Rock Band Blitz Review

Rock Band Blitz is hard to review. It is both a game and a collection of DLC for Rock Band 3. As a piece of DLC, Rock Band Blitz is a steal for the price with twenty-five songs from many different genres. If you're invested in Rock Band 3 and already own a good chunk of DLC, there's no reason to avoid Blitz; however, as a game, Blitz isn't as easy to recommend.

Rock Band Blitz harkens back to Frequency and Amplitude—the games Harmonix made before breaking out with Guitar Hero—in many ways, but Blitz is more than just a trip down memory lane. Playing Blitz looks a lot like playing Rock Band; except, in Blitz you use your regular controller and play every track of a song, not just guitar, drums, etc. You hit notes using one of a handful of controller schemes—like hitting notes with the triggers and moving between tracks with the analog sticks or vice versa—and each track contains only two notes: a left note and a right note. It may sound overly simplistic, but Blitz can get hectic real fast despite its simplistic look.

I enjoyed the simplistic nature of the controls and had fun most of the time, but certain tracks were overly difficult. The difficulty wouldn't be an issue if it was adjustable, but Harmonix decided to remove adjustable difficulty, meaning you're screwed if you find this section or that section too hard. The lack of adjustable difficulty is somewhat remedied because it 's impossible to fail any song, but it's not fun to continuously screw up a track even though you know you can't fail. I can only assume the choice to remove difficulty levels was related to having a universal leaderboard, but it makes the game it bit less accessible and enjoyable.

There's more to playing a song than just hitting notes; there are multiple power-ups that add an extra layer of strategy and are required if you're interested in reaching top-level high scores. The power-ups come in three shapes and sizes with multiple power-ups within each category. Each power-up has its own strengths and weaknesses and there's no perfect grouping—which makes it more fun and interesting; that said, power-ups unlock over time, making early play pointless as far as leaderboard chasing goes, and power-ups also require the spending of in-game currency in order to use them each and every time.

That's right, power-ups cost coins. Coins are earned by doing well on songs, challenging friends, and completing various goals—like obtaining fifteen total stars on punk songs. It is an interesting system and I like it in theory, but I often found myself earning less coins than I was spending, forcing me to grind songs in order to build up a hefty coin purse. Challenges can bring in a good amount of coins and goals are great for adding both coins and a reason to play, but so much of the system relies on Facebook and Rock Band World—Rock Band's Facebook companion app. I'm not against Facebook integration, but I don't like a game that forces me to use it for basic functions.

I may sound more down on the game than I actually am, but I was really hoping for something a bit more intricate. I loved the competitive multiplayer from Frequency and Amplitude, but there's nothing like that in Blitz and the joy of chasing high scores doesn't last forever. As I said from the start, Rock Band Blitz is an obvious purchase for anyone who's already invested a lot into Rock Band 3, but I really wish the standalone experience was something amazing, something to keep me coming back a year from now; instead, Blitz is just a decent game that happens to be a fantastic DLC pack.

Rock Band Blitz (1200 MS Points/$14.99)