If you haven't, or just really want to know what our thoughts are for it, let me break it down DJ Lance Rock style.

First, they have completely redesigned the HUD/GUI for the game. Now it kind of just floats over what looks like a dynamic theme with your characters wandering in the back ground. The look is the least of the new changes. Options like dropping in and out of play at any time, ability to change difficulty at any time and a slew of sort and voting options for the ever growing music library were just some of the main mechanical changes. You also will have the ability to rate songs from one to five - leading to hearing more of your favorite songs in random play over not so favorites.

Speaking of random play lists, one of the other big features they are bringing in is the ability to create, save, play and share playlists. That's one more thing over the list from LittleBigPlanet. What it boils down to is that you can build your "party" list for home events without having to remember it on the fly. Or if your buddy is having a crap day, or yourself, you can make your "Rage Against The Man" list and send it to them. Though not confirmed, they alluded that you could build them through their website. A feature I have always wanted for myself.

The other piece of huge news that no one really got to see first hand outside of the event were the new controllers. Unfortunately, we only got the new Fender™ model shown to us during the presentation. That is the one with real strings that needs to be truly strummed.

Now for all you musicians, or 'wannabe' musicians, who say "Why not play a real guitar?" this controller will make you finally shut the F up. It works exactly like a real guitar and track finger placement on the strings and if you have plucked or strummed correctly. All with a "lightning" looking bar showing what you have held down on the screen. Before you say that still isn't the same, half way through the demonstration the Fender™ was unplugged from the game and plugged into an amp and the performer kept playing the song. So Harmonix has finally got their stuff teaching real guitar, so maybe you should go out and practice - the gamers are going to be taking over.

Moving along the same lines, of course we got to see and get hands on with the keyboard for Rock Band 3. It works exactly as you would assume and also, much like the drums, has a learning curve to overcome. It's new and weird. Only pianists will be able to hammer it perfectly out the gate. In any instance, it wasn't too hard to start out on easy and work up. That is, if you can keep the basic finger positions and move them when the game tells you to.

Why will you need to move, according to the game, is the keyboard isn't a full 88 keys.  It does have enough to cover three colors completely and at least one or two bars of a fourth for the on-screen display. So to ensure you get to play the full range on the screen, the five basic colors will slide back and forth on the screen and prompt you to make sure your fingers slide as well. I see this is a brilliant way to get this to work without the need of a whole separate screen for keyboards.

Also, before you ask, will you only be able to play the keys on the 83 songs on disk since they are the only ones designed with keys in mind as of now? Well at start you can choose to play between keys, guitar or bass to ensure that the 1300+ songs available and 2000 projected by launch are all capable for a keyboardist to play. Not the best option, but it works. I mean you already play songs with keyboards on the guitar already. NIN anyone?

I know for me after seeing all of this, depending on price point which wasn't totally brought up, Rock Band 3 and the new controllers will be a day one pick up. I look forward to what is going to be placed out soon to help build up to the release.

Oh, and one more piece of news that I found important, confirmation of a track I've been dying for. No date yet, but it has been confirmed that Gor-Gor by GWAR is being finalized on the Rock Band Network. I was promptly told my music tastes were not up to par. Now if only there was Ramms+ein confirmed, I wouldn't even look at Guitar Hero any more.