What the Lighters Mean

I have seen some people complain about various aspects of Rock Band 3. Those people are wrong. This game is everything Rock Band 2 was, plus everything I wanted Rock Band 2 to be. Er, minus one Journey song, I guess.

One of the new features is the ability to rate songs you’ve played on a scale of one to five, which is your indication of how much you liked a particular song. Songs you rate with only one lighter won’t show up in random playlists, which essentially means people will actually play random playlists now. Everyone I know was scared off from the feature thanks to Visions.

However, if you’re like me, you don’t want to spend the next few years agonizing about whether you’re applying the one-to-five rating consistently. So I’ve whipped up this easy-to-remember system to help keep your ratings in line:

Five Lighters: Best song ever. This is a song you almost pick every single time you go into the menu.

Four Lighters: Songs you will never say no to. Pretty much any song you like will go here, including guilty pleasures. (Which, if you’re playing properly, should be about half the setlist.)

Three Lighters: Great songs with mediocre charts, or fun charts attached to songs you’re not crazy about.

Two Lighters: Songs you hate, but would still play if they popped up in one of your friends’ setlists. You’ll play them, grudgingly, but you’ll also be sure to bitch and moan about the experience in the XBL party.

One Lighter: Songs you will never play ever. Like Visions. Anyone who picks Visions, ever, on any instrument, for any reason, is trolling you. They deserve to have their game taken away, and given a stern talking-to.

Now that the intense anguish of working out a suitable rating system has been taken care of, feel free to get playing! That’s what I’m gonna go do now.