and off the drum fills now.
I haven’t really gotten to Keys, because I have yet to get the keyboard. But I have faith in it.
And I haven’t even mentioned Pro mode yet.
Pro drums is exactly like a drum kit (being a drummer myself, I’d know.) Each pad/cymbal corresponds to a different part of a drum kit, and they’re represented on the screen very well. The only difference is in the hi-hat pedal, which I’m still working out.
Guitar and bass, though something I have yet to try for obvious reasons, seems to be a tab. A lot of people complain about the chords being the first fret marked and the others as a “wave” shape. But you can enable numbers for each string during a chord. It’s basically a tab.
Pro keys = normal keys on steroids, okay?
This game is the best game of the year, for the music lover.
Period.
No questions asked.
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