Guitar Hero World Tour: The Best, The Worst, and Everything in Between
by Derek Wilson on October 31, 2008 7:10 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Drum Hardware Way Ups and Way Downs
Downs first: physical problems. Yes we have them.
First and foremost: the kick pedal sucks. And beyond that it sucks worse than the RB kick pedal. There is no excuse here. Allow me to elaborate.
The pedal is built out of a much more flexible plastic than the RB pedal. This will probably mean less breakage as it has some give to it. On the down side, if you thought the RB pedal was squishy, you haven't seen anything yet. The GHWT pedal is ... I'm having a hard time thinking of polite words to replace sucks. Sorry. It just sucks.
Unlike the RB kick pedal, it doesn't have any sort of anchor or attachment to the rest of the kit, and it doesn't have any of its own anchoring devices. This means it will slide away from you. Horribly. No matter what. Our solution is seriously to turn the kick pedal sideways with the base facing left (for a right footed person) and step on the base with your left foot and hold it there. Then play the top of the pedal with the ball of your right foot. Obviously you play off the pedal, very literally. It works, but it's still not anywhere near ideal. If you want to build something, you can make a more permanent solution like nailing it to a platform that extends under the drum throne.
Here's another problem. Because of the flexibility of the pedal and the fact that it only has one point of contact with the bottom of the pedal (where the sensor is), it wobbles from side to side very easily. This is not something you need to deal with while playing a kick drum. A little off center and it's all over. Fast double hits are MUCH harder with this kick pedal and I would not recommend it for anyone. Ever.
Okay, enough about the pedal.
We've heard about the fact that people are complaining that some GHWT kits have sensitivity issues, that Activision has confirmed this, and that they will be releasing a kit or instructions or something to tune sensitivity. We may have this issue, and it might be tainting our view of the rest of the kit. Our trouble is that when playing the pads, sometimes the cymbals trigger due to vibration. And we don't play hard and never had this issue with any RB kit. At the same time, if we don't play the pads hard enough they don't register. So it's nearly impossible to play songs well even if you don't miss a note with either hits not registering or cymbal hits showing up because of vibration. It's really frustrating.
So we'll deal with that, and I will write a blog post at some later date to elaborate on whether or not adjusting the sensitivity of the pads fixes it. We hope it does, but that still doesn't fix the layout issues and other usability issues we have with the GHWT drum controller implementation.
So all that sounded pretty bad. And it kind of is. There's just no getting around that. But we've got one more really great thing to report on. The saving grace of the GHWT kit if you will.
It's got a midi input. This means you can connect an electronic drum kit to it and play GHWT with it. Now, we haven't tested this yet ourselves, but I should get the chance to use a Roland TD-8 on it soon. Again, future blog post. The other thing we suspect will work that may or may not is using the midi input with Rock Band 2. If this is, in fact, possible, our recommendation will be that anyone with an electronic kit should pick up the GHWT drums to use as a midi-to-XBox converter.
Yes Please? (Roland TD-12, image courtesy wikipedia.org)
This could also mean easy cheating for GHWT though, as you can hook a drum machine or sequencer up to GHWT and very easily program in a song. Again, this is untested by us. But the functionality is there. We'll definitely post something when we get the equipment we need to test it.
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crash resistant - Monday, November 3, 2008 - link
Reply:1: You can hit both cymbals (can't believe I misspelled that 100 times) anytime and you will NOT lose your streak. It will automatically hit whatever notes were there. Try it. You need to try it before assuming you will lose your streak. Perhaps you are trying it at a bad time and not hitting them at the same time? I find this a fun and rewarding gameplay element. The only downside is that it is harder than the solo-session that RB provides. However the downside to RB is the solo-sections are not part of the original songs and, IMO, ruin the drumming in the song.
2: The kick will not slide if you don't push it away with your foot. You should practice going down with the foot instead of forward. As a novice drummer I found my leg to wear out faster and get knee pain after long sessions when I was carelessly kicking instead of bouncing or tapping.... Seriously- try aiming "further up" on the pedal instead of just applying random pressure on the entire thing.
In response to this article I had a friend play who I consider, well, an animal. His pedal moved about 6 inches by the end of Soul Doubt. This guy isn't a drummer or coordinated by any means- so it was the very best "worst case" scenario I could find.
In comparison, the RB2 pedal is crap because it feels like you have to travel twice the distance. I would prefer to hone my skills to use the GH pedal and have a much better experience than use the current RB2.
With that said, I can't wait for GH5 or RB3's kits- assuming they are even more tweaked.
3: The cymbals are not responsive in terms of "bounce"... I agree. They aren't brass or sheet metal... they are really thick pieces of crap. However they are 100x better than another drum to emulate a cymbal.
4: Oh yeah.. you can go progressive with cymbals with drums... true. However it's never going to appear or feel natural. It's relatively much harder and requires practice on different kits as they are all arranged differently.
E.g. I began drumming on a kit with a snare, two toms, and a floor tom. I got used to the 4. Then I played at a friend's house for several days and he had only 1 tom. It took some serious getting used to. Similar to having a splash cymbal front and center between your toms. It's awesome- but awkward at first.
5: The interface loads faster time-wise and feels better overall. Changing difficulty in the middle of a song with 4 players takes, at the most, 30 seconds. Try that on RB. (oh wait you can't) hehe
6: I was in line in front of Best Buy on Sunday morning. There were 24 people in line. After the store manager came out and asked to divide the line based on preorders, he asked for a raise of hands. I followed with this question: "HOW MANY OF US ARE BUYING THIS GAME BECAUSE THERE ARE 3 TOOL SONGS ON IT?"
I would say... all but 5-10 at the most didn't raise their hand. Proof that GH may just be a huge marketing game. (songs, cymbals, studio, etc)
I still love it and will buy both games until they merge or I die.
aGreenAgent - Saturday, November 1, 2008 - link
I couldn't disagree more with on the drum section of the review.First of all, the kick pedal is substantially better than Rock Band's. I've been playing drums for years, and this is much closer to the feel of a real kick pedal. I can't get the kick to move one bit. Once I set that kick pedal on the ground, it usually takes me a few seconds to peel it back off the ground. Enormous improvement over rock band. Also, double and triple kicks on the RB pedal are almost painfully difficult, but they're easy on the GHWT pedal. This pedal just feels much more like a real pedal.
Also, I've had no trouble playing anything, the layout of the drum kit in the game matches my real kit's almost exactly (except the ride is a little further to the left than it would be).
dblagent - Friday, October 31, 2008 - link
Look on the GHWT forums and you will see a LOT of upset people with instrument problems. The drums have got some press now, and they say that new production is fixed, but it is not confirmed as of yet that is for sure.As for me, I purchased the guitar and game kit, and the down strum broke on the guitar after just three hours use on easy mode! This seems to be a common problem reported widely and as of yet there has been no reply from the company. I exchanged and got a new one, and it now has about 4 hours on it and the strum has started squeaking horribly on the up strums. I strum up, my wife strums down so it is getting equal wear, but now this one needs exchanged as it is too bad to play with that is for sure! This was also reported on the GHWT forums and I can now confirm it too. Moral is, maybe wait for them to sort the issues out before I can recommend purchasing.
Lastly, the manufacturer is telling people to send in the instruments for exchange or repair, but you have to pay for the shipping! When RB had trouble they helped the customers for free and footed the bill, GH is not going to apparently. Not very cool on their part, and it is angering the early adopters who are the biggest fans. Hope they can sort all this out.
Now to do my second exchange tomorrow. Do like the game itself though, it just works better with my old guitars! I also looked at the demo guitars on display at Best Buy and the strum is different than what you get in the retail box. It is better feeling, stronger spring and better click feedback and feels GREAT. The ones you get in the box are more mushy and feel different. The ones in the store are wired, but otherwise identical units. I assume they are wired so no batteries and no theft, but I want one of those! They actually work. Myself and two employees compared both the first bad one and the one I exchanged for and there we could all tell the difference in the strum. Strange.
djdjohnson - Friday, October 31, 2008 - link
It's interesting that Rock Band is given the nod in this review. I own all of the RB and GH games, and I definitely prefer GH over RB.The main reason is that I find Rock Band not challenging enough. With most songs in RB, I 5-* the songs the first time through on Expert, and pass all of them on the first attempt (with a couple exceptions). In GH I 5-* a few at the beginning of a career, but by 1/3 into the career I'm barely passing the songs the first time through. Any farther and I usually have to play them a time or two before I can get it down.
I may be off base here, but if people are able to breeze through the hardest difficulty level in a game the first time through, doesn't that take some of the fun out of it?
My other big gripe with RB is the constant repetition of songs. When you pick the "random set list" option the game might pick a song, then that same song appears again on the next set list you have to play. If all of the songs were awesome, this wouldn't be such an annoyance, but it seems like most of the time it's the songs I don't like playing. It has made me turn off the game a few times because of it. Playing through a bad song once is frustrating enough, but to be asked to play it twice nearly in a row is enough to send me over the edge.
And contrary to the opinion of the author of this article, I actually like the layout of the GHWT drums. I did have to run their calibration utility to get mine to work properly, but once I did they are WAY better in every way than the RB version. And I actually like the pedal better too, despite its "wobbliness." It's a lot easier on the calf muscles than the Rock Band version. No more burning leg muscles for me.
Woodchuck2000 - Monday, November 3, 2008 - link
I'm with you on that one... The fundamental problem I found with RB is that all of the songs are just too easy. If I can sight-read my way through on Expert getting 5* all the way, then where's the challenge?I actually like the fact that I'm stuck on the last couple of songs for GH3 on expert - it's always good to have a challenge!
Does anyone know how guitar difficulty compares with RB1 and GH3?
crimson117 - Friday, October 31, 2008 - link
Regarding paying for gigs, many bands have a choice:1. Get hired directly by the venue/event organizers and get paid a flat rate (like playing a wedding or cruise ship)
2. Agreeing to play at a venue for no fee and just splitting the ticket revenue with the venue
3. Pay to rent out the venue and sell your own tickets, provide your own security, etc, taking on the risk and keeping the profits yourself.
Phish actually got started that 3rd way. "On January 26, 1989, Phish played the Paradise Rock Club in Boston, Massachusetts. The owners of the club had never heard of Phish and refused to book them, so the band rented the club for the night. The show sold out due to the caravan of fans that had traveled to see the band."
DerekWilson - Monday, November 3, 2008 - link
i've done 1) and 2) but never 3) ...that's a very interesting point though ...
Myrandex - Friday, October 31, 2008 - link
On the last page..."We prefer the non-cartoonish look over Rock Band, but that's just a preference issue really."I really think RB looks a lot less cartoonish than GHWT.
I think that I will rent this one to just play some of the cooler songs on here. I'm all about LP's "What I've Done" and the Tool songs look pretty sweet. There were some other ones on the list too that looked good, but of course there will always be some bad ones too.
Sanctusx2 - Friday, October 31, 2008 - link
You mentioned that the RB2 instruments don't have XBL headset plugs. That's incorrect.I usually play guitar and drums with the headset plugged in and it works fine. Maybe you missed it? They are pretty small holes.
jnmfox - Friday, October 31, 2008 - link
That's what she said...