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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.

After 6 hours in the rain, and no sleep. I'm happy

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: November 20, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Wow. I am at work now, reeling from the 6 hours of standing outside in the rain and the realization that I haven't slept at all. And I'm happy. I have to say I didn't think that Rock Band would blow my socks off, and it really hasn't yet to be sure, but it will undoubtedly be a huge time sink this upcoming weekend.

It is much, much different from the GH series. The obvious: Mic and Drums. Duh. The drums are pretty tricky, and actually feel pretty real. I'd be really surprised if they don't make their way into a middleschool music class for rhythm. Serious.

The mic is the mic. Nothing to say there. I'm going to buy a stand after work for it. ought to be on a stand if it's supposed to be a rock band, eh?

Finally, the guitar. meh. It's ok. I am undecided. Maybe I'll love it, maybe I'll hate it. The buttons are a little mushy, and the strum thing is rubbery. The pickup selector is pretty sweet, which allows you to change effects like Flange, Chorus, Echo, and Wah-Wah.

All are plugged into (wireless coming soon I hear) to a 4-port USB hub. I have enough chords on my floor. Annoying. I don't like yelling at my cat to stop chewing on the tangle of chords during the middle of a song.

Aside from that, the game plays very well. Slightly different look fom GH, but you can adapt quickly. Trust me. The graphics are not great, but do they really need to be? Overall, I can't wait to go through all modes--it's really like 4 different games, all of which are solid.

Have fun.

***warning*** it is a known issue, which I encountered last night: It is common that the strat's down stroke button (the picking swivel thingy) is already having problems and is worn out!!! The demo one in the Best Buy I bought mine at had the same problem, and I didn't think much about it as it had tons of use and mis-use I'm sure. There was maybe six hours of use on mine before it started having problems, and now I can only 'up-pick' so frustrating. I'm glad I got the warranty, but where the heck am I going to get a replacement?! Anyhow, I'm sure future models will fix this, but now I'm stuck playing with my GH2 guitars (I still like them better except for the neck buttons). ***buyer beware!!!!***

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, 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?

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.

Technical Issues

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 7
Date: November 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Firstly, this is the greatest music game of all time...leagues above any Guitar Hero title...

I've experienced 2 major issues with this title since I bought it and they are both serious game breakers...

1. When I go to play a solo career (regardless of instrument) it requires that you login to your gamertag, it tries, then locks up after saying it cannot connect to XBL. (which is bull because it is connected the whole time). After the lockup, I have to hard reset my 360...though this is random and the game is fine once it gets going it happens the majority of the time. I've had to restart my 360 about 5 times thus far on the first night with the game.

2. The Fender Stratocaster is great except it activates Overdrive (aka Star Power) on it's own when it wants to without my consent.

Other than that, this is THE game of the Christmas season and I highly recommend it...though there is no excuse for the technical issues.

The Microphone works! Just keep your controller handy...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: November 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Oh boy! I was lucky enough to get this on launch day. Terriffic! I am one of the few who prefer the Rock Band guitar, it's more comfortable than the GH ones. VERY NICE!

I first thought my mic was broken, I plugged it in over and over, the documentation for Rock Band is very slim, and the microphone warrants lees than two lines about setup. It turns out the singer needs to have an Xbox controller handy to register the mic and to select songs etc. You also get a little widget (two in fact) that lets you use your Xbox headset as a mic. The guitar and drums have an input jack for it--however, so far, I haven't gotten that setup to work. Which is too bad, because I'm dying to sing AND play guitar at the same time. I'm sure I'll figure it out soon.

One last thing, my six-year-old was entranced by the microphone. Just for kicks, I let him sing while I played drums. He doesn't know any of the songs, but he had a great time shouting the words that appeared on screen--in fact, on Easy mode, he can pass most songs he tries. You haven't lived until you've seen a six-year-old belting Gimme Shelter. "Ra-a-a-ape! Murder! It's just a shot away! It's just a shot awa-a-a-y!"

Guitar Hero who?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: November 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I'm another that owns GH II and played around with GH III. I just finished 6 hours with my new Rock Band setup, with my kids, with my drummer (who is a phenome)- this is way too much fun. I like the new RB controller over the GH controller... and not just because I'm a Strat player to the bone. I really like the additional set of fret buttons up on the neck- I sure hope that switching to them for leads (on harder levels) will result in point bonuses. Gotta be a point to having them besides giving people a choice.

My drummer thought the drum pads were fine- he did really well beng the first time he's played any type of game like this (this guy has the hands of a old jazz drummer and can play with sticks and logs and still make it sound sweet). He did mention, as a drummer, it would have been cool if the pads were placed more in a "traditional" arrangement- and he said his left foot was bored! LOL A high-hat pedal would have been good- add another level of complexity beyond the medium levels of the game. I'm looking at doing some structure mods to the drum kit frame, make them stronger, but it should be fine without it- although this kit was designed for 1) people who have never played drums and 2) people that play with a light touch, from the wrist. Old school "play with from the shoulders and with construction boots on" drummers will tear this set up. It doesn't take a lot of force to make this work. You do have to be accurate though, it doesn't tolerate off-center hits all of the time.

The vocal mic pitch tracking did really well. I'm not a great singer, but I can carry a tune, and sometimes with the right pitch. And it showed during the game. Granted, I'm a guitarist in real life (or at least, I play one on TV), and do vocals only if I really, really have to- just because I can never remember the words. Notes are one thing, words are another. I don't know why. It just works that way for me. So I'll be interested to see how well it tracks words on the harder levels (only played on medium today- I play on Hard and Expert on GH II and III). The mic will hod up well- except someone's bright idea to tell the user to "hit the mic with your hand" to keep a beat during those "cowbell moments' (good term and good review Lisa Shea)- the mic will be another oft-replaced item. No matter. I'm plugging in my USB headset mic and trying the sing/play thing... you don't lose points for not keep the beat during those "cowbell moments" (hehehe... "I gotta fever, and the only prescription is... more cowbell!")

Overall- you really get your money's worth with this game. And add the fact you can collaborate bands over Xbox Live- that's too freakin' cool. Detail in the game is tremendous, nice touches throughout. Re-playability is so high with this game- truly adds to the value over time. Harmonix really had a lot of foresight with this creation. OK, it's still basically Dance Dance Revolution for your fingers- and it's a LOT of fun! So is playing live music on a real instrument. But those are still two different worlds, although RB lets you have more fun with it and you have to eat a lot less ramen and mac-n-cheese in order to perform on the RB stage. :-) And people won't throw beer bottles at you... and if they do, stop inviting those people over to your house! LOL

Had a blast last night ...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: November 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I got the game on same release date 11/20/2007. I had not to wait in line and just got off from work went to store and brought the whole package home. My wife is old style ... very stingy, low tech, and videogame-less life. She was initially upset with me for once again spending money on toys. Long story short I managed to make her play the guitar while I was on drums and after three hours of continous struggle we ROCKED. I finally managed to get my wife hooked up with XBOX360.

Later I went to sleep and all I know that she was still playing solo.

Now the problem is that I am fearing that I might have to buy another XBOX360 for her, so I can play my other games as well.

Great game... or THE GREATEST GAME??

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: November 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

That's what my friend Ryan would say, atleast.

After being sorely disappointed with Guitar Hero 3 (after being sold by Harmonix) I was looking forward to this new Harmonix game.

Oh my. OH MY. This is sure to be the best party game of the year, if not the century. It is certainly loud, and if you live in an apartment complex, you're going to have some irritated neighbors, but I think it's worth it.

The drums are superb, the guitar takes a few seconds of getting used to and you're good to go, the mic is.. well a mic.. and we used the guitar hero guitar for bass, and it worked great.

My only qualms:
- Not a huge fan of the soundtrack when it comes to being the singer
- Too many repeats of songs (in mystery song mode, and playing the same songs in other cities)
- The notes are a little hard to read when you're in "star power" mode because they're so much smaller now and the whole things lights up.

However, none of these things are a reason for not buying the game. It's worth every single penny, and much more. I'll be posting with a video review very soon.

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