Rock Band Blitz FAQ Version 1.1 By chessjerk (John Kearsley IV) Created - January 22, 2013 Updated - January 25, 2013 Questions? Comments? Contact me: chessjerk@msn.com Like my FAQ's? Feeling generous? Send me a donation via PayPal at the same email address. My daughter's future education will be expensive. :) =============================================================================== Welcome to my Rock Band Blitz FAQ. This companion game to the Rock Band series of games allows for a unique way to play all of your favorite songs available in Rock Band. Enjoy! =============================================================================== Table of Contents: =============================================================================== I. Menus i. Play ii. Leaderboards iii. Achievements a. Tutorial Achievements b. Gameplay Achievements c. Power up Achievements d. Longevity Achievements iv. Help & Options a. Tutorials b. Controls c. Calibration d. Audio/Video e. Rock Band World f. Credits v. Download Content vi. Exit Game II. Selecting Songs i. Recommended ii. Your Songs iii. Music Store iv. Messages III. List of Songs IV. Power ups i. Overdrive Power ups ii. Note Power ups iii. Track Power ups V. Gameplay VI. Strategies VII. Credits/Disclaimer VIII. Version History =============================================================================== I. Menus =============================================================================== On the title screen, the following options are available: Play Leaderboards Achievements Help & Options Download Content Exit Game =============================================================================== i. Play =============================================================================== To begin playing, select Play. I know, easy, right? However, it is recommended to not just dive in to the game, so this section will be covered after the other sections. =============================================================================== ii. Leaderboards =============================================================================== Unlike in other games in the Rock Band series, this is a single-player game only. To increase competition among players, the game does keep track of your results. Compare your results to the results of others in this section. Check your total score, the overall top scores, and your place on the list of high scores. =============================================================================== iii. Achievements =============================================================================== As with all other Xbox games, there are Achievements to earn as you play. There are 32 separate Achievements worth a total of 500 Gamerscore. I have sorted them by type into the following categories: Tutorials: Achievements earned before starting the game proper Gameplay: Achievements earned in a single song Power ups: Achievements earned through optimal use of power ups Longevity: Achievements earned over time in various categories of gameplay =============================================================================== a. Tutorial Achievements =============================================================================== Calibrate Good Times 5G Calibrated your system for the optimal Rock Band Blitz experience Self-Taught 15G Completed both Tutorials =============================================================================== b. Gameplay Achievements =============================================================================== Blitz and Giggles 10G Stayed in Blitz Mode for at least 30 seconds in a single song Good as Gold 15G Earned Gold stars on a song Never Better 5G Replayed a song and beat your previous high score Perfect Finish 10G Finished a song with all tracks at the Level Cap Shredder 10G Played 100% of the notes in a Guitar solo Three for the Taking 10G Increased the Level Cap by 3X at 3 Checkpoints in a single song This Means War 5G Challenged someone to a Score War =============================================================================== c. Power up Achievements =============================================================================== All the Rage 10G Cleared 25 notes with Road Rage in a single song Get Back Here 10G Caught 5 Runaway Notes in a single song Having a Blast 10G Cleared 10 notes with a single Blast Note High Roller 10G Earned at least 10,000 points with a single use of Jackpot Pinball Whiz 10G Kept the Pinball in play for at least 20 seconds Pyromaniac 10G Played a chain of 10 Flame Notes Rocket Scientist 10G Cleared 20 notes with a single Bottle Rocket Shock and Awesome 10G Earned at least 10,000 points with a single use of Shockwave =============================================================================== d. Longevity Achievements =============================================================================== Big Spender 20G Spent 10,000 coins Blitzed Out 30G Played every song included with Rock Band Blitz Consummate Collector 20G Play at least 150 unique songs Decade Decadence 10G Play at least 50 unique songs from the same decade Extra Credit 50G Get your Blitz Cred up to at least 10,000 Genre Diehard 10G Play at least 50 unique songs in the same genre Greatest Hits 20G Played at least 50 unique songs Incredible 25G Got your Blitz Cred up to at least 1,000 Loyal Fan 10G Played at least 10 unique songs by the same artist More Power to You 30G Unlocked every Power-up in Rock Band Blitz Music Historian 10G Played a song from every decade since the '50s Party at Your Place 20G Play at least 300 unique songs Precious Medal 30G Earn Gold stars on every song included with Rock Band Blitz Stellar Performance 30G Earn 5 Stars on every song included with Rock Band Blitz That Dozen Count 20G Played 12 of the songs included with Rock Band Blitz =============================================================================== iv. Help & Options =============================================================================== The Help & Options menu contains the tutorials, different control options, calibration features, audio and video options, links to the Rock Band Blitz Facebook page and the credits. =============================================================================== a. Tutorials =============================================================================== The tutorials come in two parts: Basic Tutorial - Learn the basics of the game, including how to increase scoring multipliers, how to switch tracks, and how to boost levels. Advanced Tutorial - Learn more advanced concepts such as the use of overdrive and power ups. =============================================================================== b. Controls =============================================================================== In the Controls menus, there are four different controller setups to choose from as follows: Default Left note - left stick/d pad Right note - right stick/a (green) Track left - left triggers Track right - right triggers Power up - x (blue) Freakish Left note - left triggers Right note - right triggers Track left - left stick/left on d pad Track right - right stick/right on d pad Power up - x (blue) Shoulders Left note - left front trigger Right note - right front trigger Track left - left back trigger Track right - right back trigger Power up - x (blue) Typewriter Left note - a (green) Right note - b (red) Track left - left on left stick/left on d pad Track right - right on left stick/right on d pad Power up - x (blue) =============================================================================== c. Calibration =============================================================================== In the Calibration menu, there are two options for calibration (similar to the Rock Band games): Calibration Wizard - Use timed button presses to determine lag Calibrate Manually - Use if you already have gone through calibration and know what audio and video offset amounts to use (mine are 155 audio/29 video) =============================================================================== d. Audio/Video =============================================================================== In the Audio/Video menu, you can alter various audio and video aspects of the game, including: Overscan Active Track Boost Sound Effects Volume Bass Boost =============================================================================== e. Rock Band World =============================================================================== In the Rock Bank World Link menu, you can link to Facebook for new ways to play and earn coins to purchase power ups. =============================================================================== f. Credits =============================================================================== To view the credits, select the Credits option. They are about 2 minutes long. =============================================================================== v. Download Content =============================================================================== This option is similar to the Music Store in the Rock Band series of games. Here is where you can download additional songs for gameplay. As a note, all songs available to be played in Rock Band 3 are also playable in Rock Band Blitz, and vice versa. So, if you feel more comfortable downloading songs from Rock Band 3, you will not be missing anything by doing it that way, since there are no Rock Band Blitz-only songs. =============================================================================== vi. Exit Game =============================================================================== When done playing, select Exit Game to return to the Xbox Dashboard. =============================================================================== II. Selecting Songs =============================================================================== Select Play from the main menu to begin playing. This brings up a new set of options: =============================================================================== i. Recommended =============================================================================== This section can vary every time you start playing. Sometimes it will recommend songs to play from your current list of songs, sometimes it will recommend songs that you do not current have, other times it will ask you to enter a "score war" with one of your friends (see the "This Means War" achievement listed above). =============================================================================== ii. Your songs =============================================================================== This is a comprehensive list of all songs to which you have access. You can play a random song from all available songs by selecting the first option ("Random Song"). After that, you can change the sorting of the songs by the following methods: Artist (alphabetically) Title (alphabetically) Difficulty (zero dots to five devil dots) Stars (zero stars to gold stars) Source (Green Day: Rock Band, Lego Rock Band, Rock Band 1, pre-RB3 Download Content, Rock Band 2, Rock Band 3 Download Content, Rock Band Blitz, Rock Band Network) Genre (Alternative, Classic Rock, Country, Emo, Glam, Grunge, Hip Hop/Rap, Indie Rock, Jazz, Metal, New Wave, Novelty, Nu Metal, Other, Pop/Dance/Electronic, Pop/Rock, Progressive, Punk, R&B/Soul/Funk, Rock, Southern Rock) Year (every year from the 1950's to today) =============================================================================== iii. Music Store =============================================================================== Buy new songs, see Download Content above. =============================================================================== iv. Messages =============================================================================== Every so often, messages will pop up here about new songs for sale, ways to earn bonus coins, contests, etc. New messages will be marked with an exclamation point. =============================================================================== III. List of Songs =============================================================================== Here is a list of all of the 25 songs available directly with Rock Band Blitz. The list includes the title, artist, and difficulties associated with each song. The difficulty ranges from 1 to 6, 1 for very easy and 6 for very difficult. The game uses colored dots to indicate difficulty, from 1 dot to 5 devil dots. A rating of 5 devil dots corresponds to a rating of 6. An X indicates an instrument with no part in a song. The ratings are in the order of: band/drums/bass/guitar/keyboards/vocals Always Blink-182 4 4 3 3 2 3 Bang Your Head (Metal Health) Quiet Riot 3 2 4 2 X 5 Cult of Personality Living Colour 5 3 6 4 X 3 Death on Two Legs (Dedicated to...) Queen 5 3 3 3 5 6 Diamond Eyes (Boom-Lay Boom-Lay Boom) Shinedown 4 3 4 3 3 4 Give It Away Red Hot Chili Peppers 2 3 3 3 2 1 I'm Still Standing Elton John 4 2 3 3 5 5 Jessie's Girl Rick Springfield 2 3 3 1 2 3 Jungle Boogie Kool & the Gang 1 2 3 3 4 3 Kids in the Street All-American Rejects 4 5 2 4 2 3 A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More... Fall Out Boy 1 3 3 2 X 3 Moves Like Jagger Maroon 5 ft. Christina Aguilera 4 3 3 3 2 6 Once Bitten Twice Shy Great White 4 2 4 1 4 4 One Week Barenaked Ladies 4 2 3 3 3 5 Pumped Up Kicks Foster the People 2 3 2 2 2 4 Raise Your Glass P!nk 2 1 3 2 1 6 Shine Collective Soul 2 2 4 1 X 2 Shout Tears for Fears 3 4 2 1 3 4 Sing My Chemical Romance 4 4 2 3 3 5 So Far Away Avenged Sevenfold 2 3 2 2 2 3 Spoonman Soundgarden 6 5 5 5 X 6 Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You) Kelly Clarkson 4 2 2 2 4 6 These Days Foo Fighters 2 3 3 3 X 3 We Are Young Fun ft. Janelle Monae 2 3 2 2 2 5 The Wicker Man Iron Maiden 6 5 5 4 1 4 =============================================================================== IV. Power ups =============================================================================== Once a song is selected, power ups may be chosen. At the beginning, no power ups are available. As you play songs and earn Blitz Cred, new power ups are unlocked. The Blitz Cred required to unlock a particular power up is listed below (but see section VII: Unknown information for more details). There are three categories of power ups: Overdrive, Note, and Track. Only one of each type may be selected per song. Also, you must pay coins to activate a particular power up for each song as follows: Overdrive power ups - 250 coins Note power ups - 200 coins Track power ups - 100 coins =============================================================================== a. Overdrive Power ups =============================================================================== Overdrive power ups are similar to other games in the Rock Band series. As you play notes, certain notes are white instead of their normal colors. Play white notes to increase your overdrive meter. Once it reaches a predetermined limit, overdrive may be activated for the following effects: Point doubler 30 - double note multipliers until energy runs out Bandmate 330 - current track automatically plays until energy runs out Shockwave 870 - a shockwave scores points for every note it touches Bottle rocket 1410 - launch a rocket to clear faraway notes Jackpot 2530 - start 3X point jackpot, earn bonus by playing perfectly until timer runs out Road Rage 3170 - enormous tire rolls through, clearing all notes it touches =============================================================================== b. Note Power ups =============================================================================== Note power ups impact what happens when particular notes are played. There are purple notes scattered throughout the note highway. These are power notes. Hit a power note for the following possible effects: Blast Notes 90 - sonic blast clears nearby notes Flame Notes 510 - power notes appear quickly, hit them to earn bonus points Pinball Notes 1050 - launch a pinball, keep it in play for bonus points by changing lanes with the ball Runaway Notes 1890 - hit a power note, all nearby notes turn into power notes, play them all for a bonus =============================================================================== c. Track Power ups =============================================================================== Track power ups are always active for a particular song, with the following effects: Synchrony 150 - switch tracks on a measure marker for bonus points and play notes on both tracks Super Drums 690 - bonus points for drum notes Super Bass 1230 - bonus points for bass notes Super Guitar 1650 - bonus points for guitar notes Super Vocals 2210 - bonus points for vocal notes Super Keys 2850 - bonus points for keyboard notes =============================================================================== V. Gameplay =============================================================================== Earning points - Each note is worth a base of 10 points. This value is augmented based on the current track's multiplier, any active power ups that impact point values, and by the relevant track power up (if applicable). Blitz meter - At the top of the screen is the Blitz Meter. This tracks how long you go without missing a note or hitting an incorrect note. As the meter fills, the track highway will speed up and point values will increase, but it will be harder to hit notes due to the increased highway speed. Multipliers - On the left of the screen are the current track multipliers. At the beginning of a song, these all start at 1x, and increase one level every time a certain number of notes are hit on a particular track. Every song is divided into parts separated by checkpoints. For each section, a multiplier can be raised three times on each track. Once a checkpoint is passed, the maximum multiplier goes up based on the multiplier increases you gained in the previous section, up to a maximum of three. As an example, let's say that you are playing Cult of Personality. Cult of Personality has four tracks: drums, bass, guitar, and vocals. As the beginning of the song, all of them have a 1x multiplier, meaning that the highest multiplier that can be achieved on each track is 4x before a checkpoint is reached. If you reach the first checkpoint and all four tracks are at 4x, the maximum checkpoint for all of the tracks is raised to 7x, and the multipliers can be raised again before the next checkpoint. However, let's say that you didn't do so well on guitar and only raised it to 3x. Since the maximum change per checkpoint is three, passing the checkpoint only raises the maximum to 6x. Not raising guitar to 4x in the first section cost you since you have been robbed the chance of raising the other instruments to 7x before the next checkpoint. This demonstrates why it is very important to keep moving around and playing all of the tracks. If you totally ignore one track for the entire song, your maximum multiplier will never increase past 4x and your final score will suffer greatly. Also, keep in mind that if a section does not contain any notes for an instrument, the multiplier will be grayed out, and you are not penalized for not being able to raise that multiplier in that section. Any increase calculated for that section will not take into account sections without notes. Overdrive notes - Throughout each song, certain sections of notes are white instead of their normal color. These are overdrive notes. Hit them to increase your overdrive meter. Depending on what overdrive power up you have selected, accumulate enough overdrive to unleash these powers during a song. Power notes - In addition to overdrive notes, there are also purple notes. These are power notes. They are single notes randomly placed throughout the highway. Hit them to activate the relevant note power up. Solos (some songs don't have) - Some songs have solos. In these sections, only one section of the highway will be active (although, be aware that you can move to other tracks during solos, there just aren't any notes to hit). A percentage indicator will appear at the top of the track to track how many notes in the solo have been hit. After the solo is over, a bonus is awarded based on how many notes in the solo were hit. This award is not impacted if you broke your Blitz meter by hitting a note that wasn't there, as long as you hit all of the notes, you will get the best reward. The rewards are: 100% - 20,000 points 90-99% - 10,000 points 80-89% - 5,000 points 70-79% - 2,000 points 60-69% - 1,000 points 0-59% - 0 points Keep in mind that certain songs with very long solos (i.e. Green Grass and High Tides from Rock Band 1) will not have their solos charted in this fashion, since it would prevent you from playing other instruments for the majority of the song. These songs are treated as if they didn't have solos and don't offer any solo rewards. Big rock endings - In other Rock Band games, the Big Rock Ending at the end of certain songs are a time for all players to just freestyle and hit whatever notes they want to accumulate a bonus that can be collected by hitting the final note. In songs like this, Rock Band Blitz actually has these sections treated like any other section of the song, so just play them normally. Ending bonus - As a bonus for finishing a song, an ending bonus is awarded based on the ending multiplier levels for each instrument. The bonus is equal to 100x the multiplier for each instrument. So, if an instrument ends the song with a 30x multiplier, you receive a bonus of 3,000 for that instrument. Rivals/Stars - On the top right of the screen, your score and number of stars are tracked. As you earn points, each star begins to fill up. When a star is full, that star is earned and the next star begins to fill up. Once all five stars are earned, no more stars can be earned. However, by earning enough points, the stars will turn into gold stars. On the right side of the screen it tracks your progress against an imaginary opponent. There are six opponents, each representing a star earned by scoring points. Once you fill up a star, it tells you that you have defeated your rival, and the next rival will appear. Once you get to gold stars, no new rivals will appear. Post-song rewards - After a song is completed, the player receives Blitz Cred and coins based on how well the player performed. Accumulating Blitz Cred unlocks the various power ups in the game as well as a few achievements. Coins are used to pay for power ups for each song played. After awarding Blitz Cred and coins, the final screen shows where your score stands on the leaderboard for that song. =============================================================================== VI. Strategies =============================================================================== Experiment with all of the power ups and find ones that work best for you. For example, a setup I've used to get gold stars on all of the Rock Band Blitz songs (to get the Precious Medal achievement) is: Bandmate - To play two tracks at once to quickly raise multipliers Blast Notes - To raise multipliers on all instruments at the same time Super X - Depending on the song, pick the most difficult instrument, the instrument with the most notes, or just picks drums if not sure. I pick drums because I find myself staying in the middle of the highway to reach power notes more easily, and the drum track is hard to get to (being on the far left of the highway). Know where the solos are, and make sure you hit them! Missing just one note in a solo costs you 10,000 points, which could easily be the difference between five stars and gold stars on a song. Practice switching tracks in between notes to avoid missing notes and resetting the Blitz meter. This is important to master to keep the Blitz meter high to earn more points. In conjunction with that, always keep an eye out for overdrive notes and power notes. In some cases, it may be worth it to miss a note to hit a power note or a bunch of overdrive notes. =============================================================================== VII. Credits and Disclaimer =============================================================================== This FAQ is copyright 2013 by John Kearsley IV. This FAQ may be distributed freely as long as it is not altered and I am credited for its existence. =============================================================================== VIII. Version History =============================================================================== Version 1.0 - Original FAQ submitted Version 1.1 - Well, I feel silly. I was able to find the missing info that, for whatever reason, I couldn't find anywhere. Yay quick updates!