Real guitars, real differences. Seven45 Studios issued this attack on the then-upcoming Rock Band 3 back in early September of 2010. This was the second high profile attack on rival rhythm games, just after the now infamous “Volcano Drop” commercial. The game hadn’t even shipped yet, and it had managed to alienate almost the entire rhythm game audience.

The core gimmick of Power Gig: Rise of the SixString lied in its titular SixString, a guitar controller that had strings attached to it. Don’t be fooled in to thinking this is similar to Rock Band’s Pro Mode or Rocksmith, however. No, the most you’ll be able to do is play rudimentary power chords on the first five frets. Power chords that don’t even manage to properly match up with how the song is played on real guitar. You could argue that real guitars actually do make a real difference. But, still, you can theoretically play it with a real guitar, so you could argue that this is the first “real guitar game”.

Speaking of real guitar, if you ACTUALLY want to learn how to play the songs in the game, then there are 5 songs that have Pro Guitar/Bass functionality in Rock Band 3, a total of 7% of the setlist. Releasing a couple weeks before Rock Band 3, two of those songs (Been Caught Stealing and Plush) are shared by the two games’ setlists.

Breaking Benjamin – Breath

Jane’s Addiction – Been Caught Stealing

Living Colour – Cult of Personality

Rage Against the Machine – Bombtrack

Stone Temple Pilots – Plush

Of course, to only talk about the guitar would be to negate the “greatest” peripheral Power Gig released. I’m referring, of course, to the AirStrike Drums. As much as Power Gig liked to proclaim that it Rocked It Real, the drum set was an air drum set. The basic mechanism was that the pads would be placed on the floor and you’d use special drum sticks to break the laser and register it as a hit. As you’ve surely figured out, they don’t work well. That’s sort of a recurring theme with Power Gig.

The main mode of Power Gig was a story mode. I’m not going to go too in depth in to it because I’d rather forget it myself, but essentially music has been outlawed and these rival music gangs all get thrown in jail for playing. They discover that together they have the true power of music and go out on a quest to bring the gangs together and save music for everyone. If you’d like to experience it in all its cutscene glory, thenewnoelisoncruz has the whole thing uploaded. I highly recommend watching it at least once.

As noted in previous Setlist Checklist posts (and all future posts, as well), as the holes are continually filled in by Rock Band’s weekly DLC releases, we will update this post, and keep it linked in the FAQ page above, for future reference.

The setlist itself could be considered to be one of the few saving graces of the game. There were the much hyped up exclusivity from Dave Matthews Band (which, in the end, didn’t pan out so well), Eric Clapton, John Mayer, and Kid Rock. No one is more authentic than Kid Rock. The setlist gave us 70 songs from the 70s through to 2010. There was even a (to this day still) unreleased Black Label Society song. Of those 70, only 18 have made it over to Rock Band for an overall total of 25%.

The full list of songs is after the jump.

Artist Song Date in Rock Band The Academy Is His Girl Friday N/A Bad Religion I Want to Conquer the World N/A The Black Keys Strange Times 08/17/2010 Black Label Society Retribution N/A Black Sabbath The Devil Cried N/A Breaking Benjamin Breath 11/01/2011 Buckcherry Tired of You N/A Channels Chivaree N/A A Cursive Memory Everything N/A Damiera Silvertongue N/A Dave Matthews Band Funny the Way It Is N/A Dave Matthews Band Tripping Billies N/A Dave Matthews Band Why I Am N/A Disturbed The Night N/A The Donnas Fall Behind Me N/A Envy on the Coast Head First in the River N/A Eric Clapton Lay Down Sally N/A Eric Clapton Layla (Derek and the Dominos Version) N/A Eric Clapton Let It Rain N/A The Fatal Flaw Don't Start Believin' N/A Firewind Head Up High 08/31/2010 * Flyleaf Again 04/27/2010 The Get Up Kids Martyr Me N/A Godsmack Awake 11/09/2015 The Hives Tick Tick Boom 11/03/2009 The Hounds Below She's Alchemy N/A I See Stars Comfortably Confused N/A Idlewild Readers & Writers N/A Incubus Wish You Were Here 08/23/2011 Jane's Addiction Been Caught Stealing 10/26/2010 Jet She's a Genius 08/25/2009 John Mayer Crossroads N/A John Mayer No Such Thing N/A John Mayer Who Did You Think I Was N/A Kid Rock All Summer Long N/A Kid Rock Rock 'n Roll Jesus N/A Kid Rock Son of Detroit N/A KoRn Hold On N/A Lacuna Coil Spellbound N/A Living Colour Cult of Personality 08/28/2012 A Love Like Pi Innocent Man N/A Mastodon Crack the Skye N/A Mutemath Chaos N/A New Found Glory Listen to Your Friends N/A No Doubt Platinum Blonde Life N/A The Offspring You're Gonna Go Far, Kid N/A Ozzy Osbourne A.V.H. N/A P.O.D. Alive 06/01/2010 Paramore Ignorance 05/15/2012 The Paris Riots Hotel of Infidels N/A A Perfect Circle The Hollow N/A Puddle of Mudd Blurry 06/21/2011 Queens of the Stone Age You Think I Ain't Worth a Dollar, But I Feel Like a Millionaire N/A Rage Against the Machine Bombtrack 05/08/2012 Rise Against Paper Wings N/A School Boy Humor Camera Shy N/A Sick Puppies You're Going Down N/A Silversun Pickups Substitution N/A The Smashing Pumpkins Cherub Rock 11/20/2007 Snow Patrol Hands Open N/A So Many Dynamos Artifacts of Sound N/A Stevie Ray Vaughan Couldn't Stand the Weather N/A Stone Temple Pilots Plush 10/26/2010 Superdrag Aspartame N/A Surfer Blood Swim 10/16/2010 * Taxpayer When They Were Young N/A Three Days Grace Break N/A The Tragically Hip New Orleans Is Sinking N/A The Used Blood on My Hands 04/13/2010 Willowz I Know N/A

* Denotes a track only available through the Rock Band Network.