Well I guess there’s some advantage to being in the news a lot these days: I got to preview Rock Band Blitz before it gets officially released this summer. (Ike, stop whining that I’m always first even though “I” comes before “M”.) In case you’ve ever doubted whether legit musicians get into “Guitar Hero”, “Rock Band” and other music/rhythm-based gaming, the answer is: we definitely do. I mean, we’re human: what’s not to like about adding an element of competition and visual stimulation while playing a song you wish you’d written? I admit it’s kind of a cheap thrill compared to the real thing but I’ve never been above that. ;-) So I was never fully into the earlier Rock Band series because frankly if I’m going to play guitar, I’m going to plug my Gibson Les Paul into an amp, not plug a Toys-R-Us gadget into my XBox. But Rock Band Blitz uses the regular controller, like “Frequency” and “Amplitude” did, which I like because I am never for one second going to confuse playing music with playing a video game. Part of why I got sick of “Freq” and “Ampli” was that song selection. I could only do so much techno / dance music. Rock Band Blitz comes with 25 solid, diverse songs (I’m not supposed to mention details but “Jesse’s Girl”, “Once Bitten Twice Shy” and “Pumped Up Kicks” are leaked already - if not, oops, sorry Harmonix) plus you can transfer songs you downloaded to Rock Band 3. The biggest difference is that they had to dumb the note patterns waaay down in order to use the regular controller so you are only choosing between TWO notes instead of five. And actually they aren’t even really ‘notes’ in a true sonic sense; you’re just keeping time with the rhythm within each instrument track. It boils down to a lot of right-left-right-left thumb flicking. This makes it less musical and more like an arcade game. But it ends up as a great arcade game! It’s actually pretty sweet getting into a thumb-groove, racking up points and zoning out to the music which always sounds good no matter how much you mess up. Plus it’s actually harder than you think during certain sections, and there are pinballs and other effects to keep you alert and guessing. Keytar for sale, real cheap. :-)

~Mike