Rock Band 3 review

The music business is full of industry-generated rivalries engineered to create publicity: in the Sixties you were either Beatles or Elvis, in the nineties it was Oasis vs Blur and right now Justin Bieber is head to head with Kasabian (well, maybe not the last one, but it would make for a fun deathmatch). The video game industry is no different, and for years now there has been an ongoing battle between the two titans of the music game genre: Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

There has always been some substance to the rivalry between the two series. The first two Guitar Hero games were made by current Rock Band developers Harmonix before the brand was bought by Activision and given to Neversoft, the team behind the Tony Hawk skateboarding games. Since then the genre has enjoyed both highs (Guitar Hero III bought in over $2billion dollars) and lows (last year’s Beatles: Rock Band received mixed reviews and was a commercial failure), though since its inception Rock Band has been the series to continually push the genre forward. It was the first to take the focus from guitars to a full band, it was the first to commit to releasing new songs every week for download, and now with Rock Band 3 it might be the series to teach you (shock horror) how to play a real instrument.

At first there seems very little different about Rock Band 3 from previous instalments. Players still sing or use plastic guitars, drums and (in a series first) keyboards to simulate playing in a real rock band. Hit all the right notes and you are rewarded, miss too many and you fail the song. The big draw for this game is that now players can choose to play a ‘pro’ mode which simulates playing the real life instrument exactly, note for note, strum for strum, hit for hit.

Naturally this comes at extra cost, with a new line of controllers to deal with the added requirements. The pro drum kit adds cymbals and a hi-hat pedal, and the new keyboard comes bundled with the game for just over £100. Most impressive is a new guitar controller that uses over a hundred buttons on the neck of the guitar to allow players to place their fingers exactly the same as a real guitarist would. It even comes with strings to strum, but at immense cost: with a RRP of £124.99, you could virtually buy a new console for that money. To buy all of the new pro controllers along with the game would set you back over £300, an incredible amount for one game, with the big question being why not just buy a real instrument?

So is the extra cost justified? There is no denying that it adds a new depth to the Rock Band series, as for the first time songs actually require practice, and skills learnt in game can now be transferred directly to their real life counterparts. However in positioning the game as more of a tool for professional players, Harmonix have ignored a few key features that will frustrate both beginners and veterans. For the beginner, a tutorial mode goes through the basics of the instruments, but there is little in the way of advice on technique meaning bad habits are sure to be picked up. For already proficient players, there is the problem of reading the complicated on-screen prompts that replace traditional music notation and tablature. It’s not impossible but feels awkward, and there is no mention of the key that the song is in either. The result is that pro mode feels like a half-way stop; too hard for beginners and too fiddly for seasoned pros. If you are willing to put in the effort then the game will reward you in the long run, but it seems slightly pointless when the money could buy a real instrument and contribute to a few weeks lessons.

The core game however remains as addictive and fun as ever, with all previous downloaded content and most songs from the previous games transferable into part 3. That means a potential library of over 2000 songs, so as a party game it remains peerless. The new keyboard is a welcome addition, both because it is the easiest instrument to play (excluding vocals) and because it means piano heavy tracks like Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody can be included for the first time. Three part harmony is available for the vocals too, though a warning; attempts by drunk karaoke singers may turn out catastrophic. Career mode has also seen a revamp, as Quickplay now contributes to your overall career score, so if you want to choose your own music rather than sticking to the game’s set path you’ll still unlock lots of extras.

Either way you’ll be playing through 83 new songs that include artists from five decades; Them Crooked Vultures, The White Stripes, Huey Lewis and the News, Jimi Hendrix... the full set list can be seen here, and while there are probably as many misses as hits that still amounts to a great soundtrack. There is also an option to rate songs after playing them so that the game will suggest songs that you are likely to enjoy more.

Graphically Rock Band 3 is a slight improvement on the first two, and a nice touch is that loading screens between songs have now been replaced with small scenes of your band in action. Harmonix have always created an excellent atmosphere with the Rock Band games, and the small gags hidden away to amuse music fans are present and correct. Sadly the crowd reactions to your songs have been removed (the crowd used to sing along with you if you were playing well) but chances are most people won’t notice this over the noise of their friends playing anyway.

In a week that has already seen an excellent music game release in DJ Hero 2, it is easy to see Rock Band 3 like a grizzled older rocker, slightly old-fashioned but still capable of schooling the youngsters. The new pro mode may be slightly under-cooked, but it is a welcome step towards putting real instruments in the hands of future musicians, and puts Rock Band once again at the forefront of music game development.