BattleItch and I spent about 20 minutes playing the Rock Band demo at BestBuy tonight. Neither of us were brave enough to sing, so we alternated guitar and drums. Unfortunately, I think the demo is hampered by two majors SNAFUs:
1. I think the LCD TV it's being displayed on is old and has a 25+ ms response time. You have to hit notes noticeably before you "should" in order to get them to connect.
2. I think the guitar is broken. It appears to often register notes twice when you only strummed once. This has the annoying effect of cutting off held notes.
The two glitches together made the demo very difficult to play, but we persevered and passed a few songs. We rocked out to Epic by Faith no More, Detroit Rock City by KISS, and Wanted Dead or Alive by Bon Jovi. Here's my thoughts.
1. I like the guitar. It feels even more like a real guitar than the GH 3 guitar. The buttons do not stick up off the neck at all. The neck has recessed areas that you depress. This feels more like a real guitar to me. The neck also has a second set of buttons where it meets the body (for solos). I am unsure if using these buttons on solos will be required (possibly at higher difficulties?) or optional. You can tell Harmonix continued significantly developing the GH II guitar for gameply while Neversoft primarily made navigation improvements to the GH 3 guitar. There is also a switch that mimics the 5-position pickup selector switch of a Strat. I am unsure what it does on the Rock Band guitar.
2. The rectangular boxes take some getting used to. I think I may like them more than their rounded brethren, but I'm really unsure. It may be possible to be more precise, but I also couldn't tell if the game was demanding more precision because of it.
3. The drums are fun!!! It took a little getting used to, but I was nailing it on medium by the end and having a great time. I kept my hands crossed like a real drum set and it felt natural, but BattleItch did what comes naturally and didn't cross her hands. I can see either method being equally fruitful, and discussions similar to inverted vs standard appearing at gatherings. There is no pedal for the demo set, all places where you would need to hit the bass drum are hit for you automatically.
4. If your teammate fails the song you can "save" them by performing a not too difficult maneuver (with drums it's repeatedly hitting the green drum). Pretty neat feature.
5. This is going to be an awesome party game. With EA saying supplies will be short this holiday I'm gonna pre-order to ensure I get a copy. If you get 4 people together that are skilled at rhythm games this will be an absolute blast!
I played it at Best Buy as
I played it at Best Buy as well....I prefer rocking with the guitar but the drum set was pretty cool nonetheless.
I'm going to have to try
I'm going to have to try playing drums with my hands crossed. I knew something wasn't right when I was sitting there like BattleB was.
I didnt try with my hands
I didnt try with my hands crossed that seemed like it would be a little more difficult. i think i had more fun playing the drums then i did playing the guitar but it could of also been the song that we were playing.
After thinking about it
After thinking about it more, I think drummers probably cross their hands because the high hat is higher than the snare drum, and easier to reach with the right hand. I wonder if crossing one's hands in Rock Band is beneficial at all? I expect it would feel more natural to drummers, but there may not be a real reason for it. Any drummers got an opinion?
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