Review Rock Band Special Edition for Playstation 3

I came across Rock Band Special Edition for Playstation 3 about two weeks ago. I didn't feel like coughing up the $149.99 that Sam's Club has it priced at, yet every time I was in Sam's I found myself drawn to the set. As soon as I learned that the Special Edition was harder to come by, and that the game was now being sold in parts, I figured I may as well buy the last one on the isle, before it was no longer available, and I was forced to buy all of the rock gear separately.

In The Box:
 
The Special Edition of Rock Band for PS3 comes with everything you need to start your little virtual band.

You have a drum set with wooden drum sticks, a guitar, a microphone, and of course the Rock Band game.

Set Up:
 
Setting the band up was simple. The guitar only needed to have the upper handle clicked in to place. The drums came with a little stand that was very easy to set up, and only required us to click things in to place. The microphone was already in one piece, and was probably the highest quality piece of equipment in the box.

The drums were extremely rickety, with hard plastic to hold the set up on the stand, a foot pedal that seemed poorly constructed, and the guitar appeared to be a guitar hero guitar wanna be.

After setting everything up, I was pretty disappointed in the quality of the equipment.

Game play:
 
My boyfriend and I felt semi nerdy beating on a drum set with wooden sticks, so we ended up packing the entire set up, and brought it to my sisters house.

Here we created a band which we called Insomniac Asylum, (yeah we are dorks).

Immediately we realized that the 40GB PS3 only comes with 2 USB plugs, and Rock Band requires 3 USB ports to use all 3 of the instruments. This pissed me off because the box didn't mention anything about needing 3 ports... we figured it out - after opening the box.

There are different modes to play. You can start a band and go on tour, or you can just jam to select songs without going on tour.

Going on tour is the funnest though, because as you advance new songs unlock in the game.

The Guitar:
 
The guitar that comes with Rock Band Special Edition is a good sized piece of plastic, with buttons to press in at the top of the guitar stick, and towards the lower part of the guitar stick.

The buttons are color coded on the sides, and like Simon Says, you hit the buttons as the game feeds them to you. You have to hit them on time though or you could end up failing.

The guitar is 'wireless', but the wireless adapter needs to be plugged into a USB port in order for the guitar to be registered in the game.

The Microphone:
 
We had to unplug the guitar to play both the microphone and drums at the same time. -On the PS380GB model, there are enough USB ports to support all of the instruments.

The microphone is the only thing in the kit that seemed to be well constructed with heavy duty material. After plugging the mic in, we now could sing along to tunes. The game would display the words at the top, so even if you don't know the song, you could sing along.

What is cool about playing Rock Band using the mic is that it displays the tone you should be at in order to pass.

One huge issue though with the microphone though is that when you sing into it, you barely hear your voice coming through the TV's speakers, which sort of ruin the whole virtual rocker vibe.

The Drums:
 
The drums were the hardest thing for me to play. I had a hard time keeping up, and due to the small pads, I ended up hitting the sides quite often, which would result in me missing, and lowering my score.

The pedal sits at the bottom of the kit, and is meant to be pushed down with your foot whenever you see an orange bar on the screen. The drums are probably the most challenging out of all of the other pieces that come with the set.

Songs:
 
There are quite a few neat songs that are packed on the Rock Band disc. You have Blue Oyster Cult, Don't Fear The Reaper, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana, Weezer, Faith No More, Rolling Stones, Foo Fighters, and many many more.

More:
 
If your PS3 is hooked up to online, you can download tons of other songs from a giant list at the PS3 Marketplace. Titles though cost money, which puts a HUGE damper on things. I feel that if you already bought the game... content for that game should be 100% free! Unfortunately they find ways to suck more green out of you by charging you per song.

Overall:
 
Even though our PS3 only has 2 USB ports, we still took turns jamming on the plastic guitar, slamming on the drums, and pathetically singing into the microphone thinking that we were Rock Gods!

Even though it was so far from being a real band, it was still a good time nonetheless. We actually found ourselves fighting over the mic, the drums, and who's turn it was.

Although this game feels very much like Guitar Hero, it adds that much more to it.

Rock Band Special Edition does have it's quirks, and it does seem to be made poorly, it is however still fun, and we still had a kick ass good time.