Rock Band 3 was released late last month and it made its way into my Xbox for a little jam session. The folks at Harmonix made a lot of changes to their latest Rock Band release. The biggest of these changes are their new the pro series instruments developed in partnership with Mad Catz. The new instruments include a new keyboard, drum set and guitar, of course the old instrument still work as well. The new instruments carry a pretty heavy price tag though, you could end up paying over $300 for the whole set.
The game play has changed quite a bit as well. The game is now built around completing goals, and by completing the goals you gain fans and unlocks goods within the game. Rather than playing gigs to earn money to purchase new in-game items, such as clothing and instruments, the Items in the game are gained by completing the goals.
Working your way through the game has changed from previous editions, you can play it solely to complete the goals or you can go on the road and complete Road Challenges. Completing each goal is as simple as selecting the goal you want to work on, to which you are then taken to the songs that you need to play to complete the goal. Doing Road Challenges is similar to the old Rock Band games, you play a gig in a venue and then move on to the next venue. While playing a gig you get the option to play two pre-set songs or you can pick from a couple of random set lists; each of the set lists contains song from the specified genre or era. I really liked this feature as I got tired of being forced to play random set lists with crummy songs in the previous versions of Rock Band. I enjoyed having a little more control over the songs i was going to be playing. So if I was in the mood to choose a random set list, I was given the option of what style of music I wanted to play.
Something Rock Band started doing with their downloadable content was including the blue and orange buttons on the guitar in easy and medium modes. They did this to make the transition between modes a little easier, but if you hadn"t played any of the DLC you may be caught off guard when playing Rock Band 3. If you"re a seasoned Rock Band player, throwing in the orange button shouldn"t even phase you.
Something I noticed during game play that set me off a little bit was the delay between the time you start the song and the time the name of the song appears. If you choose a random set list, you will notice that you could end up starting to play the song before the name of the song appears on the screen. This is a little annoying as it is distracting to look at it while trying to concentrate on the notes.
Overall though, the game is great, I really like the new format and enjoyed playing most of the new songs. The goals system is a nice addition, and not only do you have the challenge of completing the achievements on the Xbox you also have to complete the goals in the game to gain fans and unlock content. Harmonix did a great job with this release.