Rock Band 3 in the pipeline
by SynRaptor on Sep.16, 2010, under In The Gaming Pipeline
Rock Band 3 has now officially announced the new setlist for the up and coming game at the end of October. The initial list I saw a few months ago looked quite pap so it’s nice to see they’ve actually added some quality songs that do actually fall in line per se with the whole concept of it being a song for Rock Bands to play, not Lady fucking Gaga and Spongebob Squarepants but I’ll come onto that in a minute.
The main talk of the town in regards to the game is the Pro mode and the Keyboard. Now personally as a pianist I’m very excited about this as this will actually be a decent challenge on expert for me and in the new Pro mode. The keyboard is actually in the form of a keytar (which I ashamedly like) and the pro mode will encourage you to actually “play the song properly” first! Now that’s a brilliant piece of implementation if it works. They’ve trialled the harmonised vocals with Green Day Rock Band and quite frankly it didn’t work as the backing vocals were nothing like what they were in the original song. I just hope that they actually fix this instead of having Mike Dirnt from Green Day sing like Justin fromThe Darkness.
We know Harmonix always seem to have favoured bands they like to include, like Devo for example, who had arguably the worst song I’ve ever heard in my life on Rock Band 2. They do also have more Dave Grohl worship but have gone about it the right way having songs from other bands he’s been in, not just the Foo Fighters, such as Queens of The Stone Age for example. There’s even a Dave Grohl achievement in the game which I believe is a nice touch. I found the full list online and goes as follows:
| Song title | Artist |
| “20th Century Boy” | T. Rex |
| “25 or 6 to 4” | Chicago |
| “Antibodies” | Poni Hoax |
| “Beast and the Harlot” | Avenged Sevenfold |
| “Been Caught Stealing” | Jane’s Addiction |
| “Before I Forget” | Slipknot |
| “Bohemian Rhapsody” | Queen |
| “Break On Through (To the Other Side)” | Doors !The Doors |
| “Caught in a Mosh” | Anthrax |
| “Centerfold” | J. Geils Band |
| “China Grove” | Doobie Brothers |
| “Cold as Ice” | Foreigner |
| “Combat Baby” | Metric |
| “Crazy Train” | Ozzy Osbourne |
| “Crosstown Traffic” | Jimi Hendrix Experience |
| “Dead End Friends” | Them Crooked Vultures |
| “Don’t Bury Me… I’m Still Not Dead” | Riverboat Gamblers |
| “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” | Police !The Police |
| “Du Hast” | Rammstein |
| “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” | Tears for Fears |
| “False Alarm” | The Bronx |
| “Fly Like an Eagle” | Steve Miller Band |
| “Foolin'” | Def Leppard |
| “Free Bird” | Lynyrd Skynyrd |
| “Get Free” | The Vines |
| “Get Up, Stand Up” | Bob Marley & the Wailers |
| “Good Vibrations (Live)” | Beach Boys |
| “Heart of Glass” | Blondie |
| “Here I Go Again” | Whitesnake |
| “Hey Man, Nice Shot” | Filter |
| “Humanoid” | Tokio Hotel |
| “I Can See For Miles” | The Who |
| “I Got You (I Feel Good)” (Alternative studio version) | James Brown |
| “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” | Joan Jett and the Blackhearts |
| “I Need to Know” | Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers |
| “I Wanna Be Sedated” | Ramones |
| “Imagine” | John Lennon |
| “In a Big Country” | Big Country |
| “In the Meantime” | Spacehog |
| “Jerry Was a Racecar Driver” | Primus |
| “Just Like Heaven” | The Cure |
| “Killing Loneliness” | HIM |
| “King George” | Dover |
| “Lasso” | Phoenix |
| “Last Dance” | Raveonettes |
| “Living in America” | The Sounds |
| “Llama” | Phish |
| “Low Rider” | War |
| “Me Enamora” | Juanes |
| “Midlife Crisis” | Faith No More |
| “Misery Business” | Paramore |
| “Need You Tonight” | INXS |
| “No One Knows” | Queens of the Stone Age |
| “Oh My God” | Ida Maria |
| “One Armed Scissor” | At the Drive-In |
| “Outer Space” | The Muffs |
| “Oye Mi Amor” | Maná |
| “Plush” | Stone Temple Pilots |
| “Portions for Foxes” | Rilo Kiley |
| “Radar Love” | Golden Earring |
| “Rainbow in the Dark” | Dio |
| “Rehab” | Amy Winehouse |
| “Rock Lobster” | The B-52s |
| “Roundabout” | Yes |
| “Saturday Night’s Alright (For Fighting)” | Elton John |
| “Sister Christian” | Night Ranger |
| “Smoke on the Water” | Deep Purple |
| “Something Bigger, Something Brighter” | Pretty Girls Make Graves |
| “Space Oddity” | David Bowie |
| “Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before” | The Smiths |
| “The Beautiful People” | Marilyn Manson |
| “The Con” | Tegan and Sara |
| “The Hardest Button to Button” | White Stripes |
| “The Killing Moon” | Echo & the Bunnymen |
| “The Look” | Roxette |
| “The Power of Love” | Huey Lewis and the News |
| “This Bastard’s Life” | Swingin’ Utters |
| “Viva la Resistance” | Hypernova |
| “Walk of Life” | Dire Straits |
| “Walkin’ on the Sun” | Smash Mouth |
| “Werewolves of London” | Warren Zevon |
| “Whip It” | Devo |
| “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1” | Flaming Lips |
They say that the downloaded songs from Rock Band 2 will be compatible and should be able to be played even with the keytar and the harmonised vocals. Personally I’m looking forward to playing Rammstein, Avenged Sevenfold, QOTSA, Whitesnake (lol) and especially Slipknot!
In conclusion, this looks like a tantalising prospect and personally I’m excited for this to be released. I really hope it does live up to the hype!
September 16th, 2010 on 8:48 pm
To be honest, I don’t think thats a great set list – yes there are some great songs on there, but half of them have been on Guitar Hero already. I think that the new guitar hero seems to have a much better set list on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitar_Hero:_Warriors_of_Rock
Offspring, Slipknot, A7X, My Chem, Drowning Pool, Slayer, Sabbath, AFI, DragonForce, Pantera, Anthrax, Queensryche
That said, having played some rock band now, i do agree with a lot of what you say about the gameplay being improved over guitar hero – i don’t like them telling me when i can and can’t hammer on/pull off though – i’ll make that decision thank you!
September 16th, 2010 on 8:58 pm
I was basing my opinion on what the initial 15 songs they announced were and it was rubbish! I agree that GH:WoR has a very tantalising set list, I just feel that GH has slightly lost the plot and is losing ground compared to Rock Band. They’re both very good games, it’s just that RB seems to have more invention behind their ideas, rather than GH:WoR creating a game under the premise of almost being an RPG! I’ll probably get both though!
September 16th, 2010 on 9:40 pm
Yeah I agree that the actual game and gameplay and development in the RB games is definately better than GH at the moment, but song wise i do prefer GH. That said, with downloadable content i’m sure that whichever game i get i’ll have enough songs on it that i like!
The main thing for me is that im turning into a bit of an achievement whore, so i need the game with the best ‘main’ songs as its completing those that will get you the points.
Speaking of which, i’m very close to completing GH:WT on expert…yes, it really has taken me this long! I have been tempted just to do it on bass, but have resisted so far.
September 17th, 2010 on 2:44 pm
I agree with SingForChange, it’s a “good” set list, but not amazing. I’ve never played the GH series before, but looking at that link I much prefer the Warriors of Rock set list… might have to go out and purchase myself a copy of a GH game. maybe the Metallica one too.
September 17th, 2010 on 5:32 pm
Speaking of the Metallica game, it is very good, but again this ‘band specific’ game is where i prefer rock band to guitar hero.
I buy band specific games (metallica, greenday etc) because i want to play metallica and greenday songs! with rock band that is what you get – an entire game of greenday songs (or ac/dc, which may be my next musical purchase), whereas with guitar hero, you get half the game of metallica songs, and the other half random other songs.
Now admittedly, a lot of these other songs are very good (suicidal tendencies springs straight to mind), but that isn’t why i bought the game! I can also see why they did it, so there is a slightly wider audience for the game than just metallica fans, but it is something that i think RB do better than GH.
September 17th, 2010 on 7:50 pm
SFC brings up a very valid point that GH:Metallica had about 40% of the songs not done by Metallica and it makes you think it’s a bit of a cop out seeing that Metallica’s back catalogue is huge! RB will always have the advantage because of the sheer volume of DLC available which I never felt GH could compete with. I think I downloaded 10 DLC songs for GH:WT, whereas I’ve downloaded well over 100 songs.
September 19th, 2010 on 11:55 pm
Ah ok, I totally agree there… I didn’t know that GH:Metallica was only 40% Metallica songs! I would have thought (and the name suggests) that there would only be Metallica songs on the guitar Hero “Metallica” disk… I guess this is another case of developers having a lower IQ than the fans…. *sigh*
October 5th, 2010 on 12:49 pm
Great writing! Maybe you could do a follow up on this topic?!?
-Yours,
Richie
October 14th, 2010 on 11:37 pm
Great writing! You might want to follow up on this topic =D
Thank You,
Archie
October 14th, 2010 on 11:58 pm
@Richie and Archie, I will be receiving this game at the end of the month when it is released, and will be writing a review then. Thanks for reading!