I’ve been playing Rock Band 3 since the day it released and I figure it is time I share my thoughts on it. I’ve only played the keyboard a little but it is fun so far.  I always intend to play it more, but then I start playing guitar/bass and have so much fun that I forget to switch.  I’m going to make a conscious effort to play the keys more now that I’ve finished all the Road Challenges.  The Road Challenges are essentially the single player campaign where you work your way up from local venues to a world tour.  One thing I really liked about the Road Challenges is that instead of making you play a specific set of songs each portion gives you three song sets to pick from. That way you’re not stuck playing songs you don’t like as well. Because of the option to pick which set this is the first “campaign” in a music game where I did not get stuck on a  hard song and get frustrated.

The whole interface for Rock Band 3 has been improved for people like me who have a large song library.  I’m at just over 500 songs and I’ve been having a lot of fun playing through each song and then giving it a rating.  The ratings lets  the game pick songs you like for the random setlists and lets you quickly find songs you like. You also have options to sort the song list by not just the ratings but the genre, length, difficulty, release decade and more.  So, if I’m in the mood for some 80’s Metal or 90’s Rock it will quickly show me just those songs.

I find myself constantly going back to the “My Goals” section to see my progress through completing every song and the other achievements.  I also like that after playing each song it tells me if I did better than my friends or how close my score is to theirs.  The only thing I find a little annoying at times is the “recommended” songs.  Basically when you see a song list it will sometimes show DLC songs that it thinks you would like that you do not already own.  I’d like an option to turn that off and only see the recommendations when I’m in the music store.

For a long time fan of the Rock Band series with a large library of songs Rock Band 3 is a mus have, but for gamers new to the genre it also has the best set of tutorials for learning how to play not just the fake instruments, but real ones in the pro mode as well.