Is anyone else really impressed with the difficulty level?

[tbradshaw]

If there's any one thing that's stood out as the most impressive thing about Rock Band so far (and there are so many to choose from), it's been the difficulty level. I think it was a little too easy to just look at the "simple" note charts compared to Guitar Hero 3 and declare Rock Band as an easy game.

However, after putting in almost 20 hours of play, it's hard! In a wonderful way. They have tightened up the hit window for all of the notes, and compared to the "sloppy" hit windows of GH3 it's a night and day difference. The drums are just naturally hard (my feet like to stay nicely in sync with my hands, a bit of a problem), the vocal difficulties are very challenging (not to mention needing to sing the proper pitch instead of just imitating the artist), but most impressive is the guitar parts.

For one of the first times, the speed of double picking really matters! I've been sticking to the strat, and after trivially passing GH3 on expert in one sitting, it was easy to think that my guitar was defective... I was "sure" I was hitting things correctly. But after slowing things down and then speeding it back up, I found that my guitar was working perfectly... I just had to play more accurately for it to count.

As a result, I've never had a rhythm game experience where I truly felt so much like I was making music. Even "simple" guitar parts demand excellence, and when you're hitting the notes you feel like a champ.

Those Guitar Hero 3 zealots can have their silly note charts that are more color than fretboard. I'm not impressed at all until they are nailing expert solos in Rock Band. Guitar Hero 3 is truly "easy mode".

[Jealleo]

I think the easier songs on guitar are a little too easy on medium. However I agree about the tightening of the note hits. IT is rewarding when you are nailing it and the crowd is singing along.

[HeXcoda]

I'm actually very happy with the Easy and Medium difficulties. I've never been able to hang on Hard and I doubt I ever will (curse you, orange button) but Medium FEELS right. It hits the big "moments" of the song, it demands accuracy to challenge you, but it doesn't overdo it. It's a sweet spot with an HMX quality notechart and RB's superior timing system.

[skyehill]

Rock Band on guitar is definitely baby mode, which is probably why you like it so much.

[espher]

Rock Band on guitar is definitely baby mode, which is probably why you like it so much.

Compared to what?

Certainly not Guitar Hero III. I threw my cat at my guitar during the solo to One and I'm pretty sure I FC'd it.

[IbanezBassist_v2]

I agree bradshaw! From a glance the note charts a simplistic and leave much to be desired.

After playing them, its a whole different experience. I am very happy to have that feeling again that this is the most awesome. Just like the original GH.

Thanks Harmonix!

[Thrashdragon]

The timing makes all the difference, Guitar Hero III (for me) is considerably easier than Rock Band. Having to actually hit the notes at the right times rather than the-near-random-flailing that will get you through GHIII is both more challenging and more rewarding.

[rchapoteau]

I think the guitar play is easy because I fail GH3 on hard all the time, but I can do hard on Rock band without an issue.

But the easyness stops there. The drumming, and the singing are HARD

[Iggy248]

No, I played through both games on expert and I find rock band to be easier by far compared to GH3, not that it's a bad thing. More importantly, I don't see how they expect you to do any good on expert on this game with that wretched guitar controller, it's terrible for playing with on expert for any songs that require a lot of fast playing, those buttons are just awful. I'm just gonna stick with the GH2 controller.

[Schultzy]

I think the difficulty is at a good level in Rock Band. This isn't supposed to be like GH3, where the songs are so hard to beat that you're not having fun playing. This game is at the perfect level of difficulty, while still being amazingly fun to play!

[Darkstar82391]

i found the guitar in this game to be easier than GH2(i don't have GH3) but it does seem to demand more accuracy, but hooray for me( rockband=1st game i beat on hard)

[KaYotiX]

Rock Band on guitar is definitely baby mode, which is probably why you like it so much.

pfft, GH3 is so rediculous on expert/hard its not even funny. Activision got lazy with that game......they basically tossed notes all over to make it harder.like another guy said there is more color notes than actuall fret board......

HMX NAILED everything on Rockband!! What else did you expect from the creators of GH??

[shadus]

The difficulty level feels *right* to me. That being said I was playing on expert on GH1 & 2, Hard on Encore and Hard on GH3 (expert on GH3 is out of my league.) Easy and Medium as expected were easy for the most part, a lot of the starter songs are a bit overly easy on medium as well but towards the end of the sets and with the downloadable content it feels alright. Hard seems about spot on with some songs being fairly easy for me and some being pretty rough but most everything being finishable if I use overdrive regardless of difficulty. Expert I can get through some songs and not others. I personally thought GH3's expert was far to difficult, it was sloppier than earlier GHs, but the number of notes on the screen felt contrived (and yes, I do play a real guitar also.) All and all on the guitar, it feels good.

The singing is comparable to karoke revolution, its the same format, same style, and same difficulty imo but with a more interesting mechanic in general. The problem I have though is the "doot" sections, you know the ones you got "doot, doot, doot, doot, doot" to... the "solo". Gag. Lame beyond belief.

The drums are the real star of the game presently, difficult (but hey, IANAD!) but fulfilling. The set seems responsive enough except at the dead top end. Good stuff.

All in all I look forward to wireless everything, my living room at present looks like a plate of spaghetti... and the game makes me want to buy a hdtv... I didn't previously even care.

[tbradshaw]

Rock Band on guitar is definitely baby mode, which is probably why you like it so much.

I realize this thread has been dead for a while, but I've been playing Rock Band with family over Thanksgiving.

What a ignorant thing to say. I was able to finish expert GH3 in one sitting (albeit, a long one) with only a two or three fails first time through on a couple tracks. On GH2 I finished all expert tracks but Jordon.

While I'm definitely not one of the best players, nor am I one of the Score Hero gods, I'm certainly good enough at GH to have an educated opinion on the tracks and difficulty level.

You, on the other hand, need to work on being less insulting on the forums. The children's rule "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" certainly applies here.

[BizzyTone]

My impressions on the difficulty are as follows. Being I play it on Expert the first few sets id say the first 4 are not all that hard but they do have realistic patters to them which makes them very fun to play. The last 3 tier of sets get harder for good reason (some more challenging than others). Then you have those certain songs that you have to be ready to play especially as far as the solo's in them go. Now what I have noticed is that the downloadable songs for the most part are way more challenging on guitar which is a good thing because what that means is ultimately there will be all variety of songs to play. When somebody plays on expert it does not mean that every song has to be hard, simply because some songs in reality are not that hard to play to begin with (This is where I think GH3 goes over the top just to make some songs more challenging than they should be / but hey lets be honest most of us like challenges it helps improve our skills / or may drive others up a wall lol). So it makes for great variety especially for those who will invest in getting most of the DLC.

This is a great game and the future looks even better with all the DLC.

Take Care Everyone.

[teh_roc]

I disagree, GH3 require much tighter chord work. Sure HO/POs are easier but you have to take in account for wireless and online lag. While I think RB is absolutely fantastic, the guitar parts are the same old same old. GH3's guitar evolved and personally fuels my imagination much more then RB's guitar can. Perhaps its just the riffs themselves but GH actually makes me feel like I'm shredding faces.

[i5hawn]

i don't know about ps3 owners but i don't even think 360 owners have lag unless its like....super split second lag since the les paul uses the 360s native wireless.

gh3 was very simple. i breezed thru it in a day and didn't fail until the final tier, which is seriously impossible. i'm 3 out of those 4 tracks complete but with 3 stars on each and with most of expert 3 starred. but i didn't fail until i think knights of cydonia

[DorkmasterFlek]

Compared to what?

Certainly not Guitar Hero III. I threw my cat at my guitar during the solo to One and I'm pretty sure I FC'd it.

This quote wins. I appreciated the loose timing for TFFAF, but that's about it. Plus, those crazy solos for One and such will be doable in RB thanks to the upper frets on the strat. If you don't use them, well...that's how the pros do it too. :P

[Struct09]

GH3 is ridiculously easy on expert up until the final set of songs. Rock Band is a little more consistent with the increase in difficulty, but the final set of Rock Band songs is easier (yet, more fun) than GH3's.

GG&HT was a lot of fun to play through. Definitely the Free Bird of this game.