Best Buy demo impressions here!

[scarecrow521]

Yesterday I went to my local Best Buy to pick up a CD, and lo and behold, Rock Band was set up on a gigantic LCD TV near the back of the electronics section. After excitedly taking a few camera phone pics and calling up my buds, I played for a solid 2-3 hours with a whole bunch of people.

The setlist, as much as I can remember, was:

Are You Gonna Be My Girl
Black Hole Sun
Dani California
Detroit Rock City
Epic
In Bloom
Main Offender
Paranoid
Say It Ain't So
Should I Stay or Should I Go
Suffragette City
Tom Sawyer
Vasoline
Wanted Dead Or Alive
Wave of Mutilation

The guitar took some getting used to. The strum bar does indeed feel "mushy", but there is absolutely no click, and it actually became very comfortable as time went on. The solo buttons are very hard to get used to, as they are extremely close together. I tried out various effects using the five-way switch, and most of them sounded really cool.

As for drums, there is no kick pedal on the demo units, which made it a lot easier and allowed a novice like me to play on Hard. I pounded the crap out of the drums and really got into it, and not once did I feel like I was about to break them or damage them in any way. One of my friends hit the guide button a few times when he first started out on the drums, but as he played more songs he got better.

Singing was surprisingly fun, and a huge step up from Karaoke Revolution. In those games, you simply sang along to a song, which (in my opinion) quickly became dull. But there's really nothing like the feeling of belting out a "Wham, bam, thank you ma'am!" while your friends jam along beside you. I performed decently, and even scored 100% on Wave of Mutilation (Medium :D ).

Comments on individual songs:

-Are You Gonna Be My Girl was a favorite, and fun for all instruments. Really a great one to just rock out to.
-Dani California had some challenging guitar riffs and a sweet drum beat.
-Rapping on Epic was just...just awesome.
-The note chart for Paranoid is far superior to the one found in GH3, after playing both versions.
-Say It Ain't So seems like a good song to sing/play guitar to at the same time.
-I bumped up the singing difficulty to Hard on Tom Sawyer and got destroyed. Damn you, Geddy Lee.

The graphics were visually stunning, especially on the 60" LCD they had the game set up on. It really did feel like a concert video, with incredible angles and different camera filters thrown in for good measure. The style of this game is leaps and bounds above Guitar Hero.

The one thing I can't really explain about this game is how it makes you feel. It's just this incredible sense of COOL that overwhelms you when you're jamming with your buddies. And if I can get this feeling in the middle of a small-town Best Buy on a Saturday afternoon, I can't imagine what it'll feel like when I get this sucker into my own home.

So that's the demo for you. If you guys have any questions about it, feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer.

[KaoAtlas]

Dang, you beat me to it.


So, did you play Black Hole Sun?

I would like to know what the solo was like on the Guitar.

[IErrantVentureI]

Wait.. shouldn't this go under the other Best Buy thread, directly under this one?

[KaoAtlas]

There is no sticky for it so....no. We already have 4 threads like this.

[scarecrow521]

Eh...to my knowledge that thread is mostly people wondering if their Best Buys have the demo. I just wanted a separate place for my impressions, since a lot of people want to know the setlist and such.

Anyways, I drummed on Black Hole Sun, and it was a blast. I didn't really pay attention to the guitar part, but our guitarist didn't comment on it at all, so I don't really know how difficult it was.

[Xzyliac]

Sex or Rock Band?











No seriously.

[KaoAtlas]

Eh...to my knowledge that thread is mostly people wondering if their Best Buys have the demo. I just wanted a separate place for my impressions, since a lot of people want to know the setlist and such.

Anyways, I drummed on Black Hole Sun, and it was a blast. I didn't really pay attention to the guitar part, but our guitarist didn't comment on it at all, so I don't really know how difficult it was.
I drummed on it too, it sounded difficult.




Sex or Rock Band?











No seriously.

Can I say both?

[Xzyliac]

Can I say both?

Only if they're simultaneous.

[KaoAtlas]

Only if they're simultaneous.

Then I say both, I can drum and have sex.

[RattleHead_]

Nice impressions, thanks.

Did you try the drums on Tom Sawyer?

EDIT: Also any chance we can see the pics you took?

[Kylekillgannon]

Sex or Rock Band?











No seriously.


Rock band, seeing as my girlfriend is away on her dad's mid-life crisis vacation with her family...........


And as for my impressions, It was 10% less awesome than I expected, yes, mic gives it that 110% awesomeness factor......

I was ok at the drums, it was funny because I'm used to GRYBO not RYBG.

The guitar took some getting used to and the purchase of a guitar strap but I caught on, eventually I was playing semi-at my level, playing expert with relative ease, and bass-expert with almost no trouble at all, for awhile I felt like Geddy Lee.

I was a little bummed about the mic not working(wanting to sing Bowie, Sabbath, and Bon Jovi) But I lived.......for tomorrow

all in all, I'm not going back to guitar hero.......much......maybe every few weeks.....yeah.....

[Keebler]

I just got back from Best Buy and played it for about 30 minutes with 2 of my friends (who are into Guitar Hero like I am). HOLY ****. That was a ridiculous amount of fun. I'm gonna try and get down to Best Buy as many times as I can this week.

Instrument impressions:
-Guitar: what a sexy beast this thing in. As soon as I walked up to it, it was like the heavens opened up and God shined his light down on this peripheral. I picked it up and was instantly impressed by the look and feel of it. A much skinnier guitar than the other GH ones. I really didn't find the lack of weight to be that much of a problem - even though I just tried out the GH3 Les Paul last night and liked how it felt heftier, I still liked the weight of the Stratocaster. The fret buttons also didn't feel that much different to me - I really didn't have to adjust to them at all. What I did have to get a feel for is the strum bar. There's no click to it, so you can't really tell when you've pressed down hard enough. I didn't kick ass on guitar, but maybe that was just looking at a tiny 17" screen in Best Buy, or the fact that I was trying to play without a strap, or it could have just been my first attempt and a mediocre 90% can be expected. I didn't experiment with solo buttons or effect switches yet.

-Vocals: LOTS OF FUN. Everything just feels right when you're singing a song that has vocals that are perfectly within your range. The microphone feels excellent - it felt like it was an extension of my hand. It felt like it could take the hardest hand slammers for the tambourine and cowbell parts.

-Drums: I think this is gonna be a lot more fun when you sit down in a chair and have to learn the bass pedal. As it is, it's still a blast. Although I have to say - I AM THE WORST RIM OFFENDER. I had a good streak going at one point, even though I was pretty much smacking the rims on the pads every other note. My friends pointed out I was pretty much standing right over them so that could have been it.

Songs we played:
-Wanted Dead or Alive: I played guitar on this and I went right for Expert, and it didn't slack on the difficulty. People have been saying that Rock Band looks to be a little bit too easy - well, you might be able to pass most of the songs, but mastering them could prove to be harder than you think. I was able to nail to acoustic riff in the intro/outro of this song, but the verse guitar work is much harder. I also underestimated the solo. This song could probably be played very well using hopo's, but I'm one that can pretty much only hopo 3-4 notes at a time, so it's a moot point.

-Dani California: I wanted to sing this song so badly in my anticipation of attending tour events (which didn't pan out), so you can imagine how excited I was to sing on this song. And I was able to do it on Hard without any hiccups at all. Anthony Keidis' vocal range matches mine perfectly for this song, so I was able to rip it up, despite having to remember most of the lyrics on the fly as they scrolled (which was very easy to read and sing right away). I feel kinda bad that I was doing "WOO" for some of the free-form vocal sections - I felt like I should have been in the Ignorant Sluts. But I did get a little more creative in other parts (i.e. "PITTSBURGH! LET ME HEAR YOU!" or "YEAH BEST BUY ROCKING THE HOUSE!!"). All in all, I was grooving for this song.

-Are You Gonna Be My Girl: we didn't get more than 40 sec into the song before my friend on drums couldn't handle playing them and started laughing at how into singing I was. We didn't reattempt this one.

-Detroit Rock City: very fun tune to sing, and I also did this one on Hard... although some of the sections without vocals threw me off when the vocals did reenter. I didn't know the lyrics to the verses, so I kinda messed up trying to read/sing them on the fly. I actually failed out in the last 20 seconds, but luckily for my friends, the song ended.

-Vasoline: I moved over to drums for this. And even without the bass pedal, on Medium, this was still difficult. I would consider myself pretty coordinated - I was able to move thru Guitar Hero's difficulties very quickly as a noob, eventually getting to Expert in about a week. Yet, I felt pretty out of place trying to hit the drum pads. Perhaps it was only playing about half the notes and not being able to get into "the groove" or feel the rhythm. I also hit the rims of the pads about half the time, so I felt like I was only seconds away from hitting the Xbox Guide button (which one of my friends did do). I'll definitely enjoy this more sitting down and starting on easier songs.

I'm probably going back tomorrow. If you guys want pics or impressions on certain stuff, let me know.

I highly recommend going with a few buddies and trying it out.

[Kylekillgannon]

I just got back from Best Buy and played it for about 30 minutes with 2 of my friends .......

only a half hour?! I played it for six hours, I was hooked

[Keebler]

only a half hour?! I played it for six hours, I was hooked

We went 30 minutes before they closed.

[skyehill]

I love the look of the RB guitar, but no clicking of the strum bar is a huge letdown. The sound of the click is how many of us keep time. I love the weight and heft of the new GH guitar, so it also sucks that the RB guitar is so light and empty. I can say now, after playing GH3 for a day, that I really really look forward to the RB songlist and downloadables. There is way too much crap on the GH list. They hosed up Paranoid. Yuck. But what they did right is making it easier to pull off HOs and POs.

[Kylekillgannon]

We went 30 minutes before they closed.

That's why you go 30 minutes after they open, or as close as you can get to that......

[Keebler]

That's why you go 30 minutes after they open, or as close as you can get to that......

Hard to do that when you have to work all day (and didn't wake up till 3 PM after playing GH3 until 5:30 in the morning).

[Kylekillgannon]

Hard to do that when you have to work all day (and didn't wake up till 3 PM after playing GH3 until 5:30 in the morning).

.................................................. .....................touche

[holyground]

I feel kinda bad that I was doing "WOO" for some of the free-form vocal sections - I felt like I should have been in the Ignorant Sluts. But I did get a little more creative in other parts (i.e. "PITTSBURGH! LET ME HEAR YOU!" or "YEAH BEST BUY ROCKING THE HOUSE!!"). All in all, I was grooving for this song.

Are you in pittsburgh, Keebler? Which one did you go to, if so?

[Keebler]

Are you in pittsburgh, Keebler? Which one did you go to, if so?

Yeah, I went to the one at the Waterfront in Homestead.