Rock Band Blitz Preview

What happens when you continually release multiple incarnations of a franchise year after year? The market gets saturated and gamers get bored. Unfortunately for us, Activision largely was responsible for milking the "Plastic Instrument" titles to death and also brought down the fun Harmonix created with Rock Band. This premature death to the genre also ensured only one album ever got released for Beatles Rock Band.

For fans of the music genre looking for a new Rock Band, fear not. Harmonix is bringing a new spin on the franchise to help breathe new life in it via Rock Band Blitz. This is a downloadable title that won't see any type of physical release on both the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live platforms. Rock Band Blitz will include 25 songs when it is released but will be compatible with any song you already have on your Hard Drive from past Rock Band titles. You will also find the Rock Band Network, from Rock Band 3, included in the menus of Blitz to purchase new tracks as well. Over 3,500 tracks will be available for play in Rock Band Blitz! Thats a lot of music and no clunky plastic instruments to try and store in your closet.

As you can imagine, the lack of plastic instruments will change the gameplay considerably. Harmonix dug deep to recreate what they had done previously with Amplitude, Frequency, and Rock Band Unplugged for the gampelay in Rock Band Blitz. Every instrument is available for all songs and you can toggle between them on different "paths" on the board. You will accomplish this by using the buttons on your controller.

The change in gameplay will appeal greatly to fans of Harmonix's older titles and will make the game much more approachable and easier to play than with the plastic instruments. If you are looking for a challenge, Rock Band Blitz will still have plenty for you. As you progress through each track, you will be compared to your friends list and encouraged to increase your score by earning multipliers and power-ups on the game board.

In order to gain the highest scores, you will need to switch between instruments often and not miss a note. With Guitar, Drums, Keyboard, Bass, and Vocals, there are a lot of different things to juggle in order to best the scores of your friends.

Rock Band Blitz is shaping up to be a great way for Harmonix to continue releasing new tracks and breathe new life into the music genre. While we may never see another plastic instrument game, I am eager to spend more time with Rock Band Blitz and can't wait to jump online to prove my dominance over my peers.