Rock Band 3

truly the MGS5 of rhythm games ... amazing core and engine but generally rushed and incomplete in areas. by far the worst career mode to date out of all the rock bands, shockingly long, to get the final set you need to grind out in-game challenges, the in-song challenges are annoying as hell and force you to min-max instead of having fun, just stupid. not needed to beat since all songs are unlocked, but its how you unlock cosmetics

other than that, mods make this game the best rhythm game ever for me. literally download any chart you can think of , or make it. at the current time, C3 database has 25,000 tracks for download, really impressive stuff.

visually a giant improvement, amazing new features, great party play with the ability to change difficulty mid song and drop in and out mid song, etc etc. overall, it fixes everything 1 & 2 were bad with and is always fun to have a session in

just stay away from the career, frustrating and very obviously rushed and unfinished

I can't express how much I love this game, it is one of the most personal and memorable games for me and even if people don't consider this the best Rock Band, it will always hold a close place to me and bring back the most memories.

So here's the backstory, I just finished my Freshman year of college, and I was just starting to get into rock music during this time, I was starting to listen to bands like the Beatles, Doors, Pink Floyd, and well I heard of Rock Band before, actually my bother and sister had Guitar Hero III when I was younger, although I just was never into it because it seemed kind of lame playing a fake plastic instrument and it was essentially just tapping buttons to the rhythm of a song. But then Rock Band 3 came out and introduced pro keyboard where you could play real keyboard, and as a keyboard player, it caught my interest although, I was busy during my Freshman year of college so really didn't bother checking it out, plus the cost of the game seemed like it would be too much.

So during that Summer between my Freshman and Sophomore year I finally caved in and bought the game with a pro keyboard and I was pretty instantly hooked. It was so fun to play along to these songs and not long after I ended up buying more instruments, I bought 2 microphones, a guitar, and even the drums eventually. I had an old car from high school that I didn't drive anymore that I ended up selling that year and I used that money to just buy a shit ton of DLC songs, I probably bought 100s of songs for that game that Summer. I remember my parents even getting into the game, they'd sing along to their favorite songs and during some of the Summer parties we'd get their friends and family to sing in the game too.

Well, eventually Summer ended and I was ready to go back to college my Sophomore year of college and I brought all my instruments with, and the day after I got back to college I brought the game down to the lobby of my dorm with the instruments and random people decided to join and play along with me, and well, that' show I met some of my best friends who would remain my friends through the rest of college and many who I still talk to today. They lived in the same dorm as me and we ended up hanging out regularly and playing Rock Band 3 in the dorm's lobby an almost daily basis. We even met a few more people through that who would join us who we'd grow acquaintances with, and we'd have our whole friend group joining in this gaming singing, drums, and guitar with me only keyboards.

Almost every week me and my friend would look through DLC and buy new songs on a weekly basis. Plus there would be new DLC songs that would come every week. I remember when Coldplay first came to Rock Band and my friend and I waited for the DLC since PSN was delayed to update the store that day so we played Resident Evil 4 in my room while we waited, plus when Rush came which my friend's favorite band and we had to play in another friend's room because the lobby had some Christmas event going on. I just have so many memories my Sophomore year of bringing Rock Band 3 down to my dorms lobby and putting so many hours on a almost daily basis, and the experience of all the new songs we bought. We had to have had over 1000 songs in the game by the end of my Sophomore year. Plus when we got more of our friends to join and on weekend nights.

Then during my Junior year when I had my own apartment my friend would come over sometimes to play Rock Band with me and we kept some of the instruments at his dorm for when I'd visit, and we'd still occasionally bring the game down to the lobby to play or in his room since he had a roommate with a TV that year. Sure we didn't play Rock Band as much during that year, but we still played it roughly once a week. Then I remember near the end of my Junior year Rock Band ended its DLC and the experience of new songs coming to the game was over, although my wallet probably was grateful. After Junior year, we didn't play Rock Band much during my Senior year because my other friends had game night where we played other games and some of them weren't really into Rock Band. But we still would play it and enjoy it when we could.

But then the sad thing happened, I graduated college, ended up throwing the drums away while I was cleaning my apartment out to move back home because they were so worn out. Both the microphones were also pretty destroyed so I eventually threw those out too. I probably played Rock Band 3 a total of 3 or 4 times in the 4 years since I graduated college, without friends it just isn't the same and my friends don't live close enough and I don't want to lug all the instruments when I do visit them because my other friends aren't really into Rock Band and I feel it wouldn't be worth it to bring all that just to play 1 hour at most.

But Rock Band 3 just brings back so many good memories of my Sophomore year in college where we'd constantly be buying new songs and playing tons of music, we even bought songs on the Rock Band Network that were by essentially no name bands. My friend really was into progressive metal and rock so we'd play a lot of Between the Buried and Me, Rush, and Yes, plus there was a song in this game called Ship with No Sails by a band called Neonfly that I really enjoyed playing with him and I remember the day we first bought that and played it was a nice day in the middle of September and it just takes me back. Plus we played a good amount of this band called Andromeda and there was this other band called Chaotrope who made almost impossible progressive metal.

Either way Rock Band 3 might not have had as strong songs out of the box, when I first got the game I mainly just played the campaign to unlock goals and was forced to play the 50 or so songs on Disc and most of them were kind of forgettable, but with the DLC plus with the imports of the first 2 games, this really is the essential Rock Band. Sure the career mode in this might not be as good, but it just has the most songs and variety, and even with the failed pro guitar, it was really fun to plays keys in this. I know this is sort of the game that killed Rock Band for a while, but at the same time, its the one that got me into the game and if it weren't for Rock Band 3 I probably wouldn't have met a majority of my friends I had the rest of college and also might never even have joined RYM since he was the one who introduced me to the site and also got me more into progressive music. Rock Band 3 turned from just being a Summer curiosity to kill time during my break to being a bonding experience with my college friends and playing along to some fun music. Its just a shame that after my Sophomore year we couldn't play it as much due to living in different buildings and now Rock Band along with the keyboard just collect dust only to remind me of an of a different time in my life.

At launch, Rock Band 3 was a buggy and disappointing mess, with a disc soundtrack that varied wildly in quality (and launch DLC that, peculiarly, did not) and a couple of great new additions but some experimental ones that would fundamentally alter the classic gameplay in a way not conducive to most players' habits. Patchwork would eventually bring the true vision of the game to life, with an overshell and setlist set-up that would bring every instrument together as part of the experience rather than siloed off chunks of the game. This goes in well with keys, a grand addition to the rockstar fantasy that rides the best line between simulation and arcade gameplay that would unfortunately fragment the library in a way that, thanks to HMX, it will never recover from.

Harmonies were a natural but welcome addition; however, Pro Guitar always felt fundamentally stunted due to its being forced to kowtow to the general RB interface. Rocksmith would come along and show greater correlation between fretboard and TV, whereas RB3 Pro Guitar's interface is filled with vague guessing games of shapes and numbers not correlating to natural assumptions made about playing the guitar. The feature was quickly superceded and I was not sad to see it go.

But otherwise, shabby as it feels at times, it still feels like the road would always lead to RB3; the most feature-complete, the most easy to use with multiplayer, the one that presents the biggest connection between gameplay and art. I would have accepted some games holding less features if they were more technically efficient to compensate, as is the case with RB2 to make it arguably an equal game, but knowing what we know now about the series, this was easily its artistic peak.

There’s a reason people don’t learn instruments after entering adulthood: it’s frustrating. Hitting dead notes, forgetting chords and picking the wrong string creates a sort of self-loathing that few can ignore and overcome. The announcement of Pro Mode for Rock Band 3 made many non-musically gifted, music lovers giddy, because it lets players learn songs note-by-note on advanced instruments (25-key keyboard, a 17-fret/102 button guitar, or a drum kit with additional cymbals). None of this would matter if it didn’t work, but Harmonix Music Systems has crafted the most polished software and hardware to meet the rhythm music genre yet.

The hardware is where the real investment is being made in this package, going as high as $300 on release, Pro Guitar and keyboard – this isn’t even mentioning the yet-to-be-released Fender Mustang guitar. However, the Pro Guitar and Keyboard have Midi output which should make you feel a little less guilty about your investment. The Pro Guitar’s 102 buttons seems robust but all it takes is one broken button to sour the entire experience. After sliding down the neck and hammering notes for hours, your fingers will be taking a lot more damage than the instruments.

Nothing has gone overlooked in the game’s presentation and design. Everything from creating your dream rock outfit, learning a song you love section-by-section (including indicated finger placement) and a great soundtrack (from The White Stripes to The Smiths) makes Rock Band 3 one of the best experiences you’ll have with games last generation. Even setting up and switching controllers/instruments has become a breeze in this iteration.

Learning guitar in Rock Band 3 is much like losing weight in Wii Fit Plus. It’s not an exact replica of physically doing the act away from the TV, but it makes something so intimidating into something immediately fun and rewarding.