ima747
11-17-2007, 05:08 AM
First off if this belongs under a sticky I missed sory, but it's not a review of the full game just my impressions of the demo so I don't think it fit...
First off, I have pretty limited experience with GH. I played GH2 once at a friend's many months ago. But I have been hooked on Frets on Fire on my PC ever since, using the keyboard instead of a real controller.
A friend and I went to the best buy near his place. They had Rock Band setup next to GH3 in the games peripherals isle. The RB display was pretty trashed when we got there. The drums were on, but the guitar didn't work. no light on the 360 ring. the mic was looped back into the case so we couldn't try that. And they had turned the TV off because it was so trashed. But after a few minutes of unplugging and repluging everything we could get to, specificly power cycling the exposed hub we got the guitar and drum working and the TV turned on.
A little note I haven't seen anywhere. the guitar and drum wires are basicly Xbox 1 cables, with a standard USB dongle after the little PS2 (computer lingo, no playstation 2) style round connector instead of an xbox1 usb dongle. Which I found interesting since the xbox 1 is very much a dead system at this point, but I digress. It also further backs up my assumption that the controllers atleast for 360 are purely standard USB controlers and therefore should work with you computer without anything fancy being done (for frets on fire or maybe even the PC version of GH3 for example).
Once we got the controllers turned on I realised the guitar had taken a helluva beating, the toggle for the pickups (on a real guitar, I think it's overdrive mode or something on the RB guitar I didn't futz with it much) was bent and the strum bar only worked downwards and only about 1/3 of the time... but I soldiered on on guitar with my friend on drums.
After hitting the strum as hard as I could to make it register notes for 2 songs it actualy fixed itself and it was about 90% functional from then on which was good enough for me to know I need to practice and it wasn't just the equipment :0)
Guitar: Bearing in mind my limmited exposure to GH here's my impressions. It's Much more realistic. I play guitar, the real thing with the strings, and it fealt a LOT more like that than GH2 and I tried the GH3 demo... which I thought was rediculous especialy after playing RB. more on that in a sec. Basicly you have to be much more precise with your strumming/picking timing. it HAS to sync with the music so it's believable. On the other end the fret buttons actualy feal more forgiving. Like a real guitar if you're holding an extra string it won't play unless you actualy strum/pluck that string so for fast stuff if you have an extra button down for a fraction of a second too long it won't make you screw up... it fealt more "real" is the best way I can discribe the difference.
The note charts were better than GH2 in my limmited experience, again, it's more on realism than actualy trying to make it hard. an easy song where you're just struming a chord, you hold the chord and strum, nothing pointless and fancy jsut for the sake of making it harder. In contrast my experience with GH3 was that the notes were hard, very hard, but they didn't really make much sense a good percentage of the time. they were in time with the music but not in sync with the pitch... it didn't feel real and I was very underwhelmed it actually made me glad I didn't get GH3, though I still want GH2...
So in my opinion the guitar is more like a guitar and less like a rythem game with a weird shaped controller... Continuing with the guitar is a guitar message. there's virtualy no space between the fret buttons, and they're not as raised as the GH3 controller which again feels much more like a real guitar. It's MUCH easier in my opinion to transfer from lower frets to higher frets without knowing perfectly in your mind from DAYS of play exactly where the button are, you can play it more by feel... more like a guitar, you get the idea. Dito with the strum. I don't know exacly how broken the strum was, but there's no click, it's more analog and less like flicking a switch. I actualy kind of like the switch aspect of the GH controller's strum but that's primarly because I'm used to playing with a freaking keyboard and uing my enter key... this is more fun even if it might be every so slightly less accurate because you can't feel the click... I'm looking forward to adapting.
If you're not a master of GH2 it should be plenty of challenge and if you're a master of GH3 then chances are you won't like it as much because it's more towards realism and less towards a crazy challenge, your choice.
Drums: First off I suck at drums. I have always sucked at drums. I always want to play, I make a horrible noise and I am usualy asked to stop. RB is no exception. the drums feal like a drum synth. and I am EXACTLY as bad at RB drums and I am at real drums. However they are crazy amounts of fun and I think if I start out on easy and work my way up I might actually learn something. But I'll stick with guitar to start :)
My friend who has never played drums was a natural and was playing well enough to save me on hard from the start. So if you have natural rythem you've got a leg up.
Bass: I haven't heard much on the bass so hopefully this will be of use to someone. I was really interested in the bass, not because I love playing bass (I'm not so great, but I can atleast do it in real life) but because if it was FUN (unlike my limmited GH bass experience where it was a pitty postion, because it's not the point of the game) it doubled my innitial enjoyment and play value of RB. It was fantastic. Seriously seriously fun. Granted it's not guitar so don't expect all the (as strong bad would say) "weedlys" but if you can dig on a good bass line you're going to have a good time and not feal as left out as the previews had lead me to believe. You just have to realize it's not a guitar, it's a bass. Just like the guitar and drums, it FEALS like playing a bass. I played dani california, and I fealt like flea... granted, flea fully dressed in a best buy holding a plastic guitar... but the groove was flea's, it's his rythem, it's his style, it's not just maintaining a beat but with a stringed instrument. You can play it various bass styles (slap, pluck, etc.) and it's believable each way. I couldn't stop my head from bobing like a bass grooving idiot but I didn't care.
Bottom line, if you have any interest in bass, you will like it, if you just wanna jam on guitar, it's not a second guitar, so stick with what you like. Cross you fingers for some parlement and some other kickin bass tracks for DLC... And I also take this oportunity to PLEAD with harmonix. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE GIVE US A BASE SINGLE PLAYER! I just wanna be able to groove on that sometimes when my GF won't be around for BWT... I need a chance to get better without draging someone else down with me.
Mic: It was looped back into the case, I could unplug it from the hub so I can say the plug is a plug and shaped like a usb plug for pluging into usb things, but the mic itself was locked in the case with the 360 so that's as far as I can go.
Conclusion: Do you prefer GH 2 or GH 3? if you like 2 more you will probably like RB more than GH3. Do you wish the note charts were more like the music or just harder however that may come about. RB is more realistic, and easy song is going to be fairly easy on hard because there arn't extra fake notes and flourishes, you're playing the music, not hitting buttons to the tune. Do you want to play drums, you need RB. Do you like the bass and consider it an instrument not just a place to put your untalented friend, you need RB. Do you want to have a good time with your friends rather than just trying to show them up, and or do you have more than 1 friend that can come to your house at one time, you need RB.
Playing the demo, even partialy broken was more fun than I was expecting, and I pre-ordered a while ago... it's that good.
First off, I have pretty limited experience with GH. I played GH2 once at a friend's many months ago. But I have been hooked on Frets on Fire on my PC ever since, using the keyboard instead of a real controller.
A friend and I went to the best buy near his place. They had Rock Band setup next to GH3 in the games peripherals isle. The RB display was pretty trashed when we got there. The drums were on, but the guitar didn't work. no light on the 360 ring. the mic was looped back into the case so we couldn't try that. And they had turned the TV off because it was so trashed. But after a few minutes of unplugging and repluging everything we could get to, specificly power cycling the exposed hub we got the guitar and drum working and the TV turned on.
A little note I haven't seen anywhere. the guitar and drum wires are basicly Xbox 1 cables, with a standard USB dongle after the little PS2 (computer lingo, no playstation 2) style round connector instead of an xbox1 usb dongle. Which I found interesting since the xbox 1 is very much a dead system at this point, but I digress. It also further backs up my assumption that the controllers atleast for 360 are purely standard USB controlers and therefore should work with you computer without anything fancy being done (for frets on fire or maybe even the PC version of GH3 for example).
Once we got the controllers turned on I realised the guitar had taken a helluva beating, the toggle for the pickups (on a real guitar, I think it's overdrive mode or something on the RB guitar I didn't futz with it much) was bent and the strum bar only worked downwards and only about 1/3 of the time... but I soldiered on on guitar with my friend on drums.
After hitting the strum as hard as I could to make it register notes for 2 songs it actualy fixed itself and it was about 90% functional from then on which was good enough for me to know I need to practice and it wasn't just the equipment :0)
Guitar: Bearing in mind my limmited exposure to GH here's my impressions. It's Much more realistic. I play guitar, the real thing with the strings, and it fealt a LOT more like that than GH2 and I tried the GH3 demo... which I thought was rediculous especialy after playing RB. more on that in a sec. Basicly you have to be much more precise with your strumming/picking timing. it HAS to sync with the music so it's believable. On the other end the fret buttons actualy feal more forgiving. Like a real guitar if you're holding an extra string it won't play unless you actualy strum/pluck that string so for fast stuff if you have an extra button down for a fraction of a second too long it won't make you screw up... it fealt more "real" is the best way I can discribe the difference.
The note charts were better than GH2 in my limmited experience, again, it's more on realism than actualy trying to make it hard. an easy song where you're just struming a chord, you hold the chord and strum, nothing pointless and fancy jsut for the sake of making it harder. In contrast my experience with GH3 was that the notes were hard, very hard, but they didn't really make much sense a good percentage of the time. they were in time with the music but not in sync with the pitch... it didn't feel real and I was very underwhelmed it actually made me glad I didn't get GH3, though I still want GH2...
So in my opinion the guitar is more like a guitar and less like a rythem game with a weird shaped controller... Continuing with the guitar is a guitar message. there's virtualy no space between the fret buttons, and they're not as raised as the GH3 controller which again feels much more like a real guitar. It's MUCH easier in my opinion to transfer from lower frets to higher frets without knowing perfectly in your mind from DAYS of play exactly where the button are, you can play it more by feel... more like a guitar, you get the idea. Dito with the strum. I don't know exacly how broken the strum was, but there's no click, it's more analog and less like flicking a switch. I actualy kind of like the switch aspect of the GH controller's strum but that's primarly because I'm used to playing with a freaking keyboard and uing my enter key... this is more fun even if it might be every so slightly less accurate because you can't feel the click... I'm looking forward to adapting.
If you're not a master of GH2 it should be plenty of challenge and if you're a master of GH3 then chances are you won't like it as much because it's more towards realism and less towards a crazy challenge, your choice.
Drums: First off I suck at drums. I have always sucked at drums. I always want to play, I make a horrible noise and I am usualy asked to stop. RB is no exception. the drums feal like a drum synth. and I am EXACTLY as bad at RB drums and I am at real drums. However they are crazy amounts of fun and I think if I start out on easy and work my way up I might actually learn something. But I'll stick with guitar to start :)
My friend who has never played drums was a natural and was playing well enough to save me on hard from the start. So if you have natural rythem you've got a leg up.
Bass: I haven't heard much on the bass so hopefully this will be of use to someone. I was really interested in the bass, not because I love playing bass (I'm not so great, but I can atleast do it in real life) but because if it was FUN (unlike my limmited GH bass experience where it was a pitty postion, because it's not the point of the game) it doubled my innitial enjoyment and play value of RB. It was fantastic. Seriously seriously fun. Granted it's not guitar so don't expect all the (as strong bad would say) "weedlys" but if you can dig on a good bass line you're going to have a good time and not feal as left out as the previews had lead me to believe. You just have to realize it's not a guitar, it's a bass. Just like the guitar and drums, it FEALS like playing a bass. I played dani california, and I fealt like flea... granted, flea fully dressed in a best buy holding a plastic guitar... but the groove was flea's, it's his rythem, it's his style, it's not just maintaining a beat but with a stringed instrument. You can play it various bass styles (slap, pluck, etc.) and it's believable each way. I couldn't stop my head from bobing like a bass grooving idiot but I didn't care.
Bottom line, if you have any interest in bass, you will like it, if you just wanna jam on guitar, it's not a second guitar, so stick with what you like. Cross you fingers for some parlement and some other kickin bass tracks for DLC... And I also take this oportunity to PLEAD with harmonix. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE GIVE US A BASE SINGLE PLAYER! I just wanna be able to groove on that sometimes when my GF won't be around for BWT... I need a chance to get better without draging someone else down with me.
Mic: It was looped back into the case, I could unplug it from the hub so I can say the plug is a plug and shaped like a usb plug for pluging into usb things, but the mic itself was locked in the case with the 360 so that's as far as I can go.
Conclusion: Do you prefer GH 2 or GH 3? if you like 2 more you will probably like RB more than GH3. Do you wish the note charts were more like the music or just harder however that may come about. RB is more realistic, and easy song is going to be fairly easy on hard because there arn't extra fake notes and flourishes, you're playing the music, not hitting buttons to the tune. Do you want to play drums, you need RB. Do you like the bass and consider it an instrument not just a place to put your untalented friend, you need RB. Do you want to have a good time with your friends rather than just trying to show them up, and or do you have more than 1 friend that can come to your house at one time, you need RB.
Playing the demo, even partialy broken was more fun than I was expecting, and I pre-ordered a while ago... it's that good.
