Instrument Questions and First Impressions

[DeftOne]

So I've been watching the forums for the last few weeks and appreciate the information everyone has been providing.

I went down to my local best buy today and tried out the demo and was very impressed with the game as a whole. I only got to try the solo mode, as no one was around to play with me, but definitely enjoyed playing. While I was there I played the drums and the guitar on hard.

The drums play very nicely, have decent rebound and while small are big enough to hit them consistently on the pad as opposed to the rim. They are a bit louder than I hoped, and it seemed like they didn't register a few of my hits. Could have just been the way I hit it though. All in all the drums are a lot of fun, can't wait to try with the kick pedal.

The guitar on the other hand was somewhat disappointing. Like others had reported, it was not registering my downward strumming, and only worked when I strummed upward. This could be a big problem for me: one because I don't play the guitar that way in real life, and two because on faster parts I like to strum up and down. The effects switch is neat, but nothing all that spectacular and would be easy to go without. The weight of the guitar is not as light as some make it out to be, at least its not that noticeable. The neck is a little flimsy, but only if you are actually trying to twist it, it doesn't affect game play whatsoever. Finally, the guitar is much bigger which is nice, and it is nice having the buttons flush with the neck (didn't lose my place once), but the buttons are a little farther apart than even the xplorer, which may be a problem for those with smaller fingers.

Now to my questions:

1. Has anyone actually played a strat where the strum bar worked when strumming down?
2. Can you play the bass drum during the overdrive fills, or is it just the pads?
3. On the demo the kick pedal is automatic, will there be a setting in the game to make it do the same thing for the final version? (wife is not as coordinated as me, and would be easier for her to get into it I think.)
4. When you practice a song in the practice mode will all the fills be charted, or can you practice overdrive fills as well? (Would be nice because it will take some time to figure out free form fills that work well with each individual song)

Sorry for the long post, hope it helps those who haven't played it yet, and hopefully someone has answers to some of my questions.

[LongDarkBlues]

1. Has anyone actually played a strat where the strum bar worked when strumming down?
2. Can you play the bass drum during the overdrive fills, or is it just the pads?
3. On the demo the kick pedal is automatic, will there be a setting in the game to make it do the same thing for the final version? (wife is not as coordinated as me, and would be easier for her to get into it I think.)
4. When you practice a song in the practice mode will all the fills be charted, or can you practice overdrive fills as well? (Would be nice because it will take some time to figure out free form fills that work well with each individual song)


1. Yes - the one here has worked fine for a week and a half - both up and down strummgin are perfectly accurate and responsive.
2. I have no idea!
3. I was wondering that, too - seems like that would lead to score-inflation on the leaderboards, but I think it'd be nice for handicapped drummers and people who just get too frustrated to do it.
4. I don't know for sure, but I'd bet that the fills are not charted in practice.

[Bakkster]

1) Yes, I've played a guitar that felt and played wonderfully.
2) I believe so, I would be very surprised if this was not possible.
3) I don't think so. Easy is as low as it goes, and shouldn't be frustrating to even the most uncoordinated. Just keep them off of The Reaper and they should be fine.
4) No idea. If I had to guess, I would say there is no overdrive in practice, just like GH2.

[sporkBrigade]

1. I've played two guitars in Colorado. Denver's was perfect, Westminster had a perfect downstrum, but double strumming never quite worked. Couldn't figure out if it was the guitar or lag, though, so I can't really make a comment.

4. Depends. Technically there is a full Drum track written out from beginning to end fills and all. The freeform drumfills don't actually appear unless you get half a bar of overdrive, and then they cover the fills that are already there. Chances are very good there won't be any overdrive in practice mode, so therefore there won't be freeforms. This is a good thing, since it will give you a chance to practice all the written fills, which for me were the hardest part about the drumming.

[DeftOne]

Thanks guys for the great comments. The only reason I want to be able to practice freeform fills is so that I can get an idea of what certain patterns sound like. I agree that its nice to have all the fills in practice so that you can get better at them, it'd just be nice to be able to practice some free form fills as well.

[Sairynn]

I think part of the problem with the downstrum is that you can't play it the same way you do with a GH guitar, yet we are all accustomed to it and thus we do exactly that. When I first picked up the guitar I though only upstrums worked as well, but I played it for a bit and I realized that I just was doing the downstrums wrong. Next time you go, try actually strumming it instead of just pushing, or just holding the end of it and pushing it down. When I did that, it worked just fine.

[Caulkmometer]

I went to my local Best Buy today in Jersey and tried out the drums and guitar. First I played the drums on Medium to "Epic". I'm a drummer myself, so it really felt like playing along to a metronome. The pads were less bouncy than I thought they'd be, but fine overall. As others have said, they're pretty loud. Then I tried out the guitar on Expert to "Wanted Dead or Alive". I kept failing pretty early because the guitar was completely unresponsive. I can beat GH on Expert, so it's not that I suck. It just didn't register my down-strokes at all. The design of the guitar itself is nice. The buttons are stiffer than the new GH controller. I think the window to hit the notes is probably in between GH 1 and 2 judging from the 2 that I actually hit.

I still have faith in the game, but I have a bad feeling that there's going to be some defective guitars being shipped at launch, judging from what I've read here and my experience today. There's also going to be more of a learning curve to this game than I initially expected, but that's fine with me. I'd hate it if I mastered the game within the first few days of getting it.