Rock Band...the Guitar Hero Killer?
The track listing in the game is pretty solid. I definitely enjoyed it more than GH3's track listing. Even the songs I'm not crazy about were still fun to play. Boston's Foreplay/Longtime is easily one of the most fun to play and some tracks I've never heard like the Outlaws song were fun to play through. There are 58 total songs in the game and each week there will be downloadable content which is looking to greatly enhance the life of this game. Get bored with the existing songs, download a bunch more.
After getting used to the guitar, I'd have to say I like it more than the GH3 Les paul with the exception of the strum bar. The strum bar doesn't click like the GH3 one and doesn't feel as responsive. Other than that, the Rock Band Strat is superior in almost way. The fret buttons are next to each other with no spacing like a real guitar and have a nice feel to them. The whammy feels nice and there are some extra buttons on the neck for soloing. At first I thought it was just a gimmick but then I realized when using the solo fret buttons, you don't need to strum. This can help greatly on expert mode with some of the harder songs. There is also a 5-way selector switch to turn on/off sound effects. This is just a gimmick but it's kind of cool if you're good at a song and feel like messing around.
The drums are easily the most fun to play. They consist of 4 drum pads and a kick pedal. The difficulty settings make the drums easy to pick up but keep them challenging as your foot will be fighting with your arms to become independent for a while.
The vocals are actually pretty enjoyable to play. You sing the words on screen like it's karaoke and you try to match the pitch of the song using an arrow on screen. It works very well and is really fun if you get a whole band playing with you.
The bass is really just a toned down guitar layout and is alright I suppose. I wish there were some more bass oriented songs to keep it more interesting but bass is really just an instrument to keep a 4th person busy.
Online: I was a bit disappointed with the online play when I realized that you can't have an entire band compete against another band online. You can only do single instrument duels, meaning one guitarist can battle another guitarist. A nice online feature though is that people online can form a band and cooperatively play.
Overall, Rock Band is a phenomenal game. It's highly addicting, has a great track listing with promise of many more songs to come, great hardware, and pretty good online play. My biggest gripe I have with the game is that I was under the impression that a band could compete against a band, which it cannot. Other than that, there's little to complain about with the game. I highly recommend this game as it's easy for anyone to pick up and just challenging enough to keep experts busy for a while.