As a Guitar Hero veteran, the sudden choice of DLC and well-polished game modes blew me straight on the Rock Band wagon.
Graphics: 10/10
Replayability: 10/10
Learning Curve: Vastly varied, experience with real life instruments may help quicken your abilities on the instruments, but ultimately this game will take some getting used to for newer players, expect between 2-3 days to fully work the instruments and be able to play on a difficulty other than Easy.
Pros:
- The layout of this game came as a complete surprise, the little cutscenes during menu navigation, the radically varied animations during gameplay and the sub menu at the bottom are all new to me as a Guitar Hero player.
- The downloadable content is fantastic, being big on Death Metal the sheer volume of songs in the library is phenomenal, and Harmonix are dedicated enough to receive suggestions from players on their website and include them in the game.
- Gameplay is fluid and on the whole a rewarding experience, amazing party game when you have guests around and pretty decent practise for a musician if you intend to use pro instruments.
- Compared to Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock (it's main competitor at this time), there is plenty more fun to be had and a much less tedious career mode. The fan system is a nice touch also, achieving little goals such as a 50 note streak on the drumming pedals gets you some supporters and new gear for customisation. On that note, the customisation of your band is much deeper, the depth of each band member can be absolutely precise if you wish.
Cons:
- I've calibrated many times for delay, but sometimes on a certain part of a song even when you strike the notes as they come at you, being just a few points of a second off makes you fail the entire section, when you miss a note basically you have to be red hot to finish the section well.
- The built-in setlist isn't fantastic, many of the songs are just too awful to want to play, but you are forced to in order to complete career mode and get achievements.
- Those of you with a small budget may wanna look elsewhere, the regular instruments will set you back a good £50 / $70 for the lot (drums and guitar), pro instruments will be the same price as a new Xbox console separately and relying on downloadable content will set you back microsoft points, which you have to pay for.
The Verdict:
This game is without a doubt the best music-based game out there at this time, everything comes together quite nicely in spite of what is possibly my own shortcomings resulting in the loss of my streaks :L Guitar Hero is easier to complete but is ultimately a shallow experience compared to Rock Band 3, but of course there's a price for all this awesome and if money just isn't coming in, I advise you look elsewhere.