Getting the Band Back Together... Yet Again

It's been available now for over two weeks, so it's probably well past time that I talk about Rock Band 3. The latest installment of the superior "band simulation" franchise, the game brings a lot of cool new elements to the table.

Harmonies. First introduced last year in The Beatles: Rock Band, the main franchise now also allows up to three singers on songs that have such parts. It's just as much a blast here as it was in Beatles. The average band doesn't tend to have harmonies as sophisticated as those of The Beatles, but the disc has plenty of songs that rise to that level. (Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, Good Vibrations by The Beach Boys, and more.) Plus, even singing a few choice "ooohs" and "aaaahs" in the right song can be pretty fun. Total win here.

Keys. Harmonix has introduced a new instrument to the mix, the keyboard. They've offered a very-well built two-octave keyboard for the job. (You can put a strap on it and rock it keytar style, but I much prefer using a stand.) In the "basic mode," keyboard parts are collapsed down into notes of five different colors, just like the guitar and bass parts. Actually, too much like the guitar and bass parts, in my opinion. I've played this basic keys mode, and I honestly don't find it a worthy addition to the game. I think it's so similar to playing guitar or bass that it doesn't add much. But fortunately, the approach to keys has another level to it...

Pro Mode. The game now offers a new mode for all instruments that's designed to get you away from "simulating" playing music and closer to actually doing it. This is best broken down by instrument, so...

Pro Keys. In Pro Keys mode, you use all two octaves of the keyboard, and the track of notes coming at you makes you actually play the real notes that are being played in the song. If you can play on Expert, this is a one-for-one transcription of the actual keyboard part of the song (though without any left hand part; there's nothing in here that isn't theoretically possible with just one hand, though I'm sure many people will "cheat" and use two).

Now we're talking. Playing in this mode is not easy, even on the lower difficulty settings. Mostly, it's a whole new language to learn, and it's a slow climb. (I remember when learning five-color-note guitar seemed that way too, though.) But the rewards are instant, even on Easy difficulty. You feel like you're experiencing something vastly different from guitar and bass, and you also feel like you're doing something much more related to actually playing music.

Pro Keys won't be for everybody. To play the few songs I can manage on Expert, I've found that I basically have to actually learn the song. Now personally, I think this is cool -- and they've offered some great training modes to help you do this. But I imagine some people will see this more as a chore and less of a game. If you're like me, you don't, and would count Pro Keys a huge win.

Pro Drums. You can now attach up to three cymbals to the standard drum kit for the game, and it will actually show you round... er... symbols (ha!) that must be correctly hit in place of the pads to keep your score/combo going. Again, this is a one-to-one translation on Expert mode. With the exception of the hi-hat pedal (which you'd find on a real drum kit but not in the game), if you can play a song on Expert Pro Drums, you can actually play the song.

This is powerful stuff right here, because it's immediately accessible. Between years of Rock Band drumming and months of playing on my real drum kit, I found the learning curve to get to Pro Drums very shallow indeed. What's more, every past DLC song you may have bought over the past three years is instantly compatible with this new mode (unlike past songs which might have keyboard or harmonies parts in the original recording; the game does not miraculously add those). Basically, instant drums for over 2,000 potential songs. Awesome.

It will get even more awesome in a couple of weeks, when they release a MIDI adapter that will be able to translate information from an electronic drum kit (like mine) into stuff the game can recognize. You'll be able to use a real drum set to play the game. And I fully intend to do so.

Pro Guitar. There's a similar mode that teaches you actual guitar parts on a beastly 102-button controller... that is not yet available for PS3. That's expected in a few weeks too. So no word yet on how that is. I expect that like Pro Keys, it will be sufficiently difficult to deter some people, but the rewards of actually learning real songs will appeal to folks like me.

Other Stuff. Harmonix made a number of great updates to the interface too, such as a vastly superior song selection and filtering system, a much easier way to instantly add or remove instruments on Rock Band party nights, and more. It's easier than ever to use.

But... lest this seem like too gushing a review, I will say that this is also the buggiest product Harmonix has ever released. There's no single issue that sinks the game entirely, but lots of little things do get in the way. There's an intermittent system freeze that happens sometimes while a specific load animation is being played. There's a random audio squelch that happens every now and then if a PS3 user is playing keyboards, that could really damage your home audio system.

There are also a few unfortunate design decisions that almost seem intentionally subpar just to give them something to improve in Rock Band 4. The "All Instrument Mode" that is supposed to allow three Harmonies singers, guitar, bass, drums, and keyboard all in one band at the same time? It doesn't actually score the singers, or report back any information on how much of a song they sang accurately. Nor does it show more than four characters on screen at once; one of the instrument players goes MIA. Harmonix also removed the online competitive play modes from the game entirely, which doesn't bother me one bit, but has some of the "Worship Me, N00B!" crowd in an uproar.

In all, it's just a few minor blemishes on an otherwise great game. Best Rock Band yet. Still loads of fun, and now there are tons of new ways to play it. Big win!