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Rock Band 3 Pro guitar preview: the guitarist vs. the guitar hero
Since our brief glimpses at E3, we've managed to pick up Rock Band 3's new Pro guitars a few times -- both live on the Engadget Show and otherwise -- and have gotten a better feel for how both the Squier Stratocaster (a.k.a. the "real guitar") and Mad Catz's 102-buttoned Fender Mustang replica play. We'll save the in-depth coverage for the final review, but what follows is two separate impressions coming from two different perspectives: one from Ross Miller, a former guitar instructor with 12 years playing experience, and one from Sean Hollister, a Guitar Hero player with no musical background whatsoever. Head on after the break for our full impressions. %Gallery-101752%
Rock Band 3 keyboard hands-on (video)
The internet at large has been joking about it long enough -- "hey, where's Keyboard Hero?" Well, here it is, and it's pretty killer. We're on the fence on how to describe our experience with Rock Band 3's not-a-keytar, because in many ways it's reflective of your own thoughts on the rhythm genre and pianos in general. Those with actual musical backgrounds are likely to scoff at the easy mode's use of five arbitrary keys for the tune -- not the groupings you see above, but a different set of colors, one per white note in the right half, with indicators just above the notes on that crevice between the top panel and keys themselves (picture's after the break). Even if the actual song calls for a F# note, hitting a F or even a B might be called for instead. It's a mentality that's as old as the genre, that what we're really doing is pantomiming instruments -- or in the case of drums, just hitting key notes and letting the game fill in the blanks on lower difficulties. This, however, is an actual piano. The over-simplification is probably a necessary illusion in standard mode -- or even when the keyboard is used as a replacement guitar / bass -- but having actual proper keys will probably drive the more musically apt insane. Then again, if you're not of that mindset, none of this will probably bother you at all, so feel free to ignore our impressions and bang away. Pro mode, on the other hand is pretty killer, for all the reasons that standard mode can be irksome. Even at the simplest levels, you're actually getting to play proper notation. Perfect for us, no matter how badly we flubbed up "Crosstown Traffic" on Expert. Sight-reading is a challenge, but nothing worse than actual notation. As we've seen before, the main lane doesn't show all two octaves, but the warning we're given before shifting to the right or left is easy enough to follow, but just like when you first grabbed the plastic axe, expect a good bit of adjustment frustration. See more pics below, and video after the break. Update: Clarification added to the different color groupings used for Pro and Standard mode. %Gallery-95363%
Rock Band 3 Squier Stratocaster plays both real and virtual guitar... at the same time (video)
As unfair as it is, what initially gave us hesitation about Mad Catz and Squier's Stratocaster Pro guitar controller was that, well, it's Fender's second-tier brand. Despite these prejudices from our youth, Harmonix pretty much sold us on it with one pretty badass trick: the ability to simultaneously play Rock Band 3 on Pro Expert and rock the same tune through an amplifier. Bonus: in the presentation we saw, extra notes and added fills didn't seem to affect score. So, that just about turns the uncanny valley of plastic peripherals on its head. Just make sure you crank your TV's sound system to 11 to not be drowned out from what's likely an even worse screw-up sound. See for yourself in the video after the break (caution: a few naughty words contained within).%Gallery-95362%
Rock Band on iPhone is a hit
Disgruntled TUAW commenters, I'll save you some time: "OMG Mike of course a game powered by EA and one of the most popular franchises of all time is a hit. Try reporting some real news!" But not so fast -- Rock Band, which hit the App Store top 10 and conquered the Top Grossing list just days after its release this week, is actually a more unlikely hit than you think. For one thing, it sold at a price of $9.99 only -- no free versions, no trials, no pricing sales or schemes that have become the rule rather than the exception on the App Store lately. And for another thing, it had a comparable competitor in Tap Tap Revenge 3, selling for just 99 cents. TTR3 is a hit as well -- it's topping the list of paid apps that Rock Band is on -- but many people figured consumers would pass on the $10 app for the 99 cent one, and many people were wrong. In short, even though, yes, Rock Band has EA's power behind it and it's based on an already popular game, it actually has bucked what we've seen so far: prices racing to the bottom, and tough chances of making a hit game, much less a profitable one, at the $9.99 price point. We don't yet know whether the game is profitable (or how either Rock Band's or TTR3's microtransaction models will do in the future), as it's just too soon. But Rock Band is already seen as a game that stands as a shining example of what many were thinking wasn't true: big publishers with big name titles can put out big games at (relatively -- $10 is still cheap when you're talking about Rock Band at large) high price points and see them sell.
