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Harmonix Delivers another Slam Dunk

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 281 / 299
Date: November 20, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Let me first admit that I'm a Guitar Hero fan. I adore playing all of the Guitar Hero games, and we have multiple guitars in the house (for multiple platforms) so that we can jam together. When Harmonix turned over Guitar Hero III to another company, I was really curious what they would choose to do next. I am THRILLED with the result - Rock Band, which combines together all the fun of singing karaoke, playing guitar (lead and bass) plus DRUMS!!!

My boyfriend is in several bands, and he plays lead guitar, bass guitar and drums. I love to sing. So we have played many, many games in all of these genres (including the Donkey Kong Konga game which is surprisingly fun). We were quite interested to see how the Harmonix guys would merge these variety of instruments into a single game.

First, the instruments. The guitar is FAR better than the guitars previously released for Guitar Hero. The buttons are "full fret" making the much easier to press. You don't have that annoying ridge line. You get TWO sets of buttons in fact - one for easier guitar solo play. You have sound settings. I can't say enough about this guitar. The only thing it lacks is stickers :) Really, couldn't they include a sticker set or two, to customize the thing? A minor flaw :)

The drum set is REALLY cool. It comes with a stand and it has a very nice feel to it. My boyfriend complained a bit about the wood sticks not being smooth, but heck, you're not paying for high quality sticks here.

There is a four-plug USB hub so you can actually plug all these items into your XBox 360 :) And there's a few headset adaptors, and a microphone. We already had several of these.

Now for gameplay. The graphics are visually lovely, although really, with up to four people playing and singing, the background stuff is pretty meaningless. The screen is taken up by all of the progress bars and alert bars and so on. I do have to comment that the customization for your characters is AWESOME. You customize their style of movement (punk, rock, etc), their facial look, hair style, eye color and much more. Plus you can buy all sorts of great outfits in the store. Never mind equipment. They really went overboard in this area.

I found when I played an instrument whose track was on the far left (the lead guitar, for example) that I could easily see the "overall progress" bar showing how everyone in the band was doing. I could see that the drum guy was doing poorly and slipping down into the red. However, when *I* was playing the drums - and the visual for my drum track was on the far right - I had NO idea how well or poorly I was doing. That overall band progress display was on the far left (past the other instruments' tracks) and there was no way to watch both my own drum note list and see how I was doing at the same time. So you almost need to designate whoever is playing in that far left track as the "band alert person" to yell out if someone is doing not so well.

The band works as a unit. If for example the drums are doing poorly, but the guitarist is doing well, the guitarist can use their energy the rev up the crowd which helps everyone in the band. So the guitarist can save the drummer, for example. On the other hand, if the drummer is really bad, after a few failures, the crowd gives up. You can't have the remaining players try to play the song out.

Which brings up one of my only complaints about the game. Let's say you start a band "Asia" with the leader being a drummer. Now any time Asia wants to continue on their career, the drummer MUST BE PLAYING. In real life, band members change positions sometimes. You have a drummer who also likes to sing. But here, if you have a position set as the leader, the game can't be played (with that band and the songs it's unlocked) without that instrument being played. We found that really annoying. You should be able to say that person X now wants to play instrument Y and keep going.

Now, interestingly, my boyfriend plays the drums. He found the drum pads AWFUL to use and thought they were broken. We swapped off and he took over guitar while I played with the drums. I did a 100% performance. So it's something about the way you hit them. I *think* they have to be hit pretty close to dead center, with a sharp rap. I'm not a drummer so undoubtedly I'm not hitting them "technically right" but I am able to sail through many songs on easy with 100%. So it's a matter of getting used to how they work.

The vocal / mike track is much like any karaoke game, and you "yell" to activate overdrive. It's a lot of fun. I did try several songs with a mike stand setup so I could play guitar and sing at the same time. It was a lot of fun - but part of the mike track is "cowbells" where you're supposed to thwap the microphone in time to the beat. Unfortunately if you're busy playing the guitar or drums you no longer can thwap the microphone. I tried yelling "POP" and it worked about half the time, if I used a very snappy sound to my POP. Still, it's a shame you can't sing and play because of this.

The songs in this list are GREAT. I really love some of them, and there were few that I simply didn't like at all. It's cool that they have multiple venues per location, instead of the Guitar Hero games where there was just "one Boston" and so on. You have to actually earn a Van or Bus or whatever to move on to a new city. You actually build up a fan base as you go, and lose it if you do poorly. That is all very cool. On the down side, the progression of songs is rather odd. You can play 2 songs you like in Boston, and then go to Chicago and play the exact two songs again to earn more stars there. The songs seem to unlock slowly. I'm also not overly fond of several modes where you have no idea what songs are coming up until 2 seconds before the songs begin.

They do have a training mode and solo mode, but really you figure the great appeal of this game is to play with your friends, using the various instruments. So we found that interface - where you are stuck with a single leader, and it is very much one-person-one-instrument oriented, to be a bit frustrating. Sure, I love playing drums - but I love playing guitar too! Sometimes I love to sing. It didn't seem like it should be THAT bad to let a person switch instruments once you'd unlocked a bunch of venues and songs.

Finally, I really like that right from the start you have access to all difficulty modes, and can set them by person. So if you have a really great guitarist in your family, and someone who is perhaps younger or just getting started, the great guitarist can set themselves to difficult and the younger person can set to easy and both can have a really fun, challenging time.

I am really looking forward to new song downloads too, and imagine that could make this game last years and years and be just as much fun.

Highly, highly recommended if you can get your hands on this thing. We were there right when the store opened to get our hands on ours, and it sold out immediately. Well worth tracking down!! Note that I have photos of the instruments on my website and am happy to answer any other questions you guys have about this game.

Are you ready to rock?!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 87 / 91
Date: November 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

When I first heard that Harmonix was creating Rock Band, I thought to myself, "Guitar Hero Remix". Until I heard about the mic and then the sweet drum set. So I was amped for this to come out. Then GH3 came out and all I could think of was "Dang...Rock Band better be awesome cause I just can not put GH3 down". Then I hit up my local Best Buy with a mock set-up of RB..and once I hit those sticks on those drum pads..I was in heaven. I was already going to buy RB, but now I HAD to have it.

I bought it the day it came out as soooon as my local Target opened up. Went straight home (with Kane & Lynch also...which at this time hasnt been played..heh) and began opening it up. After a few minutes of setting up (drums take a few parts to put together..nothing hard though..no tools), I was ready to go.

I started off with the drums (like probably most people). I'm gonna have to say..they are a lot tougher than I thought they were gonna be. I've never played drums in my life so it's gonna take a little time to get used to them. When I tried them at Best Buy...they had a demo that didnt include the base pedal. Well now I have to worry about stepping on that, while also worrying about where I'm slamming my two sticks at also. Sounds easy right? I really dont think so..least not yet..lol. By no means am I dogging this part though. I can see that this will be a lot of fun, especially when you start playing on Hard. On Easy the beats are so slow that I really do not feel like a rocker... I feel more like I'm some slow drummer in some jazz band. But I know it's like that to get people like myself accustomed to this new piece of equipment.

Secondly, I grabbed the new guitar. I put it on Medium and began playing a bunch of songs. I looovveee this guitar. The top fret buttons feel so good. One the edge of the green button and the orange button, there is a lift about half an inch high. So when you start playing on Hard or Expert and you start moving up and down the fret buttons trying to hit every button, you won't get lost cause you'll bump into those lifts. Definitely helps out. Also at the bottom you have 5 more fret buttons with the same color. Once a 'solo' appears on screen (the background will be a shade of blue) you can use these buttons and not even have to strum. Just hit the buttons once the button appears on the line. So much fun and you feel like even more of a rocker. The selector on the guitar has a bunch of sound effects that you can do on the fly. Pretty cool I guess, but I swear I cant hear a difference. Not saying it's not there, but I just havent heard the difference yet. The ONLY gripe I have about the guitar is the Whammy Bar. Its so dang long and almost gets in the way of my strummer. It looks very good, but I'm just not diggin it. It's not crazy bad where you would hate the guitar, but I would have liked it just a bit shorter. One last thing about the guitar. My roommate is insanely good at Guitar Hero and he is in absolute love with this new guitar and the new way it plays out on Rock Band. He doesnt even want to look at the GH guitars anymore..lol. He has issues with the whammy also though.

The Mic is next. I've never played a karaoke game before on any system. I never really cared for it (even though I do like Karaoke sometimes...when I'm drinking). I also didnt really know how it worked. Well before I stopped playing RB for a while, I decided to try it out. HOOKED. Seriously hooked on this part of the game right now. I was laughing at first while singing cause it was just funny to me, but then I really started getting into it. Then my roommate wanted to join in with the guitar. So we picked Creep and aced the crap out of it. Next thing you know we had Mississippi Queen playing and then I'm standing up and just rockin the mic. Right then I could just TELL this was going to be a very fun party game. I'm getting off track here. Ok, back on. When you sing you have to keep the pitch or tone of your voice on track with the line that shows on the screen. There is an arrow that will let you know if you are to high or to low. When it's time for your 'energy' meter (star power), you can just make any noise or statement you want to to activate it. I just usually hold out the note of the last word longer than usual to activate it...or scream ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?! (cause it always gets a laugh..lol). The only thing I dont care for is that you have to tap the mic on certain parts to make a tambourine sound or a cow bell sound. It's not bad if you are JUST singing, but I can see how that would be crap if you were playing a guitar or drum also. It doesnt HURT you if you miss those beats, but you dont get extra points. So far I love the mic, but probably cause I've never played those Karaoke games before like I said.

Although the 360 version isnt wireless cause of Microsofts greedy self (they use a proprietary wireless that they charge companies to use and Harmonix didnt want to pay for it so they could keep the PS3 and the 360 versions the same price), it's not TOOOO bad. The wires are a lot longer than the GH guitar wires. Plus the 4 port USB that comes with the game is a godsend for this game (make sure you have one more outlet for the USB plug). Hopefully they'll make some wireless stuff later.

When you start your career, you'll get to start customizing your guy or gal you want to use. Lot of different things you can do also...I was very surprised. If you ever played any of the Def Jam fighting games, then you might think back to those games like I did. Faces, Rock Styles (fighting styles on Def Jam), Hair, Height, Color, Rings, Bracelets, Pants, Shoes, Shirts, Tattoos. It's crazy. Lots of items to choose from the start and more and more as you get farther into the game. I unlocked 5 things in 5 songs I believe. I cant talk much about career mode since I stopped after my first 5 songs since I had to get ready for work. What I played though was really fun and what I've read and seen on videos (mainly from the rockbands website) its seems like it's going to be a blast.

I still love Guitar Hero. 1, 2 and 3. Not 80's, but whatever. I'm still gonna play them because of certain songs. But I think Rock Band has become my new favorite. Especially since once in a while, we have a good group of people show up to just drink and play GH. I think Rock Band is gonna replace that thanks to the 4 player support, GREAT song list, and more than just a guitar or two to play with. Actually I know it is..lol.

While you are reading this... I'm pretty sure I'm playing Rock Band. =D

***UPDATE for 22 Nov 07.***

2 more gripes about this game.

1. Harmonix seemed to use a LOT of constant repetitious notes..for example..you have to hit the blue button say...6 times in a row..then the red..6 times in a row..then back to blue..6 times in a row...then yellow..six times in a row...and on and on. I dont mind this on some songs...but I'm just saying they used it a lot this time around. Even my roommate was getting aggravated with it.

2. I believe my guitar is starting to act up like others that I have read. My strum bar after only a day is getting less responsive on the down strokes. I'm missing notes for no reason. I started using the up stroke instead and now I'm hitting ever note. I'm gonna send a request for a new guitar soon. Usually I'm not a victim of the faulty hardware that many people come across (I've never even seen a red ring of death in person on the 360...knock on wood), but this time I think I am. *sigh*

Cool stuff I like though since I first posted.

1. I figured out how to use the Guitar sound effects switch. Gotta be using star power (energy..whatever). Very fun!

2. Love how the star power adds up even while you are using it. Huge improvement over GH's.

Thats it for now.

LOVE this game...really I do. Just wish the guitar didnt start messing up. =(

***UPDATE for 23 Nov 07.***

2 really cool new things I like.

1. I REALLY love how when you are doing good during a song...the crowd starts to sing along with the song. WOW! That made me feel more like I was there than GH ever did. Very cool feature.

2. During Thanksgiving...I took my game over to a friends house. We had enough people to put a 4 player group together. Talk about A LOT of fun. 2 people never even touched GH before. Yet they had a blast playing all three instruments. The one girl I was playing with who I would have thought would've been on the mic more since she likes karaoke STOLE the drum set almost the whole time..she loved it. It was a lot of fun watching her beat the crap out of the set..lol. I was on mic most of the time since most were scared of it. Sometimes other people took the mic over, and even though they were sometimes bad..it was never embarrassing. Most of the time the other people were to engaged into their own playing or either it was so bad that it wasnt embarrassing, but just down right funny.

I had way to much fun with that game this Thanksgiving. Like I said way earlier..I knew this would be a great party game. We didnt even think about putting GH in.

Great Game, But Guitar Controller Has Problems

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 18 / 19
Date: November 24, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I pre-ordered the Special Edition of the game and had it delivered in time for Thanksgiving with the family and the kids. As the other reviewers have commented, this is a great game, lots of fun especially when playing multiplayer.

Only problem is, there seems to be a production flaw in the guitar's strum bar. Strumming down only works a fraction of the time, and at times it will think you've hit it multiple times when in fact you only hit it once. As a result, even if you're playing perfectly, you end up getting booed off the stage because the guitar controller is not working properly. On the other hand, strumming "up" works fine. I tried tweaking the "calibration" on the game through setting after setting, but it didn't work.

After doing a quick internet search on the EA RockBand community bulletin board, I realized that many other users have been having the same problem, and that the guitar controller is to blame. The manufacturer/publisher must know about these problems, because it only took me a few clicks at the EA Games website to order a replacement.

Until the replacement guitar controller gets here, I found that you can still play the game by strumming up--finger plucking, like you would do on a bass--but this makes fast songs like "Highway Star" almost impossible to complete, though I was able to do it. Once they get these defective guitars out of circulation, I might give this game five stars. But I would wait until these defects are worked out before shelling out the big bucks for the game.

Okay - Let's Get Serious

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 86 / 157
Date: December 04, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Kind of shocked there aren't more less-than-stellar reviews at the time that I write this, so I'll clarify some things before I begin. For starters, we need to understand what we're reviewing. We're not reviewing the game simply as a game, but instead the game and the three external control devices that you get for the princely sum of one hundred and seventy dollars. That's going to be important in a minute.

That out of the way, quick summary - Rock Band is basically Guitar Hero with drums and vocals, or, if you're not familiar with that game (for all you parents out there that couldn't possibly care less), it's a game where you take a plastic guitar or microphone or funny looking drum set and play along with some popular music roughly from the general direction of rock, probably with your friends. Since I'm talking to the parents, I'll take this opportunity to let you know that unless you're strictly conservative (as in Shakers or so level of moral conservatism), this game is probably okay for your children so far as the content goes. My filters don't pick up anything objectionable in the content that comes with the game.

Now, this game is really four games (guitar, vocal, drum, and multiplayer) so let's look at each independently.

The guitar part is unquestionably the best element of the game, which makes sense, since it's just an extension of Guitar Hero in that regard and that was pretty well refined at the point that Harmonix handed it off. Comparing it to its nearest competitor (Guitar Hero 3), the set lists are better, the song styles are more varied, and the tabulature makes a lot more sense (Guitar Hero 3 was developed primarily by game designers, so they had a terrible tendency to just make everything a chord in hard and beyond, while the folks at Harmonix are all musicians, so things that should be single notes typically are only single notes). The controller, however, is a weakness.

First off, if your controller isn't broken, that's a good thing, and you're lucky, because mine was. There was apparently some bad doings at the factory and the glue that holds the strum register on tended to break on some of the first run models, which led to your guitar becoming virtually unusable after five hours. The tilt sensors in a number of them were also totally fried. Outside of those technical issues, it's a mixed bag. I like the weight and feel of the control a lot better than any of the other alternatives (it almost feels like a real instrument, with a proper weight distribution), and the different widgets are a lot more convenient to get to, but it seems that in fixing the problems earlier guitars had, the designers went overboard. Now it's easy to reach from the green fret button to the orange fret button with one hand, but that's because the buttons are now adjacent. They click much deeper than before and it doesn't take a lot of pressure to do that, and the result of all that is that you're going to hit a lot of buttons you don't mean to. Most of the people I know that have the game are still using the Guitar Hero 3 controller, if that's any indication of how awkward it can feel.

The drums....well, let's put it this way. Either you're a drummer or you aren't. The easiest drum parts are as hard as most normal guitar parts, and I can easily believe there are large numbers of people that just plain won't be able to do it very well and no amount of practice will help. That's bad. The drum charts that they force you to play also don't do much to help you learn how to, for example, keep one time with each hand and another with one foot. The foot pedal has to be pushed pretty deep and it gave me leg cramps after a while. The set itself is also loud as a donkey bleeding to death in a metal barn, which might be an issue for parents.

The microphone works pretty well. That's good. Alternative microphones, however (like, for instance, a 360 headset) do not. I am convinced that this is because things like screaming and loud talking are best filtered out of in-game conversation (what the headset is built for), but are necessary parts of rock music. Long story short, if you intend to play and sing, you're going to end up buying a microphone stand. I personally object to the difficulty of the vocal tracks, and the microphone (any of them) seem to do a remarkably terrible job of picking up high-to-low tone transitions. You're probably going to be a little frustrated trying to nail five stars in normal on some songs if you're not a pretty good singer, which is bad.

The multiplayer, I'm led to understand, is enjoyable, and I could definitely see that. The multiplayer campaign is wonderful. And should be the single player campaign. And isn't. And this bothers me. The development team didn't get the online cooperative elements finished by release, with the result being that you cannot play the cooperative campaign online. If you don't have friends you can bring over, or can sing well enough to play and sing at the same time, you'll never know how much fun it is. I'm an old person. My friends are married with children. I cannot bring them over to my house to play pretend guitar with me. This is unacceptable.

On the whole, I wish I could recommend this package, but I just can't do it. You're better off spending the money to get Guitar Hero 3 (inferior game, but superior value in this case) and just the game itself and playing the guitar parts. In six months, and particularly if prices come down, it might be a good idea, and the downloadable content support for the title is amazing so far (cheaper than Guitar Hero 3 and better songs besides), but for the holiday season, I have to warn undecideds to stay away.

BEWARE EA HARDWARE SUPPORT

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 12 / 13
Date: December 23, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I am a parent and purchased this game for my kids for Christmas. I gave it to them early so they could get more enjoyment out of it. The first time they played it the drum foot pedal broke in half. I contacted EA support and was told they would send me another one in 3-5 days, which would have been okay, but they would charge my credit card $125, which they would refund once they received the old one, or they would send me packaging to return the old one and they would send me another 2 weeks after they received it. I asked how much it was just to purchase another one and was told it was $25 but I couldn't get one that way due to demand, but I was free to purchase them when they released individual instruments later in the year. I have to say my kids did get to play this game as their cousins got one and they loved it, but obviously the customer is not important to EA. I do not understand why they feel the need to charge their customers 5 times the price of the hardware to replace their broken product, I would gladly have paid for a replacement so this wouldn't ruin my kids Christmas, but I think 5 times is excessive. Overall I think the game is a lot of fun for the kids but I am very unhappy with the hardware support.

Great game, crappy guitar

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 12 / 15
Date: November 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

So you can see enough other reviews that talk about how awesome this game is. I have to admit that it has more than just a little bit of magic. You get a bunch of folks in the room, you hear that drum beat going, and the music starts, it's hands down the best immersive gaming experience.

The songs are awesome, the drums are easy to start and still challenging to master, and the vocals are just as good as in any of the Sing Star type games out there.

My problem is within the first day of playing it (and I admit we were rocking out pretty heavy for a few hours) the guitar strumming mechanism stopped responding. It's now just loosely sitting there and only register very hard pushes in one direction or another.

This is by far the worst guitar I've seen (and its ironic since I was sure the drums would break first). I'm really disappointed in such poor quality in the peripherals when we're paying such a premium for the guitar (the wireless version retails for $80!).

I'm really curious to find out if anyone else out there sees issues like this. I find it hard to believe we were the only ones that are experiencing this.

I purchased the Xbox 360 Special Edition package.

Anyone else experiencing QA issues with the peripherals?

Great drums, shady guitar controller

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 16 / 23
Date: November 27, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I, like most fans of the Guitar Hero series, have been anticipating the arrival of this game since I first learned of its development back in July. When I first saw the photos of the guitar controller I became ecstatic. It looked like the guitar controller I have always wanted since I actually own a real Stratocaster made to the Eric Clapton "Blackie" design. The controller looks almost exactly like my real guitar! So with that combined with the fact that the game was created by the original development team fir Guitar Hero I and II, Needless to say I was quivering with anticipation.

The is no doubt that the guitar gameplay is very similar to the Guitar Hero series. For some reason though, I seem to have a harder time focusing on the notes in Rock Band since they are little rectangles instead of fat circles like in GH. But the song list is amazing and that certainly makes up for some cons. However there is one thing I cannot get over:

The Guitar controller sucks. There. I said it. The construction of the unit is just the cheapest of cheap plastic. When you are playing it, you feel as though you have to be careful not to break it. Yeah, the buttons are designed better in my opinion but the plastic actually bends under minimal pressure. WTF!?!?! And while I was excited about the buttons on the lower fretboard for solos, they are almost too narrow to be played by average adult hands. So now I will find myself plugging in my GH3 controller for Rock Band.
But there is a huge plus side: The drums. They are just incredibly fun to play. And while they may not be built like real drums but rather electonic drumpad abominations from the 1980's they seem as though they can stand up to some abuse. They are pretty hard to rock out to on the advanced levels making them a fun and addicting challenge. I have a good friend who is a drummer and he picked them up and did amazing on his first go do they are pretty realistic as you can get. The developers claim that if you can play the drums on expert level on the game than you are basically playing drums for real. Pretty neat.
The mic. I think this is alright. Works well but seems to almost force you to not sing in your natural singing voice. Instead they really want you to sound like the person singing the original song. Hard to sing like Roger Daultry one song and then switch to Billy Corgan the next. This feature seems to be almost designed for parties.
All in all a solid game. The song list is great and does not disappoint. Like I said, I just found the guitar controller and game play to be a letdown. At least the drums are great. But hey, you may feel differently. Have fun with it.

All About the Drums

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: November 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I've only had Rock Band for XBox 360 one day, but I can easily recommend it to any and all. This special edition comes with everything you need to play the game - a guitar, mic, drum set and the game. There is a fourth instrument however - bass, which is played using the guitar. If you want to play guitar and bass at the same time, a second guitar is needed. Fortunately, the guitar hero guitars work well if you have them. If not, I recommend buying Guitar Hero 3 bundle for xbox360, which comes with a wireless guitar. The instruments for rock band are all wired (to USB ports on xbox 360), which can be annoying, but on the plus side, they don't require any batteries!

Thanks to Karaoke Revolution and Guitar Hero, singing and playing faux-guitar are nothing new for video games. They've been done, and done well. In fact, you should check them out too.

What hasn't been done before is the drum set. The set you receive is made from mostly aluminum and hard molded plastic, extremely durable. Gaming magazines have reported the drum set as taking tons of abuse without being worse for the wear. The 4 well-sized drum pads are on a ~30° tilt, are adjustable in height and have a good, rubbery spring to them. The foot pedal is awkward at first and could be more responsive, but certainly does the job. Everyone in the family will be eager to give it a try, and once won't be enough. One word of caution - unless you're a percussionist, start off with Easy and expect to make plenty of mistakes. It will probably take a LOT of practice to make it up to Hard, but then again, being a good drummer takes a lot of practice too. And perhaps the best feature of Rock Band, unlike other music video games, is by the time you hit Expert, you'll actually be able to play drums.

The special edition bundle may be pricey, but if you and/or your family are at all musically inclined, you'll get more than your money's worth. Just one note of caution - although far from the volume or noise of a real drum set, between the drums and singing, you may want to set this one up in the basement.

Great Game, Lousy hardware and support

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 13 / 18
Date: December 05, 2007
Author: Amazon User

There is little I can say that the reviewers who came before did not say but I did have a bit to add. The game is loads of fun. It is not a revolutionary jump from Guitar Hero by any stretch, but it has some new songs, new graphics and the element of singing and drums thrown in is awesome.

I played it for about 4-5 hours using only the guitar and had a load of fun. Then the strum bar broke.

This has been a well documented issue on the internet and EA is STILL selling these despite the problem all in the name of XMAS sales. Granted they have fixed the guitar now but in order to get a replacement you have 2 options: 1) Report the problem, get the box, ship them the guitar THEN get the replacement after they process it.(approximately 14 days) or B) let them pre-authorize your credit card/debit card for $125 (despite the price on Amazon for the new guitar when it comes out being only $79 and the entire package retailing for only $169).

So in short you can either wait another two weeks to play the $169 + tax game you just bought because of faulty equiptment or you can let them hold another $125 of your holiday cash for 28 days to make sure you send them their busted guitar.

All this for a problem EA is fully aware of. Bad show EA. Definitely a bad show.

I'd advise anyone who wants thi sgame to wait till all their kinks are worked out. Can't wait to see if the drums actually work.

great game controls suck

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: December 09, 2007
Author: Amazon User

First of all I bought this game for my son. We all enjoyed playing it on family game night. First the gutair strum bar went out and we returned it for another. Then the mic went out intermittently cause us problems in the band. We returned it for a full refund and went back to gutair hero 3. I'll wait til they get the bugs out before buying it again.

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