Have you tried the new "Rock Band" video game, releasing November 20th?

[Joe]

I was out at Best Buy yesterday and I saw the display, with a "Guitar Hero" guitar and a set of 4 drum pads without the bass drum pedal trigger and with a pair of 5A-ish "Rock Band" drumsticks (by Ludwig) attached via lanyard.  Presumably the lanyard is merely an anti-theft measure---I hope so, since it really restricts the use of traditional grip.  The pads also list toward the player at about a 30 degree angle on the same plane; I suppose adding a "tilting snare" option would bump up the price by fifty dollars or more.

After I waited for a couple to finish, I stepped over and gave the solo drumset option a try.  Out of all the tunes presented, the only one I recognized was "Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden (I have to look that one up at Song Meanings, by the way) and Paranoid by Black Sabbath. Not being in the mood for fast beating, I took the low (high? different?) road and chose BHS.

It's a tough game, even on the "Medium" setting!  I suppose that if I paid more attention to the song, and looked at the pads more, I would have done much better than failing the song at 60% completion.  I blame my poor sight-reading skills and my lack of concentration (didn't want to risk holding up the show when my party was ready to leave), not to mention that this was my first outing with the game.  Certainly I wouldn't blame the low resiliency of the pads themselves, as I don't think double strokes, rolls, drags, etc. figure highly into this game, if at all.

Aside from having fun, I'm thinking that this game would be invaluable for tweaking that part of the brain that assists with proper sightreading, even if that which is displayed on the game's monitor is a rudimentary (ha) tablature based on the color-coding of the pads and not a proper staff.

I await the arrival of "Jazz Combo", featuring a string bass-type "GH" guitar with more resistance on the fingerboard buttons and the strumming fin, a microphone detecting excessive melisma, and a pad set (with tilting "snare") which scores upon tasteful use of comping and swing.  The snare could be larger, too, with molded polyurethane "brushes" and a fleckstone paint surface to simulate a coated head.  That might be an aftermarket option.

[Ryan]

I've been pretty excited about it for awhile but hadn't actually seen it anywhere (although between not having a car and being a class a lot of the time, I haven't really been anywhere to see it).  I got hooked on Guitar Hero II and still, and my little brother gets one of those game magazines, so I saw stuff about it a few months ago (before they'd released what the drum set would look like).  At first I was kind of mad that it was only coming out on xBox 360 and PlayStation3, because I wasn't about to buy either system just for one game, but now it looks like it's coming out on the PlayStation2 as well, just a little later after the other two versions.

http://www.rockband.com/game_info/songlist has the full list of songs (you'll probably recognize a few more of them)

[Absolut]

there are videos of it on youtube, including four people playing "welcome to the jungle" by Guns'N'Roses. seems pretty cool, and as the creators said, "if you can play the drums on hard, you can play drums in real life". cant wait to try it, but im gonna have to go to a friends house to play, i don't have a PS3 or an xbox 360. :(

ah well...Christmas is coming soon. on the other hand, i could use a good splash cymbal.
also, if your band does raelly well on the song, they reward you with a "jam session" at the end. basically, you play the instrument like mad and get points for it :P

oh, and heres that vid (sorry bout the quality, but hey, its youtube) :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=745A_AmJPL8

and yes, the tethers are an anti-theft device.

[Joe]

Well, I was at Wal-Mart with some friends on the very early morning of the 20th, and i ran across a Rock Band display there.  My guitarist friend and I had at "Paranoid" with he on "Hard" and I on "Expert", and I'm pleased to say I completed it at 95%.  Still hard though; there seems to be a slight delay between the "staff" and the tune playing.  If you just listen to the tune as a click and read the staff out of sequence, you'll do fine.

The jam part is fun!  It's ridiculous, though, how you can just go like mad on the pads, not making sense, and watch the points spin wildly.

[Todd Norris]

I just don't get it.  Sounds absolutely ridiculous to me.  Maybe non-musicians might feel like rock stars, but since I play real drums with real musicians, I have no interest in playing a drum game.  Nor would I get any kind of satisfaction out of pretending to play a guitar.  I'd get more satisfaction playing along to CD's or even "air-guitaring" to a CD.  Just my 2 cents.

[Joe]

You should run over to Best Buy or Wal-Mart and give it a shot!

[NY Frank]

My cents are:

I have had almost no interest in any video games - until Guitar Hero III.

When I watch my sons play other games, I can barely understand what's
going on, and it makes me feel like an old man.  When I saw Guitar Hero,
I said to myself: "I Get That, and I can kick their butts on that." 

So, I have to admit to being interested in playing that with my kids
someday.

:)

[David Newman]

I saw a TV commercial for South Park, and one of the characters was speaking of Guitar Hero (or maybe this game) and said, "Real guitars are for old people." I had to laugh at how close that joke is to becoming reality.

[Joe]

I have had almost no interest in any video games - until Guitar Hero III.

Yes, it should be noted that I otherwise have zero interest in video games.

[Todd Norris]

I haven't played video games since I went to the local arcade when I was in high school in the 80's.  I've never owned a game console. 

However, my wife and I may break down and get my kids a Wii for Christmas so I'll probably find out what I've been missing for the last 20 some years.  Does this game work on a Wii? 

[Joe]

Does this game work on a Wii? 

Not right now, anyway, though it's supposed to be out for it in the future so I read.

Just XBox 360 and PS3 at the moment.

[NY Frank]

But, GHIII is on the Wii.    :)

[eardrum]

I haven't played video games since I went to the local arcade when I was in high school in the 80's.  I've never owned a game console. 

However, my wife and I may break down and get my kids a Wii for Christmas so I'll probably find out what I've been missing for the last 20 some years.  Does this game work on a Wii? 

We got the Wii last Christmas and I have to say it's the first game console that the whole family can have fun with - even with friends who have never played a video game. 

Regarding the Rock Band stuff - my oldest son got GHII on ebay and brought his PlaystationII over and we've had a lot of fun with that.   It's a video game!! It's definately not something I'll be spending hours trying to master ;)  It's not playing guitar and requires more of a rythmic skill than anything else. But it's fun to watch different family members and friends, some musical, some not, play on it.  Some we didn't expect to do well surprised us.  When someone we know gets the RockBand game, I'm sure we'll have fun for a few hours with that also but after an hour or so - I'll head back to the drum room and try to play to my Weckl CDs - that's what I'd love to master.