sporkBrigade
11-01-2007, 07:08 AM
Finally got to a Best Buy to get my Rock Band on. Well, here's my preview. Skip if you're sick of these. It's long. :D
Guitar. The plastic of the neck does in fact look cheaper for some reason up close. I'm wondering if it's the beige color that just triggers a memory of some old toy we used to all own, but it's very true. You just can't help but think it's cheap looking when you're inspecting it. But just to be perfectly clear, my negative views of this guitar end here.
Buttons. The buttons are a different story. After using the strat's buttons, then going home to my Les Paul, it's the Les Paul that has toy buttons. With the strat, as soon as you're oriented, hitting those buttons is the closest feeling to playing a real guitar I've ever experienced. Sliding is so much smoother, and the feedback you get was very satisfying. I spent 90 percent of my playing on the upper/solo set of buttons, and I'm very pleased. I actually prefered using the solo buttons by the end of my playtime. Response of the buttons was perfect, never a single problem while I was there.
Strum Bar. Mushy=Perfection. There are 2 main reasons to love mushy. First, you can strum it. Give it a whirl. I know most of you have the thumb pressing thing down, or you hold on to the bar with thumb and forefinger. I do it too, I'm not criticizing. But take a chance and just strum that badboy like a real guitar. The response to this is absolutely perfect. I'm not sure who said it, but someone claimed you couldn't use a pick. That person smokes the crack. This bar was made for a pick. However, it still plays nice with other strumming styles. I tried every single style I could think of, and they all worked. Most importantly, upstrumming bass style is finally possible. On the xplorers, upstrumming would result in a lot of accidental double strums making it an exercise in frustration. Not the case here. Also there was a thread a bit back with someone asking if RockBand was going to have the double strumming problem like GH3 seems to have. With the strat, the answer is no. No matter how hard I hit the bar, and how much I tried to get it to bounce, I couldn't get the guitar to register a doublestroke. Perfection. Reason number 2, as mentioned elsewhere, no clicky. Some will hate that, but I love it. People watching you play will love it too. I know you zone out when you play and don't notice, but your loved ones HATE that clicky sound.
Whammy Bar. It wammied. It had good resistance, and it didn't break while I was there. Whether it'll break like my xplorer after 2 months, no idea. But it worked. On a personal note, GH3 on the software side seems to handle whammying different. It distorts the sound in a weird and mostly unpleasant way. The Rock Band software handles it just like Guitar Hero, and sounds just how you expect it to. But if you haven't noticed this difference in GH3, then you won't notice it here either.
5way switch. The location makes it easy to hit on accident, especially when strumming the guitar realistically. I found myself just randomly hitting it on a consistent basis, but I feel like this is going to come down to the individual. The actual switch itself is easy to use and easy to reach when you actually want to do it, so that's good.
Weight. This is the best example of the brain playing tricks on people that I've ever seen. The demo station I was at had a strat for lead, an xplorer for bass, and right next to it was the new Les Paul. I walk up, pick up the strat. Immediately I'm thinking "Wow, they're right. It's so light!" But then I see the xplorer, and I pick it up. You're brain just can't adjust to it, but absolutely the strat is the same weight then the xplorer. Personally, I thought the strat was just a touch heavier, but it was so hard to tell. Either way, people claiming the strat is lighter then the xplorer are letting their brains play a trick on them. Thing is, the strat is longer, so in comparison to its size, you become convinced it's lighter. But as soon as you have both guitars in your hands, it's just not true. The Les Paul is of course heavier then both, and you can tell it's the batteries. The wireless strat for PS3 most likely is going to be the same as the Les Paul, if I had to guess based on what I tested. The only claim you could possibly make is that maybe the xplorer has a better square inch of plastic to weight ratio. But if you were fine with the weight of plastic guitars before, then you'll be fine now. It's the same.
Twisty necks. This has been blown out of proportion. One of my first tests was to hold the body, and twist the neck. It does in fact twist, but it has nothing to do with quality. The neck is longer then previous guitars, and so there's a point near the the head where you can pull off more twist then you could on the old ones. However, if you hold the neck higher up, the twisting stops. If you grab the neck about where the old xplorer necks would stop, it seemed exactly the same as ever before. Why? Imagine a neck that was 100 feet long. Without changing anything else about the guitar, if you go to the end of that 100 feet, you could grab the guitar head and completely twist it 360 degrees without breaking the guitar. That's just how plastic works. The longer these necks get, the more flex you're going to be able to pull off. It has nothing to do with quality. The neck itself where it connects to the guitar body is perfectly solid, as good as anything from Red Octane. The only other test I pulled off (While no one was looking of course) was to grab the neck and shake the guitar as hard as I could. There was no weird flexing or rattling or anything else to indicate that the guitar couldn't handle the hardest handling possible. Short of smashing it into the ground, or holding the body and twisting the neck near the head as hard as you possibly can, you will not snap this guitar with normal use. The insides might be different. No way to test that without actually breaking the guitar, so I'll be holding off on that one.
Gameplay. Not too much here you won't expect. Guitar's easier, but it's still fun. Effects and one handed strumming with solo buttons was just a blast. Add this to the fact that most of the harder songs you've heard about weren't on the demo, there's a lot to like.
Gameplay effects. This is worth mentioning, and people's reactions will be different I think. Gameplay effects are toned way down across the board here. Think about GH3. Every star power has lightning and sound effect. Every 50 note streak has it's own sounds and visual effects. When playing 2 player co-op, every missed note has it's 'plunk' and shakes the board for both of you, whether you're the one that made the mistake or not. It all adds up, and while playing, there's a constant stream of non-song related feedback. Rock Band tones it all down. Sound effects are at a minimum in every department, including missed notes. Overdrive is very subtle. Gaining it has very little added effects wise, so much so it's easy to forget about overdrive completely. Actually using it you'll barely notice. The patterns on your fret board are nice indication, but it was actually very easy to lose track of when it was up and when it wore off. There's no streak counting going on anywhere, and any alerts you do get for solos and bass grooves and the like are absolutely ignorable. Sometimes it's actually pretty hard to tell when you make a mistake. It's up to you which you prefer, but I'm very touchy about what goes on during the song. GH3 makes me want to eat my guitar sometimes, but I was very pleased with RockBand. Nothing stuck out, and I was very impressed.
Drums. I spent much less time on the drums, and I can't think of anything to say about them that's worthwhile. They feel good, I slammed on them pretty hard. No foot pedal meant I could 90%+ anything on expert, but that foot pedal is going to own me. I didn't experience any of the lag I've heard from other posts, so I'm personally taking that as confirmation that it's a problem with your specific Best Buys. As long as it's set up right, lag is not noticeable. On the topic of improvising, it's much better on the drums. Each pad does become a specific drum, so you truly can improvise. Ending sessions were twice as fun on drums then they were on guitar. I'm not a drummer, so I don't have much else to offer.
Starting a Band. Here's the last thing I wanted to talk about. After playing a song on the guitar, a guy walked up and watched me finish up. He asks, "What's this?"
I say, "Rock Band."
"Oh, so they finally added Drums? I wondered about that when I played Guitar Hero."
"Yeah, it was inevitable. Hey, wanna try an experiment?"
"Sure."
"Take this guitar and play with me while I play drums."
"Sure, why not."
He picks up the guitar, I grab the drum sticks, we play a song. Afterwards, he's like "Wow! God damn, that's awesome!"
"I know. Let's switch."
I grab guitar, he tries drums. We finish another song, make some more random comments about what we thought, then switch again. Play another song.
8 songs later, he's worked his way up to hard drums. He says "Dude, I think I gotta go. My girlfriend's gonna kill me." I say "Man, you can't break up the band. You made a commitment." He says "You're right. Okay, one more song, then I'm going. Just one more."
3 songs later he leaves. His final words to me were, exactly word for word "Have fun. I have to buy this." I'd never met this guy before in my life, and I'll never see him again. But for about an hour, we were a band, and we f**king rocked. I'm not sure what else I could say that's a better indication of how great this game is going to be.
Guitar. The plastic of the neck does in fact look cheaper for some reason up close. I'm wondering if it's the beige color that just triggers a memory of some old toy we used to all own, but it's very true. You just can't help but think it's cheap looking when you're inspecting it. But just to be perfectly clear, my negative views of this guitar end here.
Buttons. The buttons are a different story. After using the strat's buttons, then going home to my Les Paul, it's the Les Paul that has toy buttons. With the strat, as soon as you're oriented, hitting those buttons is the closest feeling to playing a real guitar I've ever experienced. Sliding is so much smoother, and the feedback you get was very satisfying. I spent 90 percent of my playing on the upper/solo set of buttons, and I'm very pleased. I actually prefered using the solo buttons by the end of my playtime. Response of the buttons was perfect, never a single problem while I was there.
Strum Bar. Mushy=Perfection. There are 2 main reasons to love mushy. First, you can strum it. Give it a whirl. I know most of you have the thumb pressing thing down, or you hold on to the bar with thumb and forefinger. I do it too, I'm not criticizing. But take a chance and just strum that badboy like a real guitar. The response to this is absolutely perfect. I'm not sure who said it, but someone claimed you couldn't use a pick. That person smokes the crack. This bar was made for a pick. However, it still plays nice with other strumming styles. I tried every single style I could think of, and they all worked. Most importantly, upstrumming bass style is finally possible. On the xplorers, upstrumming would result in a lot of accidental double strums making it an exercise in frustration. Not the case here. Also there was a thread a bit back with someone asking if RockBand was going to have the double strumming problem like GH3 seems to have. With the strat, the answer is no. No matter how hard I hit the bar, and how much I tried to get it to bounce, I couldn't get the guitar to register a doublestroke. Perfection. Reason number 2, as mentioned elsewhere, no clicky. Some will hate that, but I love it. People watching you play will love it too. I know you zone out when you play and don't notice, but your loved ones HATE that clicky sound.
Whammy Bar. It wammied. It had good resistance, and it didn't break while I was there. Whether it'll break like my xplorer after 2 months, no idea. But it worked. On a personal note, GH3 on the software side seems to handle whammying different. It distorts the sound in a weird and mostly unpleasant way. The Rock Band software handles it just like Guitar Hero, and sounds just how you expect it to. But if you haven't noticed this difference in GH3, then you won't notice it here either.
5way switch. The location makes it easy to hit on accident, especially when strumming the guitar realistically. I found myself just randomly hitting it on a consistent basis, but I feel like this is going to come down to the individual. The actual switch itself is easy to use and easy to reach when you actually want to do it, so that's good.
Weight. This is the best example of the brain playing tricks on people that I've ever seen. The demo station I was at had a strat for lead, an xplorer for bass, and right next to it was the new Les Paul. I walk up, pick up the strat. Immediately I'm thinking "Wow, they're right. It's so light!" But then I see the xplorer, and I pick it up. You're brain just can't adjust to it, but absolutely the strat is the same weight then the xplorer. Personally, I thought the strat was just a touch heavier, but it was so hard to tell. Either way, people claiming the strat is lighter then the xplorer are letting their brains play a trick on them. Thing is, the strat is longer, so in comparison to its size, you become convinced it's lighter. But as soon as you have both guitars in your hands, it's just not true. The Les Paul is of course heavier then both, and you can tell it's the batteries. The wireless strat for PS3 most likely is going to be the same as the Les Paul, if I had to guess based on what I tested. The only claim you could possibly make is that maybe the xplorer has a better square inch of plastic to weight ratio. But if you were fine with the weight of plastic guitars before, then you'll be fine now. It's the same.
Twisty necks. This has been blown out of proportion. One of my first tests was to hold the body, and twist the neck. It does in fact twist, but it has nothing to do with quality. The neck is longer then previous guitars, and so there's a point near the the head where you can pull off more twist then you could on the old ones. However, if you hold the neck higher up, the twisting stops. If you grab the neck about where the old xplorer necks would stop, it seemed exactly the same as ever before. Why? Imagine a neck that was 100 feet long. Without changing anything else about the guitar, if you go to the end of that 100 feet, you could grab the guitar head and completely twist it 360 degrees without breaking the guitar. That's just how plastic works. The longer these necks get, the more flex you're going to be able to pull off. It has nothing to do with quality. The neck itself where it connects to the guitar body is perfectly solid, as good as anything from Red Octane. The only other test I pulled off (While no one was looking of course) was to grab the neck and shake the guitar as hard as I could. There was no weird flexing or rattling or anything else to indicate that the guitar couldn't handle the hardest handling possible. Short of smashing it into the ground, or holding the body and twisting the neck near the head as hard as you possibly can, you will not snap this guitar with normal use. The insides might be different. No way to test that without actually breaking the guitar, so I'll be holding off on that one.
Gameplay. Not too much here you won't expect. Guitar's easier, but it's still fun. Effects and one handed strumming with solo buttons was just a blast. Add this to the fact that most of the harder songs you've heard about weren't on the demo, there's a lot to like.
Gameplay effects. This is worth mentioning, and people's reactions will be different I think. Gameplay effects are toned way down across the board here. Think about GH3. Every star power has lightning and sound effect. Every 50 note streak has it's own sounds and visual effects. When playing 2 player co-op, every missed note has it's 'plunk' and shakes the board for both of you, whether you're the one that made the mistake or not. It all adds up, and while playing, there's a constant stream of non-song related feedback. Rock Band tones it all down. Sound effects are at a minimum in every department, including missed notes. Overdrive is very subtle. Gaining it has very little added effects wise, so much so it's easy to forget about overdrive completely. Actually using it you'll barely notice. The patterns on your fret board are nice indication, but it was actually very easy to lose track of when it was up and when it wore off. There's no streak counting going on anywhere, and any alerts you do get for solos and bass grooves and the like are absolutely ignorable. Sometimes it's actually pretty hard to tell when you make a mistake. It's up to you which you prefer, but I'm very touchy about what goes on during the song. GH3 makes me want to eat my guitar sometimes, but I was very pleased with RockBand. Nothing stuck out, and I was very impressed.
Drums. I spent much less time on the drums, and I can't think of anything to say about them that's worthwhile. They feel good, I slammed on them pretty hard. No foot pedal meant I could 90%+ anything on expert, but that foot pedal is going to own me. I didn't experience any of the lag I've heard from other posts, so I'm personally taking that as confirmation that it's a problem with your specific Best Buys. As long as it's set up right, lag is not noticeable. On the topic of improvising, it's much better on the drums. Each pad does become a specific drum, so you truly can improvise. Ending sessions were twice as fun on drums then they were on guitar. I'm not a drummer, so I don't have much else to offer.
Starting a Band. Here's the last thing I wanted to talk about. After playing a song on the guitar, a guy walked up and watched me finish up. He asks, "What's this?"
I say, "Rock Band."
"Oh, so they finally added Drums? I wondered about that when I played Guitar Hero."
"Yeah, it was inevitable. Hey, wanna try an experiment?"
"Sure."
"Take this guitar and play with me while I play drums."
"Sure, why not."
He picks up the guitar, I grab the drum sticks, we play a song. Afterwards, he's like "Wow! God damn, that's awesome!"
"I know. Let's switch."
I grab guitar, he tries drums. We finish another song, make some more random comments about what we thought, then switch again. Play another song.
8 songs later, he's worked his way up to hard drums. He says "Dude, I think I gotta go. My girlfriend's gonna kill me." I say "Man, you can't break up the band. You made a commitment." He says "You're right. Okay, one more song, then I'm going. Just one more."
3 songs later he leaves. His final words to me were, exactly word for word "Have fun. I have to buy this." I'd never met this guy before in my life, and I'll never see him again. But for about an hour, we were a band, and we f**king rocked. I'm not sure what else I could say that's a better indication of how great this game is going to be.
