Rock Band 3

[Chen]

So anyone pick this up yet? I'm going to try and grab the disc and keyboard package today. My GF wants the cymbals for the drums too but I think we may wait before getting the Pro mode stuff.

Anyone know though if there's a package that includes the Keyboard, Cymbals and Pro guitar along with the game? Might be worth picking that up to save some cash even if we won't use the pro instrument stuff yet.

[ProZac]

Had my copy for release day delivery from Amazon. I *really* should have looked up more about the keyboard support first. I had thought having game plus any midi keyboard plus any midi to USB adapter meant you're good to go with keyboard. Silly me. I need a special MIDI adapter, and that won't work for all keyboards (though most), and that MIDI adapter isn't out til after thanksgiving, and I'm not even sure if my ancient keyboard is going to work with it (damn you! I bought a stand for it and everything in preparation).

As far as I've seen, the only bundle is Keyboard + game. If you want a "Rock band 3 drumset" you can only buy a pro set that games with the cymbals. I'm not sure if the Pro guitar is even out yet. I know the super fancy MIDI one is not.

I need a new drumset but I can't convince myself to drop the high price on it yet. Mine is a release day set from Guitar Hero: World Tour. It has no intact drumstick clips. The button pad is not mounted on and just kinda rests in place or hangs on by the wire. The drum pedal wire doesn't have the outer casing anymore. The main body has been opened on at least 4 different occasions to adjust the wire connections to the pads so the sensitivity works right. It still flakes out briefly every so often (or at least I'll claim it does. I hit those notes!)

Best new feature: When you pause the game, instead of starting the song right away upon unpause, the note charts roll back about 3 seconds and the game plays the previous few seconds of the song so you have a lead in to get back to the rhythm.
Honorable Mention: Fail a song in quickplay and it gives you the option to "Continue playing". You just start the song where you left off with no fail enabled for you.

[Endless Mike]

I still have RB1 drums that didn't work all that well to begin with. I'm waiting for Beatles Rock Band to drop below $100 again so I can just order that and get new drums and the game and another guitar and mic.

[ProZac]

In the weekend "Play Rock Band with a friend" tradition, I've discovered that there is no Score Duel. In fact, there's no competitive play at all. My friend and I cannot both play on guitar at the same time.

Had I known this pre-purchase, this would have been a deal breaker for me. That's how I played the game 90% of the time.

[Adacore]

That surprises me, ProZac. I didn't see a decent career mode either from a brief glance around - the whole game seems very much geared to co-op Band Quickplay. I've really not looked at the options at all though - we just jumped straight in and started playing some of the new songs.

I'm loving the new filtering/sorting options for the song list, and the ability for players to jump in and out at any time. The UI in general is just a massive improvement over RB2.

EDIT: Played some more yesterday. One very undesirable change we noticed is how progress is tracked and items earned. You can now only have a single band on your account, and progress is linked purely to your account rather than to each band and each character. My housemates and I all have Xbox 360s. We use one of them to play Rock Band - with RB2, this worked great - we could each have our own individual character + band for when we wanted to play on our own or with other friends, gaining our own fans, money and items, then we had a main group band which we'd use if we were all playing together. We could each play through the challenges and tour at our own rate using a single Xbox and a single Live account. This seems completely impossible now RB3 links all that stuff purely to the Xbox Live account.

If we just had RB3, that wouldn't be a big deal - as I said, we've got an Xbox each, we could just play the game seperately on those. But we've also got over 100 downloaded songs, plus all the imported content from RB1, RB2, Lego RB and Green Day RB on that box - at a conservative estimate, over £250 worth of songs. We bought that stuff on the basis that we'd be able to share it using the single Xbox. Not happy.

[Endless Mike]

Yeah, they definitely took a lot of "game" out of the game. I think that makes sense, though, since that's probably how the majority of people play it, and it's clear they spent a lot of time on the Pro modes. Still, the various goals are pretty fun, and the song selection is pretty great. It was also nice that it simply downloaded my RB2 songs rather than copying them from the disc.

[Adacore]

I do agree the 'core' game is a definite improvement. It feels a lot more streamlined, but they seem to have arbitrarily ditched a load of features which wouldn't have been at all hard to include. The pro keyboard is pretty cool (although it is kinda showing up just how out of practice I am on keyboard); it's a real shame the 'proper' 6-string pro guitar won't be out for another few months - I can't wait to get my hands on that.

Is there an option to reset the Band progress, or start a new Band somewhere?

[Chen]

One thing I noticed is that its harder to see when the overdrive meter is ready to go. There doesn't seem to be a flashing indication on it when you're at a half bar of overdrive like it used to in RB2. My GF did end up making her own profile on the Xbox so she could actually advance things on her own character instead of everything only be unlocked in my character. Its odd that if two people are using the same profile (say as Profile_name and Player_X) only the goals achieved by the main player seem to do anything. I mean I played on guitar and my GF on drums, but only guitar goals ever got unlocked until she switched to her own profile.

Some of the song difficulty seems pretty random too. There seems to a very big spread between some songs depending on what instruments you're playing, moreso than RB2 for the most part. Bohemian Rhapsody is pretty absurd on lyrics but pretty easy on Bass or Drums. The song list is pretty good despite the fact I don't really recognize many of the songs. Free Bird brings back memories of Guitar hero 2 (I think). Course back then I was only playing on medium. I tried Free Bird on hard and its pretty tough. I can't imagine how difficult expert or the pro levels will be. Are there any pro guitars out yet? I haven't seen any in the stores around here but I thought the button one (with the 6 strings just at the strumming area) was supposed to be out already.

[Endless Mike]

Nope. The official Pro Guitar isn't out until the 16th according to Amazon.

[ProZac]

I mean I played on guitar and my GF on drums, but only guitar goals ever got unlocked until she switched to her own profile.

I definitely didn't notice this on PS3. I mean, I was logged in main on drums and my friend was getting Guitar goals. I'm not sure I saw any drum ones pop, but I wasn't paying attention. I know it recorded my scores though for viewing in quickplay.

Yeah, they definitely took a lot of "game" out of the game.

Now that you say this, it does seem to be the direction it went. I noticed you can't view previous scores anymore (only stars). They're still saved to leaderboards, but that's a pain in the ass to lookup, and can't be done without being online. Seems like they removed a lot of the features that the 'hardcore players' liked (getting those extra few points, competitive play) in favor of more casual experience. I've heard you can't do bass/guitar/keyboard at once without being in All Instruments Mode, in which you need a vocalist and a drummer. Additionally, in that mode, vocalists do not get scored, which really just make them a token player. I mean, karaoke can be fun, but improvement and scoring is really what drives me to play. As for Score Duel, they could even fix it by letting me import my RB3 tracks into RB2. Don't see that happening though. It's odd they would limit you to one of each instrument wehn Guitar Hero was taking steps in the right direction by saying "Play whatever you want! Four drummers? Done. 3 guitars and a vocalist? Go Ahead."

We could each play through the challenges and tour at our own rate using a single Xbox and a single Live account. This seems completely impossible now RB3 links all that stuff purely to the Xbox Live account.

Yeah, given that situation, I could see how that would be infuriating. Seems like there were a lot of "What were you thinking?!" design decisions. However, at the same time, there's a lot that is just more smooth than previous releases. Reminds me of Modern Warfare 2, in that I enjoy the game, but there are certain things I know are just going to piss me off and end up with me not playing it.

[Adacore]

I noticed you can't view previous scores anymore (only stars). They're still saved to leaderboards, but that's a pain in the ass to lookup, and can't be done without being online.

I can see scores if I stay on a song for a few seconds - the panel where it shows you the difficulty on all the instruments fades between that and a 'Friend Rankings' display, which I think shows your score.

[rrwoods]

Just got my SQUIER BY FENDER STRATOCASTER GUITAR AND CONTROLLER yesterday. This instrument makes me happier than anything has ever made me. Ever.

Okay not really, but it is more awesome than any other video game peripheral, and also more awesome than any other music education tool (when combined with the game).

Pro Guitar has all four difficulties, so even if you're completely new at everything guitar-related or music-game-related or both, you can jump in on easy and be playing stuff. Obviously it's not going to be nearly everything, but it still introduces pick control and fretting technique right off the bat. Once you step into medium you are playing a half-decent representation of the song without the challenge being over-the-top.

The guitar itself is pretty decent too. $320 (once you factor in the price of the MIDI Pro-Adapter required to play the game) gets you an instrument that sounds decent through an amp, has MIDI out, and plays a video game. It's a solid price, one that's comparable to similar guitars that do much less.

[rrwoods]

AAAAHHHHHHSJAKDL;JSADKLFHJSGLK

AAAAHHHHHH

[Sandry]

AAAAHHHHHH

Is that really going to happen? Because that's bloody amazing. O_O

[el_loco_avs]

electro-lute totally threw me off. *shakes fist at mod madness*