(I played the Rock Band 3 Deluxe edition by Milohax)

Well, It's good! Great selection of songs even on just the base game, but i think the biggest thing here is that while it is building off of everything that makes Rock Band fun, especially with friends/family, it also kinda loses it's style? and that's a big thing for me. Animations aren't quite as good, the cameras and venues aren't really as fun, and it kinda feels more like it's trying to emulate pop instead of, well, a Rock Band. It doesn't help that RB3 doesn't have a traditional "campaign" like getting enough stars to go city to city? granted, in the older games it's not as hard are a focus, because building stars is pretty easy and unlocking venues just kinda happens.
It ended up that I just started to play Rock Band 2 instead and I'm having a much better time, however with the RB3 Deluxe mod there's just so much more of a selection that once I finish RB2's "campaign" I'm just gonna go back to RB3 to play music or, even better, YARG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

With the news that Rock Band support is dying off again I figured it's finally time to write a review of the game that ruined my life in high school!

Rock Band 3 is the most complete music game package and arguably the best party game of all time. RB3 added support for keyboards, 3 part vocal harmonies, and if you're feeling really ambitious, real guitar and bass with lessons! Character customization is the best in the whole series and career mode is a lot more varied than previous rock band games. The song list is huge and has tons of genres if a little weaker than RB2's and there are so many DLC songs and now custom tracks that are easy to install that will keep you playing forever.

I played this game for hundreds of hours when it was new and still bring it out at parties to this day. Last gen instrument controllers can be pricey but it is well worth the investment for customs.

The only real issue I have with 3 is that the introduction of the keyboard is both a plus and minus for the game. splitting off keyboard parts kind of messes with RB3 dlc songs in RB4 and makes some charts less interesting where you can tell that combining keyboard and guitar into one chart like in previous games would have made the song more fun to actually play. I also prefer RB1 and 2's art style to this games' - feels like they sanded all the edges away and the character design is a bit more generic. Totally personal preference but felt it worth a mention.

Will probably never happen but I hope from the bottom of my heart we will eventually get a real Rock Band 5 and not whatever the fortnite thing is doing.

While still a great game in its own right, Rock Band 3 regressed from Rock Band 2 in a few disappointing ways. The content of the career mode was severely trimmed down. I can't put my finger on it, but the visuals felt like they took a bit of a step back too. The background performances lost a bit of that cinematic quality that Rock Band 1 and 2 nailed. 2 really neat additions to this game are the keyboard instrument, and vocal harmonies (up to 3 singers where applicable, for a potential max of 7 players at once!)

The epitome of not just the Rock Band series, but the mainstream appeal of rhythm games in the Western regions. Rock Band 3 felt like the final ounce of creative evolution of the concept that is plastic-rocking with your homies while buzzed at a party. With the inclusion of a keyboard peripheral as well as harmony vocals in a mainline game, this meant you can have up to 7 people in one performance handle different parts of the game! That's kind of amazing.

This was also the first game in the series to have a semblance of a story, and it was surprisingly heartfelt and endearing, especially for one that didn't have any speaking roles. You just get to see the characters you made build a road to stardom from ground level! It was really cute.

There's also the "Pro Guitar" mode to speak of that can actually teach you chords and such for actual songs, but the concept was a bit too soon and ambitious, as it would be something perfected by a different company shortly after with "Rocksmith." Even so, it shows how genuine Harmonix was about providing a gateway for fans to actually learn instruments along with its real MIDI keyboard peripheral, and add-on for drums to more closely emulate actual drumming.

Where Guitar Hero drowned itself with its obnoxious nature, Rock Band managed to bow itself out maturely and sticking to what it did best, going so far as separating itself from EA shortly after release while still maintaining support and DLC for multiple years. I love Rock Band.

This game would be a lost easier to recommend if a large portion of my constant enjoyment wasn't propelled by spending WAY TOO MUCH money on DLC. It's still a really great game without it, but I have the feeling it would wear out its welcome if I were limited only to the 80+ songs on its disc. That's not so bad though. I didn't have to continue playing this game for the rest of time. But that soundtrack is probably the most solid in the Rock Band OR Guitar Hero series. Rock Band 3 is still the pinnacle of instrument-based beat-matching games. Doing away with any required progression, Harmonix just lets you get instantly into playing the game how you want to. But if you do want a treadmill, there's plenty of progress bars, goals, and setlists to tread upon. It's certainly less of a play-through-it-once sort of game because all that stuff is side content. The real meat, the pleasure of manipulating buttons to rhythms and melodies is evergreen. The Rock Band series is the best way to experience this genre and Rock Band 3 offers the best set of features among those games.

Really good Rock Band. A personal favorite because this is the one I extensively played in conventions and other places. I think the setlist is MUCH weaker than 2, hell even compared to 1. But I guess it's to make more space for the piano, which I never played on (despite knowing how to play a piano).

Career mode took a massive hit and is now road challenges, that aren't as fun, because most just end up being "random songs that fit a certain stipulation", "choose songs that fit a certain stipulation" or "here's a few songs that aren't that fun to play on the instrument you're playing" and then you have to play the song but now there's a bonus if you activate Overdrive, or staying in the spotlight (keeping your multiplier at 4x) and it feels weird.

But it's still a solid game and you can't go wrong with this.

Easily the best of the Rock Band games and arguably the best game in the whole plastic guitar genre of rhythm games. This game has the most content and options for any sort of multiplayer outing, considering the fact that there are 5 instruments to play and up to 3 harmonizing vocalists. There are even pro versions of each instrument for those that want a harder/more authentic experience with each instrument type. The Xbox 360 version of the game can also have custom songs be added to the game extremely easily, making this game have basically infinite content. There could have been zero single player campaign and it still would be top-tier. The singleplayer this time around consists of picking various premade or random setlists so you really can just pick whatever songs you want and just earn stuff. That being said, now that I have finished this after marathoning every guitar hero and rock band game from this generation, I think it's time to put the guitar down for a little while.