Jan 6
Curse you, Harmonix!!!
It’s one of those things that you never thing will happen to you when you’re young, like catching a terminal disease or becoming horribly disfigured in an unlikely but sadistically humorous accident involving twelve oxen and a bottle of KY jelly. That’s right, I’m talking about the dreadfully high failure rates on the Rock Band guitar controllers… an event that hits just a little too close to home for this gamer. So, in lieu of there being much gaming news this time of year, I present to you my story:
It was a Christmas to be remembered. My parents hadn’t even bothered wrapping my spankin’ new copy of Rock Band on account of its large size and that it was the only thing I really asked for. After all the presents were unwrapped and most of the family were in turn wrapping themselves in conversation, my brother and I ran downstairs to try out the game.
Everything seemed to be going well at first. I was on drums, he was playing guitar. After about an hour, though, I noticed that he was missing a lot more notes than usual. This was a seasoned Guitar Hero veteran, after all… the second tier of songs on expert should have been cake for him. “What’s going on, man?” I asked.
“It’s this strum bar… it’s not always registering or something.” I asked if I could give it a try. Lo and behold, the damn thing wasn’t working about half the times I strummed it. It would work just fine if I strummed really hard or strummed up, but playing it like I normally would just didn’t work at all. After another hour of fiddling with it to see if I could get it to work, I decided it was a lost cause and went on Harmonix’s site to order a replacement.
The wait was long and arduous… only about 5 days, really, but it was a long enough time to coax me into buying Guitar Hero III so I’d have a working Guitar for my 360. Man, what a difference that thing made! The GH controller is over nine-thousand times better than the piece of trash that comes with Rock Band. Even though my new one seems to be working fine, I hate how the strum bar is silent. It makes it hard to pinpoint when the game will register a strum, and thus makes a rapid series of notes almost impossible to play without missing one or two.
What I don’t understand is how this could happen. Did Harmonix just suffer some sort of blow to the head or something? The original guitar controller was awesome–in fact, I’d entirely attribute Guitar Hero’s popularity to the fact that it was so much fun to play on. Heck, I bet Rock Band wouldn’t even exist if that original controller weren’t as good as it was. So really, I’m left wondering how they managed to take such a step backwards.
Moral of the story: try to get your hands on a pair of the wireless Guitar Hero III guitars instead of playing on the Rock Band one. It’ll make the experience much, much more enjoyable.
Categories: Microsoft10 Comments so far
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Agreed…. I held the Rock Band guitar in my hands just for shits and giggles and the RB Guitar sucks Monkey Fuck…
I will always disagree with this, even though my Rock Band guitar just broke and they’re sending me a new one. The Rock Band guitar feels SO much better than the old guitars. The frets work much better than the old fret buttons, and the quieter strum bar means you can hear the game more than annoying clicking. Rock Band guitar > Guitar Hero guitar, when it’s working.
RB guitar is probably one of the worst peripherals ever concocted. I like how it looks like a real guitar (from a distance). That is the only thing going for it. The strum bar is pure trash, the wammy is even worse, and the stupid little effects thing constantly hits my hand while strumming. The entire guitar feels like it was made of rubberbands and baby poo. All and all it just feels cheap because that is what it is.
Power Glove = worse peripheral ever. End of that possible debate. The only thing worse than the Power Glove is using the font Comic Sans in the image of this post…hell, using comic sans in anything.
The Rock Band guitar wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the strum…I’m not a fan of the click-clack on Guitar Hero guitars, but I hate how when you strum down on the RB guitar that it’s almost as though you’re getting a slight bit of extra resistance before you reach the furthest it can go.
I don’t really mind the RB guitar. I like where the frets are located, but I prefer GH’s guitar’s strum bar. I do love the look of the RB guitar way more though. It’s extremely appealing.
Yes, this post is in Comic Sans.
Oh, another thing I neglected to mention is that the guitar that came with my game originally wouldn’t activate star power by tilting. Also:
>>the quieter strum bar means you can hear the game more than annoying clicking.
The drums!
You can play the drums softly, and I’ve seen pictures of modified kits that have rubber or other things to dampen the clacking from hitting them. And plus, what I meant was mostly for when you’re playing just guitar.
Here’s the thing. The RB guitar is great - when it works. The first few days I played on the guitar, it was bliss. Gone was the incessant clicking of the GH infant-toy guitars. As for hitting the rapid notes in succession… I thought the RB guitar was better because you could strum to the actual song, and not get caught up in the clicking noise… that is, of course, until the strum started exhibiting problems. New one is on the way… can’t wait. Now, if only you could use the RB guitar in GH…. Ugh!
I find that many people who don’t play on expert enjoy the rb guitar while it is completely opposite for the expert players.