And so it begins, the original player of plastic instruments, Guitar Hero, begins to fade quietly into the night, as the reigning king of rhythm games has squashed it flat.  The Rock Band franchise has consistently outscored the older Guitar Hero franchise in critical reviews from leading game magazines GameInformer and IGN.

Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, this year’s offering from game studio Neversoft, released on September 28, has already garnered mixed reviews from critics, praising the unusual inclusion of Rush’s 2112 album but lambasting the game’s sticking to the “status quo” of music games, taking more influence from Guitar Hero 3 than from the innovations that have permeated the genre over the ensuing three years.

Rock Band 3, released on October 26, aims to reinvent the sagging music game market by adding more functionality than any game, of any kind, ever. The game is scoring well among reviewers, who praise such improvements as its “unusual and varied soundtrack,” even calling it the “greatest music game ever made” (Joystiq.com).

This praise is due in large part to Rock Band’s new Pro Mode, which keeps the spirit of the standard rhythm game alive, yet actually teaches the player how to play an instrument via new hyper-realistic instrument controllers.  The new instrument for this game is the keyboard, and developer Hamonix has taken full advantage of the instrument, with a keyboard pro mode that, when played on the hardest setting, imitates exactly the right hand part of 63 of the game’s songs.  Pro guitar adds a tablature-type track in place of the standard five buttons, and will undoubtedly fill gamers’ lives for months after the peripheral releases next month.

Playing the face-melting solo of Dio’s “Rainbow in the Dark” will take mere mortals months if not years of playing to master.  The level of realism in the game is so high, it led Chad Sapieha of The Globe and Mail to proclaim, “We are just a hair’s breadth away from moving beyond make believe.”

Rock Band 3’s set list also is cause for joy, featuring a perfect blend of national acts, like Queen and Them Crooked Vultures, and smaller-scale bands, such as The Flaming Lips.  Popular groups Paramore and Phoenix play alongside classic favorites The Doors, The Beach Boys and Jimi Hendrix.  In the most diverse soundtrack to date, Rock Band 3 covers decades from the ‘60s through the 2010s.

In the conclusion of this article, it is only right to set an epilogue to Guitar Hero, which went back to its roots only to be overshadowed by the clever (and useful!) innovations of Rock Band.  Rock Band developers Harmonix have thrown down the gauntlet, not only for rhythm games, but for all games to aspire to be so progressive.