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by Kevin Gaussoin, Editor-in-Chief

Rock Band 3 is available now at Amazon in the following packages:
Xbox 360, Xbox 360 keyboard bundle
PS3, PS3 keyboard bundle
Wii, Wii keyboard bundle

Since its previous regular release, Rock Band 2, the Rock Band franchise has once again raised the bar. With The Beatles, vocal harmonizing  was introduced, and now the franchise that took rhythm games beyond just guitars to rocking your down your house with a full band, Rock Band has now substantively elevated the genre into something else entirely by introducing the new Pro Mode.

Simultaneously released with the Rock Band 3 game itself, Mad Catz released a brand new type of controller to take advantage of Pro mode: a two-octave midi keytar (keyboard that is also wearable like a guitar) that also connects wirelessly to your console. With this addition, we can now play Rock Band 3 with a guitarist, a bassist, a drummer, a keyboardist, and up to three harmonizing vocalists, making it possible for up to seven people to rock your house simultaneously.

Songs

As usual, Rock Band 3 does not dissapoint with its extensive list of big hits and smattering of obscure gems. Check out this new lineup:

1. Amy Winehouse – “Rehab”
2. Antrax – “Caught in a Mosh”
3. At The Drive-In – “One Armed Scissor”
4. Avenged Sevenfold – “Beast And The Harlot”
5. The B-52s – “Rock Lobster”
6. The Beach Boys – “Good Vibrations” (Live)
7. Big Country – “In a Big Country”
8. Blondie – “Heart of Glass”
9. Bob Marley & The Wailers – “Get Up, Stand Up”
10. The Bronx – “False Alarm”
11. Chicago – “25 or 6 to 4”
12. The Cure – “Just Like Heaven”
13. David Bowie – “Space Oddity”
14. Deep Purple – “Smoke on the Water”
15. Def Leppard – “Foolin'”
16. Divo – “Whip It”
17. Dio – “Rainbow in the Dark”
18. Dire Straights – “Walk of Life”
19. The Doobie Brothers – “China Grove”
20. The Doors – “Break On Through (To the Other Side)”
21. Dover – “King George”
22. Echo & the Bunnymen – “The Killing Moon”
23. Elton John – “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting”
24. Faith No More – “Midlife Crisis”
25. Filter – “Hey Man, Nice Shot”
26. The Flaming Lips – “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1”
27. Foreigner – “Cold as Ice”
28. Golden Earring – “Radar Love”
29. HIM – “Killing Loneliness”
30. Huey Lewis and the News – “The Power of Love”
31. Hypernova – “Viva La Resistance”
32. Ida Maria – “Oh My God”
33. INXS – “Need You Tonight”
34. The J. Geils Band – “Centerfold”
35. James Brown – “I Got You (I Feel Good)”
36. Jane’s Addiction – “Been Caught Stealing”
37. The Jimi Hendrix Experience ˆ”Crosstown Traffic”
38. Joan Jett and the Blackhearts – “I Love Rock ‘n Roll”
39. John Lennon – “Imagine”
40. Juanes – “Me Enamora”
41. Lynyrd Skynyrd – “Free Bird”
42. Maná – “Oye Mi Amor”
43. Marilyn Manson – “The Beautiful People”
44. Metric – “Combat Baby”
45. The Muffs – “Outer Space”
46. Night Ranger – “Sister Christian”
47. Ozzy Osbourne – “Crazy Train”
48. Paramore – “Misery Business”
49. Phish – “Llama”
50. Phoenix – “Lasso”
51. The Police – “Don’t Stand So Close to Me”
52. Poni Hoax – “Antibodies”
53. Pretty Girls Make Graves – “Something Bigger, Something Brighter”
54. Primus – “Jerry Was a Race Car Driver”
55. Queen – “Bohemian Rhapsody”
56. Queens of the Stone Age – “No One Knows”
57. Rammstein – “Du Hast”
58. Ramones – “I Wanna Be Sedated”
59. Raveonettes – “Last Dance”
60. Rilo Kiley – “Portions for Foxes”
61. Riverboat Gamblers – “Don’t Bury Me… I’m Still Not Dead”
62. Roxette – “The Look”
63. Slipknot – “Before I Forget”
64. Smash Mouth – “Walkin’ on the Sun”
65. The Smiths – “Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before”
66. The Sounds – “Living in America”
67. Spacehog – “In the Meantime”
68. Steve Miller Band – “Fly Like an Eagle”
69. Stone Temple Pilots – “Plush”
70. Swingin’ Utters – “This Bastard’s Life”
71. T. Rex – “20th Century Boy”
72. Tears for Fears – “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”
73. Tegan and Sara – “The Con”
74. Them Crooked Vultures – “Dead End Friends”
75. Tokio Hotel – “Humanoid”
76. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers – “I Need to Know”
77. The Vines – “Get Free”
78. War – “Low Rider”
79. Warren Zevon – “Werewolves of London”
80. The White Stripes – “The Hardest Button to Button”
81. Whitesnake – “Here I Go Again”
82. The Who – “I Can See for Miles”
83. Yes – “Roundabout”

Gameplay

Rock Band 3 regular (non-Pro) mode makes it easy for us to rock out with our controllers out as we pretend to play electric or bass guitar, drums, keyboard, or as we sing along trying to mimick the original vocalist’s pitch.

The gameplay in Rock Band 3 can be what you want it to be. Do you want to play in career mode, experiencing the meteoric rise of your band to super-stardom, or would you rather just jump in and start playing? With Career Mode, you can seek to achieve over 700 goals, so the accomplishments-hoarders among you will be very satisfied. With the inclusion of party mode, this means your friends can join or leave in the middle of a song with no penalties to your fun.

Ever since Rock Band first debuted the ability to play as a full four-piece band, the best Rock Band experience has been to get as many players as you can to join you in front of your TV and rock the house down together. That still holds true, but what if you don’t have friends over? You can still join up with friends or strangers online. It’s all pretty painless, but I still find rocking with friends in person far easier than playing with unseen rockers.

At release, all the DLC you’ve purchased for previous Rock Band games is available to you with Rock Band 3, and you can also download any existing or new DLC songs, sets or albums for use with this game. As in previous versions, you can import songs from previous versions including Rock Band, Rock Band 2, Lego Rock Band, and various track packs. Sorry, if their long-standing stubbornness with Apple Computer is any indication, Rock Band: The Beatles tracks may not be available for import into another Rock Band game for another thirty years or so.

Graphics/Video

Since Rock Band first debuted, it has advantage of consoles’ advanced graphics to deliver excellent eye candy that we’ve tried to ignore during the tough parts of a song. Rock Band 3 brings their current style of high def 1080p graphics and very exact mapping and execution of each character, and whether they’re playing any of the  instruments or singing, or just hanging out in a cutscene, Rock Band 3 extends the cinematic glory to take advantage of this and convincingly bring our characters to life.

Audio/Sound Effects

This is a music game, this is one of *the* music games, so of course all the sound is as perfect as can be expected on the equipment you’re playing it through. If there are any errors or noise, it’s your equipment (or maybe the original recording artist?). Expect to love every minute of it. If you’re not blown away, try replacing your sound system.

Hardware

After Rock Band and Rock Band 2, I was very surprised that I couldn’t walk into a store and buy the whole setup in one box, but Rock Band 3 is not commercially available as a full band set. You can buy the game with or without the keytar, but if you want the Pro Drums or Pro Guitar, or any instruments pro or not, you’re going to have to buy them separately. This was disappointing for me, as I wanted another guitar, and I thought replacing my original Rock Band drum set would be a good idea as well. No luck on a combo price (but the nice clerk at my local GameStop did let me trade in my plain Rock Band 3 game toward a keyboard bundle).

The Rock Band 3 keyboard is great, whether you’re wearing it as a keytar or playing it on a TV tray or your lap. The keys are comfortable and velocity-sensitive. As an instrument, it’s very easy to use in standard mode, but if you want to venture into pro mode, maybe you should take piano lessons. …Oh wait, you can take the included training right in the game. You know how kids learning the piano spend hours practicing scales? Yeah, it’s every bit as simultaneously tedious and awesome as that. Imagine not having to walk to a piano teacher’s house and spend hours hating the fact that you have to be there. Imagine making a game of it instead. I think Rock Band 3 Pro Mode training is going to bring a lot more kids into becoming great musicians.

One thing that is on the horizon for Rock Band 3 Pro Mode is the REAL Pro Guitar. You can buy *a* Pro Guitar now, and while it is a midi device and seems like it would be a good intermediate device between classic rhythm game guitar controllers and a real guitar, it’s still not a real guitar. Fender is making a real guitar controller that will be available in April. We will finally be able to learn to play guitar via video game. Put your flying car on auto-park, cause this is the future!

Overall

Rock Band 3 falls short for me in a couple of areas:

• All Instrument Mode (AIM) is very disappointing for those of us who want to play in a big group, but also want to play as our own characters. As a frequent vocalist, I’m not happy that vocals take a back seat in this mode, and while you can sing, it’s more like no-fail kareoke than actually playing the game. You also can’t be on Xbox Live in this mode.
• Creating your character is easy, detailed, and fun until you get to the wardrobe part and then you think you don’t have choices beyond the 10 or so initial outfits you’re offered. What the character generator doesn’t tell you is that you have to go into an entirely different menu to fine-tune the dress of your character.
• Vocalist percussion is still annoying. I want to take a drink during a vocal break, not play cowbell against my chest.

Rock Band 3 is the next big thing in music games. Notice that I didn’t say rhythm games. Rock Band 3 is also a rhythm game, but it has finally bridged the gap between pretending to play music, and actually playing music. Rock Band 3 promotes learning to master hit songs in a game setting where a bunch of your friends can join in at any time with any skill level and have a great time with you. Rock Band 3 makes each and every one of us a rock star in our own homes.

ComicsOnline gives Rock Band 3 4.5 out of 5 Pro Instruments

Rock Band 3 is available now at Amazon in the following packages:
Xbox 360, Xbox 360 keyboard bundle
PS3, PS3 keyboard bundle
Wii, Wii keyboard bundle

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