Nice. Found a demo set up at Wal-Mart...

[Magnet]

I hadn't heard about Wal-Mart setting any demos up, only Best Buy stores (none of which are anywhere near where I live). Before I got to try it, there were these 2 or 3 kids (probably around 6 years old) who took turns playing the drums. Of course, the first kid just started smashing randomly right away (he was hitting the pads very, very hard), but then he finally made the connection of the notes to what he was supposed to be doing. He started actually playing the song and was doing quite well. I'm surprised at how intuitive it was for a six-year-old to just jump into the game and get it that quickly. He was hitting the pads when the bass drum lines came, but I can't blame him for that. That was the only reason he failed the song.

A few background notes: the demo was set up (in a part of the store nowhere near the Entertainment section if anyone has trouble finding it at their Wal-Mart - it was actually in the middle of the gardening supplies section :confused:) on a PlayStation 3 (I was very surprised and pleased to see this since I have a PS3 and not a 360). Great to see the game in action in person on that console. The guitar was wired for this demo (as were the drum sticks, lol). There was some slow-down periodically in the game, but I know these builds are really old and the tour demo had the same issue.

I started in with the guitar on Expert. The Strat felt really nice (it's heavier than people have made it sound on this board), but I was missing so many notes that it was insane. I've 5-starred all the songs on GH and GH2 Expert, so it was weird to get killed off in this game so quickly. At first I thought it was a problem with me holding the wrong buttons since it's possible to accidentally press more than one fret with a finger since they're so close together. But as I watched what was being shown as held down and I did have the right ones, strumming just wouldn't work more than half the time. I tried strumming only up, only down, and back-and-forth, but many times it just didn't respond in the game for some reason. What is up with that strum bar? Either they've changed how you can play the game a lot from Guitar Hero or the demo guitar's strum bar is a piece of crap. I hope it's the latter and that the retail guitar will work just fine with how I normally play plastic guitars.

Then I tried the drums. The left-most pad was unresponsive unless you hit it with a good amount of force. All the other pads worked great. With the way I saw those kids beating on it relentlessly, I'm surprised any of the pads still worked. The drums are a lot of fun. Medium seemed to be a good fit for me since I've never actually played the drums before.

The Wal-Mart is a 24/7 location, so I plan on going back later tonight when there won't be so many people wanting to play it. If anyone can give any tips on playing the Strat with any competency, feel free. I'm dumbfounded.

[blackjack]

I hadn't heard about Wal-Mart setting any demos up, only Best Buy stores (none of which are anywhere near where I live). Before I got to try it, there were these 2 or 3 kids (probably around 6 years old) who took turns playing the drums. Of course, the first kid just started smashing randomly right away (he was hitting the pads very, very hard), but then he finally made the connection of the notes to what he was supposed to be doing. He started actually playing the song and was doing quite well. I'm surprised at how intuitive it was for a six-year-old to just jump into the game and get it that quickly. He was hitting the pads when the bass drum lines came, but I can't blame him for that. That was the only reason he failed the song.

A few background notes: the demo was set up (in a part of the store nowhere near the Entertainment section if anyone has trouble finding it at their Wal-Mart - it was actually in the middle of the gardening supplies section :confused:) on a PlayStation 3 (I was very surprised and pleased to see this since I have a PS3 and not a 360). Great to see the game in action in person on that console. The guitar was wired for this demo (as were the drum sticks, lol). There was some slow-down periodically in the game, but I know these builds are really old and the tour demo had the same issue.

I started in with the guitar on Expert. The Strat felt really nice (it's heavier than people have made it sound on this board), but I was missing so many notes that it was insane. I've 5-starred all the songs on GH and GH2 Expert, so it was weird to get killed off in this game so quickly. At first I thought it was a problem with me holding the wrong buttons since it's possible to accidentally press more than one fret with a finger since they're so close together. But as I watched what was being shown as held down and I did have the right ones, strumming just wouldn't work more than half the time. I tried strumming only up, only down, and back-and-forth, but many times it just didn't respond in the game for some reason. What is up with that strum bar? Either they've changed how you can play the game a lot from Guitar Hero or the demo guitar's strum bar is a piece of crap. I hope it's the latter and that the retail guitar will work just fine with how I normally play plastic guitars.

Then I tried the drums. The left-most pad was unresponsive unless you hit it with a good amount of force. All the other pads worked great. With the way I saw those kids beating on it relentlessly, I'm surprised any of the pads still worked. The drums are a lot of fun. Medium seemed to be a good fit for me since I've never actually played the drums before.

The Wal-Mart is a 24/7 location, so I plan on going back later tonight when there won't be so many people wanting to play it. If anyone can give any tips on playing the Strat with any competency, feel free. I'm dumbfounded.



The reason the strum bar is wasted is because of sca (Small Child Abuse) ive seen kids WAIL on these things and nearly break them in one go. Also the little kids kill the drums by hitting them very hard. Everything will be fine in the game that you will buy.

[Frederf]

A lot of people have noted that demos often have the Strat strum working in only one direction (usually up-strum) and one-or-more of the drum pads not working or requiring a lot of force.

[Patch_]

'Yeah go to walmart around 3AM and you're set and as for the strum.


To make the deadline we had to use some pre-production gear which is not as durable as the final equipment.

So I think we're all set far as that goes.

[jmiscavish]

In St. Joseph, Mo (200000 pop.), the best buy and walmart both have demos set up. There is a special "xmas" section set up in the seasonal section of our walmart. They had mario galaxy, scene it LCA, and RB set up.

When GH2 was coming out, the Walmart demo guitar was always broken. I figure people wail on these things for hours a day. On the setup I played at BB, the guitar worked flawlessly (I actually like everything about it, the strum bar and weight), but the drums were less than ideal. I'm sure once I get my brand new set up from ebgames (nowhere else was taking preorders) it'll work fine.

[deathstick]

Tried it at Best Buy in CT here today and the only thing that I didn't like was the kid playing guitar thought he was better than he actually was. He tried everything on expert and failed miserably the three times he tried. We failed Should I Stay or Should I Go with THREE notes left because of him...THREE notes!!!

Other than that it was awesome, even my girlfriend tried it and loved it! Can't wait!!

[Connor07]

Yea I found it in the middle of the gardening section too....IDK why I guess not enough space in electronics...But yea like you the guitar was messed up and mad me look like a fool when I was jamming with a friend....So I did the evil thing and made him play the guitar while I was whipping it on the drums (which weren't broken) on expert...But I betting that the drums would be 3x harder when you actually use the bass pedal.

[tbradshaw]

So I think we're all set far as that goes.

Where did you get this quote? Link, please?

Thanks!

[Magnet]

I just came back from playing it again with no one else really there. The strum bar finally started to work flawlessly for whole songs. It was weird, but it went from perfectly functioning to unusable for short periods of time which caused me to fail out of songs. Now that I know how great it is when it works, I have very little worries about the guitar. I had problems keeping streaks while alt-strumming, but down-strumming worked great. After playing through five or six songs, you really get used to the new guitar model, and it's a lot of fun to use. I barely delved into the solo buttons and they were a blast, as was the effects switch. The feel of the buttons is great, and I prefer them over the familiar Guitar Hero fret button style. The only thing that's a little iffy about the Strat to me is alt-strumming with the strum bar, but that hopefully won't be a problem with a brand new guitar on Nov 20.

The main problem with the demo was the horrendous lag that crept up from time to time even more when I went there tonight. I can't wait for the retail game where that won't be an issue and they'll be 43 more songs to play. And then countless DLC songs to play. Plus BWT. Man, this game is going to be amazing. I'm so glad I got to play the demo for a kind of cathartic release or I probably would have died sometime in the next week.

[MidwestDrummer]

I hadn't heard about Wal-Mart setting any demos up

I beat you to it: http://community.rockband.com/vbforum/showthread.php?t=6591

[Sandm4n]

I posted that the Wal Mart RB Demos were set up in the Garden Centers in another thread a while .back. I guess no one bothered to read it though. My experience with the Strat and Drums was real nice at first though. Since I was the one that set up the demos for our Garden Center, I got to actually check it out untouched, and both instruments were really nice. However that is not the case now with the strat. The reason we are setting the Demos up in the Garden Center, is because that is where our holiday section is, and Corporate I guess feels like it will envolk some impulse purchases.

[Connor07]

O well that makes sense....

[wes_jett2008]

Haha I feel you man,Being in lawn and garden was a big WTF to me...Me and my friends went in today looking and it took us atleast 30 minutes to find it.Our strat is fine...If you go into the options and fix the lag,that will help a ton...We finally started passing songs after we figured that out.The only thing that is screwed up with the strat here is the solo buttons kind dont always work.Drums were awesome though...I was quite embarassed,Im the drummer in two bands...and I could only play on hard :(

[Connor07]

OHH...I feel SO STEWPID...I forgot you could calibrate it...Man that sucks...I picked up the guitar and moved it to expert on Dani California and was like, Watch this......Then first note came and BONK!...Missed....then second...BLENP!..Missed again...Then FAIL!! YOU SUCK....I was like WTF!!!! THIS SUCKS!!! AND MADE A TOTALL JACK A** OUT OF MYSELF... I wonder if these buggy intstruments will stop some people from buying the game... But yea the drums are AWESOME