PAX Prime 2010 – Rock Band 3: Hands-on Impressions

Rock Band 3 seems to be the game to push the music game genre forward. With new instruments and even more songs to play, it seems to want to refine rather than redefine a genre. I was able to get some play time with Rock Band 3 at PAX to see if that held true. Being primarily a multiplayer demo, the song chosen by my other temporary bandmates was Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” one of the new additions to the set list. I played guitar on the song, which may or may not have been a bit of a mistake.

The game plays just like you imagine, the music game formula established years ago. The two newest elements of the game are a new instrument in keyboards.  I didn’t get hands on with these, but I was able to see them played while I was on stage. Just like any new addition to this genre, they seem like they have a bit of a steep learning curve, but once you’ve got your hands and brain wrapped around it, it makes sense. The other addition is a Pro mode, with new guitars to go along with it. No one in my group played with this mode on, so I wasn’t able to see how it worked, but it seems like the next step between playing Expert mode on Rock Band and playing actual guitar.

The only problem I had was that it’s essentially more of the same. Granted, if you regularly throw Rock Band parties all the time, this is actually great news, as you’re essentially getting even more songs for a cheaper price than buying a bunch of DLC. And if you decide to pick up the keyboard peripheral, then another person can jump into the fun. However, if you’re more of a casual Rock Band player or you’re not interested in picking up any more plastic instruments for your living room, the game looks just like its predecessors. It all depends on what you’re looking for in a Rock Band game at this point in the music genre.

The reason playing guitar was a mistake was because “Bohemian Rhapsody,” aside from one fantastic guitar solo, is largely devoid of guitar notes. In previous games, the keyboard parts of songs would be played on the guitar if it was free, but now that those parts have shifted over to another instrument, some songs are even drier to play. It didn’t sour my anticipation of the game, but it’s worth noting that some songs are going to have large parts of it with some of your bandmates standing around doing nothing. An unfortunate side effect of the expansion of the instrument palette for the game.

Rock Band 3 is still shaping up to be the leader of the music game genre for years to come. The only problem is that the genre seems to be losing people every year. Is this still a relevant genre? Most definitely. Is it one you want to still play? That’s up to you. Personally, given my lack of interest in the genre since last year and with some songs having minutes where you play nothing, I might be done. We’ll see if Rock Band 3 can convince me otherwise when it releases later this fall.

Rock Band 3 releases for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS on October 26th, published by Electronic Arts and MTV Games and developed by Harmonix.