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USA Today’s Game Hunters reported today on Rock Band 3. While most of the details have already been widely discussed, a couple nuggets are worth discussing. For starters, the addition of keyboards is in fact a reality. According to the blog, “a 25-key, fully functioning MIDI keyboard” peripheral will be brought to the game. Similarly, a new Fender Squire Stratocaster guitar peripheral, which is also fully functioning, will be available for use with the game. In fact, an extra mode has been added to Rock Band 3, called Rock Band Pro, so that players looking to learn real-world skills can use the game as if it were educational software. Rock Band Pro will help aspiring guitarists, keyboard players, and drummers.  A second guitar peripheral is also in the works at Mad Catz. Called the Fender Mustang Pro, this controller features “a field of buttons in each fret.” Apparently, as your fingers depress “the smaller non-colored buttons on that guitar’s neck, your finger positions are represented in the game’s display.” According to Harmonix Senior Designer Sylvain Dubrofsky, “You can go from plucking single notes to power chords and bar chords, we have crazy stuff like tapping and slides.” Of course, if you’re not into learning a new instrument, however, Dubrofsky was also quoted as saying “[for] Everybody who wants to keep playing on the instruments they already have, we have enhanced new features and new gameplay for you.” Continuing to say “It’s up to you to decide where you take this.” Some of these new features include a better crafted story for your home band to take on, jump-in, jump-out gameplay (similar to what was introduced in Guitar Hero 5), and, perhaps most importantly for heavily invested players, a revamped filtering system that will get you access to your song collection via voice prompts. Examples of this voice-driven filtering included phrases such as “‘only show me songs in Rock Band 3’ or ‘only songs under three minutes’ or ‘Eighties metal songs from my (downloadable) collection.'” Sounds pretty nifty indeed. Below you’ll find demo video clip of the game in action as featured on USA Today’s Game Hunters. |