Rock Band 3

It's a million miles from the generous input windows of the latest Guitar Hero. But if you want to learn, it makes good sense that sloppy technique is not rewarded. And if you're a hardcore player looking for the ultimate challenge, look no further.

If you already play guitar and have the cash, you'll get on just fine with 102-button incarnation. If you're keen to learn from scratch, there's a sound argument that says, at 130 smackers, you'd be bloody stupid not to buy a real one instead.

This is why I'd suggest waiting for the stringed controller. For starters, well, it's a real guitar. Moreover, two of the biggest problems beginners wrestle with - forming chord shapes without muting adjacent strings, and applying the right amount of pressure when holding strings to the fret board - the 102-button peripheral cannot teach.

For the budding Ringos among you, Pro Drums add three attachable cymbals to the kit (the full Pro Drums kit retails for £120), which are cued on-screen by a new round symbol. Pleasingly, due to the way parts have been programmed, Pro Drums work with all 2000 songs produced for Rock Band.

As for vocals, the most important change to note is that the game now supports the three-part harmonies that debuted in Beatles: Rock Band. Well hello there, Bohemian Rhapsody.

Away from Pro Mode and the new instruments, the career structure has been overhauled. Rather than progress across a world map section by section, the game revolves around the growing fame of your band, measured in fans.

Fans – and unlockables - are gained through pretty much everything you do, whether it's Training, Quick Play, Multiplayer or one of the many Road Challenges, which link relevant songs together in various scenarios.

Elsewhere, menu navigation is a breeze; profiles and instruments can be switched with a few button presses; you can easily drop in and out of songs and change difficulty on the fly without restarting – and in multiplayer each player has their own menu window in what Harmonix calls the 'Overshell', so if one pauses others continue playing. Simple, elegant, slick.

The soundtrack is strong and varied – its poppier leanings offer a clear contrast to Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock's heavier rock focus. If you're considering Rock Band 3 as a standalone game without the new instruments, then it's an excellent, polished addition to the series, but not a ground-breaking one.

Pro, meanwhile, is not without its issues. Extreme difficulty aside, the lack of a free practice mode for keys and guitar (there's one for drums) is a baffling omission. Why can't I jam on the guitar at my leisure? Why can't I play synth chopsticks?

An indication of basic chords in Pro keyboard parts would make sight-reading a lot easier, just as it does with guitar. And for guitarists, a simple page for each song listing chord structure would be a great reference tool for real practice.

But none of this dampens my enthusiasm and admiration for a game that, taken as a whole, utterly eclipses everything that has come before it. The leap from Rock Band 2 is vast – and a salutary lesson to Activision, which has milked Guitar Hero dry, of what is possible when a gifted developer is given the breathing space to innovate.

The biggest problem is one over which Harmonix has no control: price. Current trends suggest that MTV and EA face a tough challenge in persuading consumers to cough up for yet more toys.

The Pro Guitar will be a bridge too far for many. But while it's also not exactly something you'd find in Poundland, I can't urge you enough to pick up the game with the keyboard if you can – it feels as fresh and exciting as anything you'll play in 2010.

And the real joy of the game is in the countless ways it can be enjoyed. It has months, possibly years of enjoyment built in that can be harnessed at the player's own pace and budget.

Breathtaking in ambition and crafted with the skill of a studio that's been making music games for 15 years, Rock Band 3 is Harmonix's masterpiece – a towering achievement not just for the genre, but for the medium itself.