At E3 this year, April and I got a chance e to sit in on a the developer’s demonstration of much awaited Rock Band 3. I must say that after watching them play “Here I Go Again” by Whitesnake, we were both even more excited even though we already knew about most of the new additions.
We had heard that they were adding a keyboard to the band. We even knew what it would look like and that it had 25 keys. What we learned was that you could get a peripheral that would allow you to use ANY USB keyboard with the game.
On the easier levels, you will just use a few keys to get through each song, but as you progress in difficulty and branch into the new Pro Mode, you will find that you are pretty much playing the keyboard part from the song. Neat.
There is a Pro Mode for all instruments, not just the keyboard. This goes to show the commitment that Harmonix has to push people towards real instruments. I’m sure we will soon be seeing a generation of musicians who learned the basics straight from the game, but to learn proper technique and musicianship, you are still going to have to go through the proper channels of study and practice, sorry kids. Still, I can’t think of a better way to get people past the “I can’t play an instrument” mentality, or worse yet, “I wish I had learned to play the piano”. Where here is a fun first step towards that goal.
For the drums, Pro Mode offers a greater level of reality to the parts you are playing. If you have already played on Expert in Rock Band 2, you are getting close, but Pro Mode offers more. ION, the creator of Drum rocker, has created an amazing little drum kit that not only works for Rock Band, but it also can double as an electronic drum kit. This cool kit comes with two bass pedals, both reinforced with metal, three cymbals, and the normal snare/three tom setup from the original game. Of course, the kit comes at a premium price, but you are also buying a real instrument, so that’s something to chew on for parents looking to get there kids into drumming but don’t want the loud noise from a typical drum set.
Then there is the new Fender Mustang Pro-Guitar Controller. While this is not a real guitar or bass, it is pretty close. Instead of strings on the neck, you will find 17 frets with 6 buttons on each fret. These buttons are the size of the fret so it feels pretty close to the real thing. there are six strings below the neck for you to strum in tandem with the 102 possible note positions. the controller also features an advanced muting sensor for palm muting, and the normal tilt sensor to activate overdrive.
Then there is the Squire Strat guitar controller. This controller IS a guitar. Yup, fully playable using a standard guitar amp and completely usable in Rock Band 3. Using this controller with Pro Mode should elevate your understanding of the instrument quite a bit. I have to stress again, though, this is still no substitution for the proper way to learn to play an instrument and become a real musician.
Now if you were a big fan of Rock Band Beatles because it was the only game to feature three-part harmony, you are in for a treat. Rock Band 3 supports this function as well, although it won’t be backwards compatible to Rock Band 1 & 2 songs. They hinted that maybe they could add the harmonies to those songs as updates, but no plans to do so were officially announced. Here’s to hoping, because having everyone crooning with there own microphone may be painful to the ears, it sure makes for an awesome party. If that weren’t enough love for the vocals, Rock Band 3 is going to feature pitch correction and vocal effects. This should save some of us from the bleeding ears effect that some singers give us.
After seeing each instrument in action and being suitably impressed, it was time to focus on the music and track listings. They have fixed just about everything with the new ways to select, sort, and put together tracks. They have added a filter option which allows you to quickly pare down the types of songs you want to play based on different criteria such as genre or decade. What I didn’t see was a quick way to jump straight to different letters based on your sort method. When looking though hundreds of songs for a specific title, it would be kind of nice to jump straight to the letter of the band or song you are looking for. Maybe the option is in there, but I didn’t see it in our demo. What is cool, though, is that you can use your filtered list as a random setlist, so you can select a genre and let the game choose songs for you. This is great for parties, which is what this game is all about.
To further the “great for parties” notion, they have added the ability to jump in and out at any time with any instrument. You can also select your difficulty on the fly without having to back out of the track listing. It’s so obvious of an upgrade that you will wonder why it took them 3 tries to get that in there. Simply put, if you want to get a beer, go get it! Jump back in when you are ready.
Aside from Career mode, they have added a new feature called Road Challenges. These task you with completing a song with certain requirements, like using overdrive a certain amount of times. With so many songs and modes to choose from, it’s hard not to look at this game with the kind of excitement that we all felt when we first laid eyes on Guitar Hero all those years back.
As soon as we get our hands on the full product and take it through the paces, we will give this game a proper review. Until then, don’t be afraid to pre-order this game before reading a review, because based on the preview we got, this is going to be a must-have game for anyone.
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