My Impressions from a Walmart Demo...

[Seroth]

I'm sure there are 34095823490238 topics just like this, but whatever. Maybe you enjoy reading these things. :P

I went out today to rent Guitar Hero 3. I decided to stop buy Walmart 'cause I heard that some stores had put up Rock Band demos...And YES, our Walmart had a Rock Band PS3 demo! ...unfortunately, two little kids were playing it (or trying to play it, I don't know...). So I played Super Mario Galaxy while I waited my turn.

When the kids finally left, I held the beautiful Rock Band guitar in my hand. I went through the menu...and my heart died. I couldn't navigate the menu...the strum bar just wasn't very responsive. But I went on to pick a song (Tom Sawyer by Rush), put it on Expert for the hell of it...OMG, WTF. This guitar sucks. I missed notes for no reason. I was like, "Maybe I'll pick a song on Hard." I did that. I hit the notes this time, but it would act like I hit the note twice whenever I strummed just once. So I ended up failing again. How disappointing...but I'm gonna give the guitar the benefit of the doubt. It most likely suffered the demo display curse: little kids breaking the damn controllers. One of those tuney things on the head of the guitar was broken, off...so I'm sure it saw a lot of wear...even if the final guitar does end up sucking this much (I highly doubt that Harmonix would settle for the performance the Walmart guitar had), I could just use a Guitar Hero III guitar on it instead.

But anyway, I moved on to the drums. I put it on a Random song and chose Easy. One word can describe the drums: AWESOME. It was a lot of fun. I decided to quit the song and try another on Medium. Two words: MORE AWESOME. I can only imagine a song on Hard! When I finally put the drum sticks down, I quickly left, as I noticed while I was playing that some people were standing behind me, waiting to play.

And that was that.

GOD DAMN, I want this game even more now...just for the drums! I'm sure the guitar will be fine when I buy the game, as I won't be letting anyone break it. >=[

[Murderous_Urges]

Thoose little rascal kids breaking guitars like that everyone knows you have to smash it by gripping the neck, holding the guitar in an upright position and slam bottom on ground until a) the neck breaks off b) the guitar breaks into peices or c) both (c is prefered.)

[Xzyliac]

Oh how was Super Mario Galaxy!?!

[jq71586]

Yeah, especially in the Wal-Marts I can see how wear and tear can destroy a guitar in a matter of a day or two. Especially, if it is anything like my Wal-Mart.

If there are tons of the same reports coming from Best Buys and places like that than I'll start to get really worried.

Also they may not have calibrated lag if it was a small hd-tv monitor. I tried playing the GH3 demo last week at a GameCrazy on a 360 and they didn't fix the lag and I failed songs on hard too.

[joeincolorado]

I got to check out the game myself at the Walmart up the street. Man, the guitar was all sticky... I'm guessing some jerk spilled soda on it or something so, that got little play from me. The drums, however....I played for an hour straight. I kept looking around to see if anybody else wanted to play but, nobody was around. Needless to say, I was having a blast. The drums will consume my life...lol. The only thing that bothered me was the damn employees kept coming up to me and asking me questions about the game. Other than that, awesome experience. Loved it.

[Seroth]

Oh how was Super Mario Galaxy!?!

Pretty awesome. But they hadn't hook the TV up correctly so it looked like ass on the LCD HDTV.

As for Rock Band and lag...I went into the calibration options and it was on one of the LCD TV settings. I changed it to the other one to see if it helped. Didn't really help with guitar, 'cause the guitar seemed broken to begin with. I didn't have any problem with the drums, though.

[Nate88]

yea i played at best buy and the strum bar only worked when i pushed up. drums were awesome though. i played tom sawyer on hard really easily but im sure the bass will make it 10x harder. i even got a compliment on my playing from an employee as i was leaving lol

[bumbousdude25]

Man, your Wal-Mart sounds awesome! You have SMG and RB demo! :D


All my Wal-Mart has is a broken PS3, a DS with several gashes in the screens, a 360 with the X-Plorer but no GH II (WTF?) and a PS2 that's still going strong through all this. :D

[TheRocker]

Yes millions of topics and none have any pictures...

[Seroth]

Yes millions of topics and none have any pictures...

I was gonna take pics of the demo display with my cell phone while the kids were playing, but then I thought, "That'd be really creepy, taking pictures of some random little kids..."


Man, your Wal-Mart sounds awesome! You have SMG and RB demo! :D


All my Wal-Mart has is a broken PS3, a DS with several gashes in the screens, a 360 with the X-Plorer but no GH II (WTF?) and a PS2 that's still going strong through all this. :D

At my Walmart, the Rock Band and Mario Galaxy demos were not in the electronics section. They had set up a special "Holiday Shop" section where the Halloween stuff used to be, and that's where the Wii and Rock Band demo stations were...

[casedawg]

yeah i played at my wal mart today also. dont worry the guitart doesnt suck, yours was just broken probably. the drums definately kick a whole lot of ass. i've never really played drums or anything but as a joke i decided to try tom sawyer on expert and was astounded on how easy it was to just pick up and play. i mean once i get the full game w/ the bass pedal i wont be able to do thisbut still it was cool. however, i failed 70% through the song because the blue drum pad on the set was broken. bummer. i was able to make it through "are you gonna be my girl" and "in bloom" both on expert drums, "in bloom" being probably my favorite drum song out of the 3 i played, very fun song. sadly, i was cut short many times due to the ps3 overheating because they were keeping it in a plastic case. anyway, i couldnt be any more excited to get my hands on the full version later this month.

[skyehill]

Makes you wonder why the RB guitars are breaking within days of being setup and you can still find perfectly working Xplorers everywhere. This is not sounding good. Kinda wish Harmonix would respond to all these broken controllers. If its a case of abuse, it's hard to imagine these same stupid people wouldnt have broken the tons of GH2/3 guitars that are still out there and working fine.

[SmokaCola]

I was gonna take pics of the demo display with my cell phone while the kids were playing, but then I thought, "That'd be really creepy, taking pictures of some random little kids..."


LMFAO ****ING WIN MAN. ****ING WIN!

[Frederf]

I seriously doubt that it was the RB stratocaster's fault that it wasn't working at 100%. Every single GH demo station I've ever used has been completely trashed while my own personal guitars have done nearly a year of heavy service and are still at 90%.

There's nothing different about RB strats compared to any other demo controllers. If you've seen X controller fair well and Y controller, it's probably more luck-of-the-draw than any difference in build quality.

Walmarters just have hams where their fists should be and abuse the controllers. And they are probably used nearly 12 hours straight per day. It's actually poor advertising to let the demos remain in such disrepair.

[Bokonon]

I agree with Frederf. I've seen controllers for RB and GH mangled at different places.

On the tour, where the instruments also get heavy use, the guitars were great.

[Panman]

Also they may not have calibrated lag if it was a small hd-tv monitor. I tried playing the GH3 demo last week at a GameCrazy on a 360 and they didn't fix the lag and I failed songs on hard too.
This is exactly the problem with the Wal-mart demos. I was surprised to see one at my local Wal-mart and did notice lag. I just listened to the music rather than watching the screen closer. Could tell they were off a touch.

[Axel32]

All my Wal-Mart has is a broken PS3, a DS with several gashes in the screens, a 360 with the X-Plorer but no GH II (WTF?) and a PS2 that's still going strong through all this. :D

I wonder how many times they replaced the PS2.

[tbradshaw]

Makes you wonder why the RB guitars are breaking within days of being setup and you can still find perfectly working Xplorers everywhere. This is not sounding good. Kinda wish Harmonix would respond to all these broken controllers. If its a case of abuse, it's hard to imagine these same stupid people wouldnt have broken the tons of GH2/3 guitars that are still out there and working fine.

You post this same analysis in every thread that mentions a broken controller. You're right, but kind of beating a dead horse.

[raine697]

As for Rock Band and lag...I went into the calibration options and it was on one of the LCD TV settings. I changed it to the other one to see if it helped. Didn't really help with guitar, 'cause the guitar seemed broken to begin with. I didn't have any problem with the drums, though.

I must say, the preset lag settings on rock band are pretty freakin' amazing. I just set the lag to an LCD setting at my walmart and it worked perfectly. :D