With E3 on our doorsteps, there are few games I’m as itching to get my hands on as Harmonix and EA’s Rock Band. The game, according to this latest gameplay video first posted by GameSpot, seems to be shaping to to be a natural evolution of the Guitar Hero brand, rather than something wholly different. It is as if Guitar Hero somehow grew lungs, climbed out of the pool and tasted air for the first time.

And I’m okay with that.

Very okay, since from the looks of things I won’t have to perfect a whole new skillset, just build upon what I already know. I’m very curious to see how the game feels, and I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough, as Harmonix, EA, and MTV will be hosting a party next week in Santa Monica as part of the annual E3 festivities, which I will me attending (along with, according to the invite, some “super secret special guests”). So the question remains, should I take the mic?

Expect lots of impressions and personal embarrassment in the days ahead.

[Update: Harmonix has issued a response to this apparently leaked video with a post on its official forums:

[quote]The video of a trailer you may have seen on various sites was taken from a conference where attendees are generally encouraged to be casual and show off the new stuff they are working on privately. Apparently an attendee videotaped the talk.

The trailer was made from an old build of the game quite some time ago for internal purposes- basically to get people working on the game excited. The song was one we have considered for the game but haven?t locked down, and you may have noticed that the trailer footage was made so long ago that the people in the video are playing old instruments and prototypes.

I guess what I am saying is- this isn’t official and doesn’t really reflect the final game at all. We’ll be releasing a lot of info next week from much newer builds of the game with finalized songs.[/quote]]