Rock Band 3

[elicoleman]

Re: Rock Band 3

I didn't know there was all that much wrong but then again, I've played it once in the last 5 months.

[goh]

Re: Rock Band 3

but obviously RB3 is not selling as well as they hoped. why on earth would they invest the time and effort into making a RB4 at this point?

To make a good game so it'd actually sell.
They seriously couldn't have expected many sales from this. The big push was pro mode but when only 10-20% play on expert as is then obviously shouldn't have many expectations for people playing pro. Especially with the price and some may have been confused by 2 guitars or just waiting for the recent one with actual strings. I'm pretty sure we still don't even have either guitar in Canada yet. The other big push was keys. People don't care about keys.

Then there's awful,awful on disc setlist. How was that supposed to sell? Nearly 30 (maybe even more) of the songs were in other games and what's the big attraction? Freebird that's been in GH three times already and is just a pain to play on anything besides vox? BoRhap which was already in GH and simply not very fun in game? Imagine? Worse than BoRhap. People had expectations. One of the Beatles songs that were left out of that game especially with keys (Hey Jude,Elanor Rigby,Across the Universe etc.),finally time for Zeppelin or Floyd,heck even old GnR,Aerosmith's GH contract was supposed to be up,Michael Jackson,Bob Dylan,AC/DC & Greenday were supposed to have exclusives with RB and they don't use them,all those songs that were suspciously left out of DLC packs or DLC songs from one hit wonders that weren't the one hit...but that's ok! We have Juanes and Poni Hoax!

Then there's basic stuff like not being able to pick where to play anymore,your band jumping around on instruments and the unlock system that just doesn't make any sense. I have to shell out how much and spend how many hours learning pro just to get the same pants I had in RB 2!?!?

It shouldn't have been reviewed well and I don't know why it was. It's a major step back from RB 2 in almost every area.

[Hooe]

Re: Rock Band 3

So is RB3 really messed up? Is that why it's so cheap?

Rock Band 3 has been called the "swan song" of its kind of rhythm gaming. It hasn't sold as well as Harmonix have hoped, thus the discounted price.

Critics have knocked the inability to fully customize certain aspects of your band (i.e. you can no longer assign session musician avatars to specific instruments or assign a personality trait to an avatar) and the change in unlocking character outfits (no longer uses in-game money but various game accomplishments to unlock new clothing pieces, guitars, etc.). People have said things about the online play as well, but I've never played a music game online; I simply don't get the appeal of it (though I do love playing offline multiplayer for obvious reasons).

My personal opinion on the game is that when I played it thoroughly, I loved it; it's just what I expected from the Rock Band games. The mechanics compared to any other music game are, in a word, sublime; I don't think there's a better-playing one out there. That said, the on-disc setlist, while widely varied, I found to be on the whole a bit underwhelming compared to Rock Band and Rock Band 2. There is most definitely something here for everyone, but I sincerely doubt you'll come close to routinely playing even half the songs included in the game proper.

The biggest criticism I have for this game, which isn't really a fault of the game itself as much as it is a fact of life given the complexity of it, is the entry price: to get the most out of this game, you are going to want to also buy either the keyboard controller to play the new keys parts and/or one of the two new Pro guitar controllers to play the Pro guitar/bass parts. On the latter, you'll likely want the more expensive Squier, which doubles as a real electric guitar; I have the Mustang 120 button guitar and, compared to playing a real guitar, my initial impression was that I thought it was a piece of crap and I really haven't used it much since. You'll also want to invest in new downloaded songs too, as not every song on the RB3 disc has keys parts (they all do have Pro Guitar and Pro Bass charts, however), and Pro DLC charts cost extra on top of the standard DLC price of $2 per song.

[Hooe]

Re: Rock Band 3

To make a good game so it'd actually sell.

My personal opinion is that Rock Band 3 represented a shift in focus moreso than a step backwards. IMO to say the game doesn't play well simply isn't fair; the actual gameplay is as good as you will find in the genre. It's a tightened-up version of Rock Band 2, which was loved, and the differences in gameplay between Guitar Hero and Rock Band - to me at least - are quite obvious, and not in GH's favor.

The shift in focus by Harmonix, obviously, was to further bridge the gap between playing toy instruments and playing real ones. To that end, I think they succeeded wildly in terms of what they created. The decline of the rhythm gaming genre didn't help sales, and certainly the higher entrance hardware requirements in order for players to use the new Pro modes didn't help sales either.

The other shift IMO was a more social focus. I think it's clear that Harmonix wanted the game to be a bit more multiplayer-oriented, given the addition of three potential new players in any given song (two harmony tracks, keys track). I'm not sure they succeeded as well in this regard, while there are a number of band-oriented goals that unlock things, there isn't enough incentive to encourage playing single-player over multiplayer. Further, a game must be judged by how well it stands up on its own without multiplayer, IMO, and the little sacrifices that were made to emphasize the multiplayer aspect certainly have nagged at people.

I fully acknowledge the criticism of the on-disc setlist, however. If you only have Rock Band 3 songs, you're not going to be playing this game for a super-long time; you have to have songs from a previous Rock Band game or be willing to front for DLC to extend the life of the game. I think that Harmonix might do well to offer the player an incentive on DLC downloads in the future, like a one-song credit on iTunes / equivalent music service for each song downloaded on Rock Band (or some other similar-nature concession), to encourage more DLC purchases.

[shon]

Re: Rock Band 3

One of the problems of Rockband 3 launch was that the hardware wasn't available. The Squier launched 6 months later and the midi adapters were not available till January. You still can't find Midi adapters for the PS3 so people with existing keyboards or electronic drums feel left out. Madcats really dropped the ball on this one.

They did make some strange decisions on this version though. Why does my DLC have to load every time I start the game shouldn't there be an option that I choose to repopulate my library. Only one band per profile was a another strange decision as well.

[goh]

Re: Rock Band 3

My personal opinion is that Rock Band 3 represented a shift in focus moreso than a step backwards. IMO to say the game doesn't play well simply isn't fair; the actual gameplay is as good as you will find in the genre. It's a tightened-up version of Rock Band 2, which was loved, and the differences in gameplay between Guitar Hero and Rock Band - to me at least - are quite obvious, and not in GH's favor.

The shift in focus by Harmonix, obviously, was to further bridge the gap between playing toy instruments and playing real ones. To that end, I think they succeeded wildly in terms of what they created. The decline of the rhythm gaming genre didn't help sales, and certainly the higher entrance hardware requirements in order for players to use the new Pro modes didn't help sales either.

The other shift IMO was a more social focus. I think it's clear that Harmonix wanted the game to be a bit more multiplayer-oriented, given the addition of three potential new players in any given song (two harmony tracks, keys track). I'm not sure they succeeded as well in this regard, while there are a number of band-oriented goals that unlock things, there isn't enough incentive to encourage playing single-player over multiplayer. Further, a game must be judged by how well it stands up on its own without multiplayer, IMO, and the little sacrifices that were made to emphasize the multiplayer aspect certainly have nagged at people.

I fully acknowledge the criticism of the on-disc setlist, however. If you only have Rock Band 3 songs, you're not going to be playing this game for a super-long time; you have to have songs from a previous Rock Band game or be willing to front for DLC to extend the life of the game. I think that Harmonix might do well to offer the player an incentive on DLC downloads in the future, like a one-song credit on iTunes / equivalent music service for each song downloaded on Rock Band (or some other similar-nature concession), to encourage more DLC purchases.

I said nothing of the gameplay. It's fine. Some charts are bad or like what the heck?! but the base gameplay is still good. My complaints are everything surrounding the gameplay. Character creator and graphics were nice steps but other than that it's just...

I've got 583 songs but that's still no excuse for the on disc list to be poor,especially with the terrible unlock system making you play through them all,likely more than once.

Yes there's online problems too though there were improvements there but those clearly weren't fully thought out either which is the whole problem with this game. It just wasn't fully thought out.

[Hooe]

Re: Rock Band 3

4/12 DLC (X denotes Pro upgrade availability):

• Fleetwood Mac – “Dreams” X
• Fleetwood Mac – “Gold Dust Woman”
• Fleetwood Mac – “Landslide”
• Fleetwood Mac – “Rhiannon”
• Stevie Nicks – “Edge of Seventeen (Just Like the White Winged Dove)” X
• Stevie Nicks – “Stand Back”

This is fine and all but I kinda am waiting for the classic rock kick that RB DLC is on to take a break. The vast majority of stuff that's been released this calendar year so far, and really since the RB3 release, is from the 1980s or earlier.

Which again, is fine, it's good music, but there are plenty of good songs from the 1990s and 2000s they could release yet.

[rspencer86]

Re: Rock Band 3

This is fine and all but I kinda am waiting for the classic rock kick that RB DLC is on to take a break. The vast majority of stuff that's been released this calendar year so far, and really since the RB3 release, is from the 1980s or earlier.

Which again, is fine, it's good music, but there are plenty of good songs from the 1990s and 2000s they could release yet.

I love it, this makes up for the utter lack of classic rock stuff for that long period leading up to the RB3 release.

[elicoleman]

Re: Rock Band 3

I agree, I'm totally cool with all the DLC they've released since RB3 came out.

[goh]

Re: Rock Band 3

There's already more 2000's songs than anything else. I do have a problem with some of the specific song choices though. Fleetwood Mac 6 pack and they left out The Chain?!?!? Really? REALLY?

I'd like to think they're saving it for RB4 but as I recently commented a lot of the stuff "being saved" for RB3 didn't make it.

[elicoleman]

Re: Rock Band 3

There's already more 2000's songs than anything else. I do have a problem with some of the specific song choices though. Fleetwood Mac 6 pack and they left out The Chain?!?!? Really? REALLY?

I'd like to think they're saving it for RB4 but as I recently commented a lot of the stuff "being saved" for RB3 didn't make it.

All six songs were sung by Stevie Nicks.

The Chain...was not.

[goh]

Re: Rock Band 3

Harmonies count!

[shon]

Re: Rock Band 3

I play Pro-drums and I've noticed a lot of the RBN songs aren't mapped correctly for that mode. When I went to the store I saw that a song that had the problem had been updated for RB3 and I downloaded the demo and they had fixed this problem. The only downside is that I've already paid for the song why can't they update the old song chart since Pro Drums was always an option or knock off half of the price.

[goh]

Re: Rock Band 3

Since I managed to get it today I had to buy a few songs and while I was there I had a look at DLC by decade...

50's: 7
60's: 70
70's: 209
80's: 250
90's: 196
00's: 522
10's: 43

So no we really don't need any more 2000's songs considering there's already 2x as much as the next most.

[oneamongthefence]

Re: Rock Band 3

Update 1.04 today. Anybody know what it does.