1-2-3-4-5 Against One

Recently, my local EB had a two for one deal going so I saw it as an excuse to snap up both Rock Band 3 and Red Dead Redemption. Not bad eh?

Being a fan of Rock Band, I've been impressed with the latest incarnation insofar. Sure the excitement over music games is kinda dying down quite significantly but I like the Rock Band series. Aside it it being fun to play, I've always been impressed how each incarnation is an improvement over the last and how innovations tested in one incarnation can turn up in the next. Also pleasing is how DLC previously downloaded can be carried over into the latest incarnation, enabling the game to be continually played.

So how does RB3 stack up? Well it's great: I particularly like how progress is measured out in various tours, scoring XBLA Achievements leads to clothes and instruments being unlocked and the astonishing level of user friendliness. There is diversity indeed with the set list (not to mention some oddities) but RB is still as much fun as it's always been.

However, there are some things on a graphical/cosmetic level that bother me:

- Why is there still only four members in the Rock Band itself? This may sound quite strange but I figured the introduction of a new instrument, the keyboard, would've open up a new position for this fictional band.
As strange as it may seem, I wanted a fifth member. My band has five people in it and the box art certainly suggested a five-man band:



- Why can't my lead singer play an instrument as well? I heard this was going to be an inclusion with RB3 but it appears to be absent in the finished product. Damn....

- Being a complete nerd, I did indeed go to the effort of replicating the members of Demon Flower in RB3. It may seem daft but why not? They are my characters that I myself created and, much like Commander Shepard, it's indeed fun to see them go from RB2 into RB3 and build a history of their own along the way.
Strangely though, the character models in RB3 look....weird. Sure it may have been Harmonix's intention to implement a more realistic looking range of character models but to rebuild Spike, Sam, Robin, Evan and Jasmine makes them now look.... strange. True the RB3 model makes the members of Demon Flower look older and experienced but compared to the delightfully cartoonish models in RB2, it looks .....somewhat jarring.

Still, I should be grateful that I am playing RB3 - after all, down here in Australia RB1 was delayed by a full year and RB2 was never released AT ALL.
Be thankful for what I've got? Yes I think I will