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Rock Band is a sorry excuse for a quick cash in of Guitar Hero

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 50
Date: January 13, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Ridiculous.

-The game itself is very bad, if you miss more than about 5 notes in a row, you are failed, making the game miserable to play despite the actual difficulty being extremely easy. Even on expert this game is a piece of cake.

-The guitar is of very poor quality compared to my Guitar Hero controller, the neck is flimsy, the buttons feel unresponsive, and the strumming trigger is very squishy(making it very hard to get an accurately timed note) I'm pretty sure the guitar peripherals were made for about 1 dollar.

-The vocals are extremely difficult to get right, also making the game much less fun to play. For example, while playing Tom Sawyer you are expected to sing like Geddy Lee (the high pitched vocalist) instead of the game recognizing your voice. Don't know about most of you, but I can't sing like a girl. I feel like an impersonator rather than a vocalist.

-The drum-set is also bad, very bad. A great concept, but extremely poorly executed. The drums and stand are very flimsy and EXTREMELY unresponsive. You really need to slam the drum heads in order to hit notes.
Also, being a drummer, I can assure you that actually following the drums in the game is ridiculous, it is WAY too easy and there are notes added that don't exist in the song, notes that obviously should be there but are not. You are also forced to hit drum heads that are in the wrong position compared to a "normal" kit. My hi-hat is not to the far right of my snare.

The production of the game was OBVIOUSLY rushed to get it out before Christmas. I cannot wait until the makers of Guitar Hero work all the kinks out of this game and actually make something you can have fun playing, and not get frustrated with its poor quality, easy difficulty and overly simplified accessories.

game only lasted 24 hours.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 18
Date: February 08, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I got the game, played it first night, and the next afternoon after school, the guitar quit working. Contacted the game maker and found that it was very common for this to happen. I had two choices. (1) file a report and request that a box was to be sent to me and I was to put my guitar in and when they got it back, they would use the same box to ship me another. (I picked this one-2 months later-I am still waiting for "the box") or (2) pay them another $125 up front and they would send me another guitar, then when I got the new one, I would place my broken one in "the box" and when they got it back, they would refund my $125. Now, after 4 weeks of waiting for my box, we called and found that yes, we were set up to get "the box", no, they don't know why I haven't, but, NOPE can't change our request to option (2) now...we have to wait for the box. I hate this game now and the makers... what good is it without the guitar and why do I have to spend an addition $125... I already paid to much for the game of broken parts...J

Harmonix: The Worst Gaming Company Around

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: April 08, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Don't buy this box set:

1. The peripherals are of poor quality (The Stratocaster is missing a couple of parts and due to this the strum bar is terrible and will need to be sent in for repairs. The microphone is too sensitive to use and has a 50/50 chance of being broken out of the box. The foot pedal for the drums and two of the drum pads break after a few months of use.)

2. The company itself. I've never had such a hard time with a company before. For starters, they made a lot of bogus claims involving album packs and other features to sell more copies of the game, but haven't delivered and refuse to answer questions about them. They also ban people from their official forums (where the developers themselves are mods) for giving negative opinions, or sometimes for no reason at all.

3. Unless you live with Rock Band fans or live next door to Rock Band fans, you can't do Band World Tour. You can only do solo or online multiplayer, although there isn't a leaderboard for the latter.

If you want to get into Rock Band, wait.
First, buy the game itself.
Buy the drums seperate (the drums that are sold seperately are -much- better.)
Buy a seperate microphone
And for guitars, either go with a Guitar Hero guitar (I personally love the GH2 explorer, but the GH3 guitar is also very nice) or wait for the 3rd party Rock Band guitars.

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.

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, but the peripherals are cheap

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 9 / 11
Date: December 16, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game is very fun and a blast to play with friends. My only problem, and I feel it is a very substantial problem, is that the guitar and drum set are very cheaply made. After playing it for less than 12 hours total, I have already had to make calls to get the guitar and the kick pedal for the drum set replaced. On the guitar the strum bar stopped working correctly after about 4 hours, and the kick pedal broke where it is attached to the base. I can see these things breaking eventually, but not during the first weekend of use.
Great game, I just wish that they had included more robust equipment with it.

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.

Defective Components a BIG Problem!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 7 / 11
Date: December 26, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I bought Rock Band (xbox 360) for my 13 year old son for Christmas. I bought it even after reading an extensive Boston Globe article about all of the problems with the game and its components. And of course, it's Christmas morning--we get the whole thing hooked up only to find out that the drum kit is defective. We did online trouble shooting and were told to return the game. So we packed the whole thing back up and returned it. Today, the day after Christmas, we are unable to locate another one in our area so I either need to buy one online (and the basic 169.99 model is not available anywhere--even Amazon) or we need to wait. I am so disappointed...as are my kids. It's irresponsible to heavily market an expensive game that has not been properly tested.

Guitar broke after 3 hour of play!!!!!!!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: December 29, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The game is really a lot of fun. The only thing (and it is a big thing) is that the guitar broke within the first 3 days. We had only played it maybe 2-3 hours tops. The guitar quality is bad and needs improvement. This must be a common problem because there is an automatic submission request form for the guitar on the Rock Band website for it to be returned for it to be swapped out for a new one. If the guitar worked better. I would give this game 4 out of 5. Be prepared to return your guitar and be waiting a couple of weeks for the manufacturer for the new one.

Just a way to make money

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 26
Date: December 28, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Okay, so Im going to try and touch on things I haven't heard on these reviews. Yeah the game is fun, great with friends. I could talk about their choice in songs. Some are amazing choices and some (I.E. Smashing Pumpkins, Garbage, Clash, many others) they chose crap songs over many other better, more well known choices. They also picked some terrible new bands like Fall Out Boy to be in there. That's fine, but there is very much a division of good songs, and crap to fill space. Okay so the equipment is a MAJOR issue with this thing. Yeah, drum petals break, mic is picky about when it works (also, when you are doing rhythm with the mic, if you are cupping your hand, or it is in anyway a non-flat surface you are tapping the mic head with, like a palm or fingers, then there is a second delay in the response causing fails) and the SINGAL guitar (yeah that's right, a four-player game they only give you 3 controllers for. For some reason they don't tell you about that, or that they don't sell individual instruments yet. Xbox 360 can use a patch to use the guitar hero controller, but PS3 users are S.O.L. until April.) has issue with it buttons sticking, breaking, and having delay problems. I've had this game three days and already ALL of these things have happened. The single player part of the game is a JOKE! It's literally 4 songs and whatever songs you downloaded, in the 4 stages of difficulty. But it's the SAME songs for every level of difficulty. And speaking of repetitive songs, the first 10 or so multi-song gigs you do in multi-player mode will ALWAY start with Say it Aint so and In Bloom. It gets REALLY damn old after the third time, even when switching instruments around. I can get over the fact you can't play there four-player game with four players until April, that's absolutely ridiculous and money-grubbing but whatever. They want to make a statement saying they don't give a crap about their customers, they just want you to fork over 170 bucks for 3 of the controllers and then I'm sure at least another 50 for the single guitar next year. So all in all, yeah the game is fun. The songs are alright, some are good, but a lot are not fun, crap songs you never want to hear again. I thought we left Learn to Fly in the 90's where is belonged. It was awful then, and no it's just fermented into a terrible piece of crap, and Foo Fighters WORSE song. Its fun to set up a band, get it ready, even though one member wont be able to join and unlock money/cloths/etc until April. All in all, yeah it enjoyable, but Id wait it out until MTV and EA pulls its head from its @$$ and release better, fixed controllers, offers ALL of the controllers you need for the FOUR PLAYERS it says you can play with, and when the get some better songs to download, yeah the Police, and Queens of the Stoneage bundles are cool, but there really isn't that much they offer. All and all, this things pretty over-rated, but still very fun.

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