Rock Band 3
| Rock Band 3 | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Harmonix |
| Publisher(s) | MTV Games |
| Series | Rock Band |
| Platform(s) | Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, Nintendo DS |
| Release | Q4 2010 |
| Genre(s) | Music video game |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
Rock Band 3 is a rhythm video game, and the third main game in the Rock Band series. As with previous games in the series, Rock Band 3 allows players to simulate the playing of rock music and other genres using special instrument controllers mimicking lead and bass guitar, drums, and vocals. Rock Band 3 expands upon previous games by including three-part vocal harmonies, previously used in The Beatles: Rock Band and Green Day: Rock Band, and support for a keyboard instrument; Harmonix will be providing a MIDI-compatible 25-key unit with the game. Rock Band 3 will also feature "pro" modes, utilizing stringed guitar controllers and requiring drumming to strike optional cymbal adapters when indicated. Existing game content will carry forward from previous Rock Band games, with the full Rock Band library expected to be more than 2000 songs by the end of 2010.
Rock Band 3 is expected to ship by the end of 2010 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii consoles; a Nintendo DS version is also being developed.
Gameplay
Rock Band 3 allows for potentially up to seven players: lead guitar, bass guitar, drums, keyboards, and three on vocal harmonies (a feature introduced in The Beatles: Rock Band), to simulate playing music as presented by scrolling notes on screen. Notes that are hit correctly on the respective instruments will score points and improve the performance meter, while missing notes will cause the meter to drop; should a player's meter hit zero, they will drop out of the song until "saved" by another player using "Overdrive"; if the band's meter falls to zero, the song is failed and the group must start again. Overdrive, earned by hitting specific phrases correctly, can also be used to boost the band's multiplier and increase the band's score.
Rock Band 3 adds support similar to Keyboardmania for a keyboard player, including an official 25-key keyboard controller. Players will need to strike notes and chords, marked to specific keys on the display, to score points. The on-screen display only shows approximately 3/5th of the keys at a time but indicators on the track indicate when the track will shift to higher or lower octaves in advance of the shift to allow the full keyboard range to be used.[1]
The game features a more in-depth career mode; players will be able to design more detailed characters, and will appear nearly at all points alongside the narrative, making the game "one story of your band", according to Harmonix senior designer Dan Teasdale. The career mode includes several goals, similar to Xbox 360 Achievements or PlayStation 3 Trophies, to help continue to urge the players to progress in the game. There is also a jump-in/jump-out mode allowing players to join in in the middle of a song and change the difficulty of their instrument. "Road challenges" combine features of the Tour mode of Rock Band and Rock Band 2 with Mario Party concepts, according to Teasdale, and is based on feedback from Rock Band players. Players will have better tools to sort though songs to help manage a song library that is expected to be larger than 2000 songs by the end of 2010.[1]
The game also includes a "Pro" mode, which is aimed to provide a more realistic playing experience by requiring more exacting playing of the instruments. For drummers, an optional 3-cymbal pack needs to be added to the drum kit, and notes on screen will be marked to indicate a cymbal hit instead of a drum hit. New guitars will take advantage of a pro mode that will include the ability to tracking fingering on specific frets either as fret buttons or strings. On screen, numbers alongside notes will indicate which fret button or string the player must hit in the correct color area. Pro mode players will still be able to select difficulty levels; for example, one can play pro mode on the "Easy" difficulty level, which reduces the number of notes to hit, but still would require proper fingering or hitting the correct cymbal.[1] Pro mode players can also play alongside those using the standard method of playing Rock Band instruments.[1]
Instrument controllers
The keyboard controller will be a 25 full-size-key keyboard with MIDI compatibility, allowing it to be used outside the game. The first footage of the controller was shown by USA Today; the prototype controller resembled a keytar with a handle to one side, but players used the controller sitting down with the unit in their lap.[2]
In April 2010, Harmonix and game controller manufacturer Mad Catz entered a multi-year deal to allow Mad Catz to produce and sell its controllers alongside the Rock Band games.[3] Mad Catz will be producing a new guitar controller for the game's Pro mode, where instead of a single colored button, there are a field of frets to be hit, corresponding to guitar strings.[1]
A second guitar controller will be made by Fender in the style of a Stratocaster. The instrument is a true electric guitar, playable outside of the game, but features additional electronics that are able to detect where the player is holding down strings.[1]
All existing Rock Band and other compatible controllers will continue to work for all game modes beyond the Pro mode.[1]
Development
Despite previous success of rhythm games, the genre as a whole saw nearly a 50% drop in revenues in 2009;[2] sales of top-tier titles The Beatles: Rock Band and Guitar Hero 5 were significantly off from initial projections.[4][5] Part of this has been attributed to the late-2000s recession limiting new purchases, but other analysis have speculated that consumers had grown tired of purchasing new iterations of instrument controllers for the same gameplay.[6][7][8] Harmonix, in designing Rock Band 3, sought to capture the playing experience that "really started this whole phenomenon in the first place", according to project director Daniel Sussman.[2] Harmonix's CEO, Alex Rigopulos, stated that "Our ambition for Rock Band 3 was really to re-energize and reinvigorate the (music game) category and advance it and move it forward."[2]
Harmonix included the keyboard controller to help address these goals. The keyboard functionality was "designed basically to answer that staleness factor" that has been seen in music games, as said by Sussman.[1] The team also included the "pro" mode to help invigorate existing players to give them new challenges, aimed at those that "had any aspirations of connecting with the music in a deeper way", according to senior designer Sylvain Dubrofsky.[2] Sussman commented that the combination of existing and new gameplay modes provides "an experience that is both accessible to players who are just getting into this thing, and builds something for the hard-core player who is maybe a little bored with where music games are".[1]
Promotion
Rock Band 3 will be distributed by Electronic Arts after the two companies reached a continued agreement for distribution of the series, which was initially set to expire in March 2010, with the final EA-distributed title to have been Green Day: Rock Band.[9][10]
The first evidence that Rock Band 3 would include keyboards came from a teaser image for the game in the Green Day: Rock Band demo, released in late May 2010; the image showed 5 icons, 4 representing the existing instruments in the game and the fifth showing a keyboard layout.[11]
Soundtrack
The full soundtrack for Rock Band 3 will feature 83 songs, including a mix of tracks that will make use of the new keyboard peripheral.[12] Existing content for other Rock Band games, including on-disc songs and downloadable content, will be playable in Rock Band 3.[1]
