f13.net

 :awesome_for_real: :awesome_for_real: :awesome_for_real: :awesome_for_real: :awesome_for_real:

The new guitar is INCREDIBLE. EA/Harmonix can eat a dick when it comes to peripherals - this guitar is totally awesome. My only complaint is the strum bar can be a little squeaky, but nothing a little WD40 can't fix.

The drumset is massive! I like it, and it'll take a little mental re-arranging to get used to the new layout. It also seems to sometimes think I'm playing a not when I'm not, but we'll see if that's just because I had it on a somewhat unstable surface.

Songlist so far is amazing.

MORE TO COME~

Well us european folk will have to wait for another whole month (November 20th) until we get Guitar Hero World Tour. Seriously why can't they just release it everywhere at the same time?

Here were my thoughts in IRC (in a Goon run Warhammer 40K channel):


Holy crap I am glad I dont play hard expert.  Extended sustains..
You have to hold multiple long notes.
Hold down a long note, then hold down and strum another one and hold and so on.
Way better tutorial sections.  Even covers battle and new stuff and so on. Not as funny though.
You get to even make you own band emblem that is behind you on stage.  I just took a random one.
Cool.. Band vs Band play.
OOh... nice pause setting,  Go out of pause and it counts down from 4, giving you time to get set up!
It now informs of gamerpoints after a song and you can charge SP while using it now.
My practice setlist: Eye of the Tiger, Livin on a Prayer, Stillborn, What Ive Done.
You can do practice setlists of all the songs it seems.
Picking letters sucks ass though.  Yellow fret.  Tres annoying.
Somehow I am even getting money in pickup play and there is a rock rank too.  Hmm.
Cool.  Cartoons for the Guitar solo campaign.  Bet there is one for every instrument.
Now I dunno if I should make a character or just use Midori...
They whored her up a little though.  Now its a slit miniskirt and a midriff bearing shirt.  
Pandora looks DUMB now.  Nowhere near as awesome as her GH2 White Leather outfit.
Its some purple gothic lolita with wierd pulled back hair and some stupid red tattoo over her eye.
Ok.. I guess Ill create my own.  Mainly since I don't feel like editing Midori or Pandora to be better.
They got rid of Midori's freaky ass face, but then slutted her up.  Not cool Neversoft.  Not cool.
You can pretty much modifiy everything.  I could give someone Elf Ears just about.  Tolkien.  Not giant anime elf ears.
Oh god.  Letting people do a full character customize could take HOURS.  Facial detail of friggin Oblivion almost.
ooh.. bonus cash for doing various stuff in a set.  Percentage complete, no red, perfect perfomance, strong starts or finishes, solo streaks, new high score, 5 star perfomances..

And a rather amusing exchange as I fail my way through singing:
Cpt_Rufus
  I get to sing What Ive Done and Mr Crowley in one set!
 And my band and both solo tours combine money and rank.  RAD.
:  Fuck,  I failed a song.  Its rough and I have never heard it before.
41% of it.  UGH.
 Ill go to babby difficulty if need be.
 I have to go babby.

Shavnir
:  How is babby guitar hero formed
 How guitar get paregnant


Cpt_Rufus: Well its easy to beat on babby mode.
And it gets pregnant the same way everyone else does.  No condom and a six pack.
 :oh_i_see: :awesome_for_real: :oh_i_see:

One can still use the old guitar, yes?

Apparently I am not alone with drum issues. It seems to be cross-recognizing drum hits on other pads, hence the missed notes. It's double-playing notes on every other hit or so.

The guitar is so fantastic it has the ill side effect of making the game too easy. I  :heart: World Tour.

Haven't even bothered to pick it up yet since I can't afford it really. :awesome_for_real:

Seems to be a possible big issue.

http://kotaku.com/5068898/guitar-hero-world-tour-facing-drum-issues

 :awesome_for_real:

Okay, fine, EA/Harmonix can eat a dick when it comes to guitar peripherals.

If this shit gets sorted out with the drums, then I'll fix that statement.

Any stats on how common the drum issues are?  I may hold off on my purchase for the next round of the hardware if the failure rate is statistically significant.

Not sure about stats, but this might scare ya:

http://community.guitarhero.com/forum/14 (http://community.guitarhero.com/forum/14)

Man. I'll come back with more later, but my impression after playing 2 sets on QuickPlay (favorite tracks, only reason I bought the CD).

Worst. Game. Experience. Ever. ET on the Atari was better--and I mean it.

--amazingly ugly interface. I'm talking 1980's level UI design, with artwork my 8 year old niece could do better with only 3 crayon colors to choose from.

--amazingly ugly chart display backgrounds. WTF is with these two floating heads and an eye in the middle darting about?

--whomever approved the entire fret board shaking when you miss a single note should be shot--no, death by firing squad is too good for them. Should have their entrails roasted over an open fire while they are pulled from their eviscerated torso, opened by a rusty sharpened spoon. It's that bad.

--I'll admit, the charting is solid. Was able to play through a couple of songs I'd never tried before on expert simply because I knew them so well. Hammers (on and off) are harder to see than RB 2, but I think that's user preference more than anything else.

--open notes are interesting, but hard to add in to the mix. My opinion is still out on them, although even the RB 2 guitar is too light for these to be played without very special placement of your fret hand.

--pause countdown is the one single improvement over the RB/RB 2 experience. Everything else (and I mean --everything--) is completely dismal when in comparison to the user experience in RB.

Post-Edit: I'll give it one more positive: calibration, even manual, was quick, and more importantly accurate. DLP TV and very nice home theatre system, and first calibration run was very solid. I didn't personally see a single missed note that wasn't my fault. RB2, even with automatic calibration, took 4 or 5 runs over a couple of days and some manual tweaking before I felt it was solid.


Anyone want to buy a slightly used GH:WT XB360 disc? I certainly don't want this, regardless of song list exclusives.

Please stay away from designing any games I love if you really think the interface is bad.  Please.  Rock Band's interface and feel and everything are butt.
People can like what they want, but I don't agree with almost anything you said!

Course it seems some folks are Rock Band fanatics and others are GH fans.  I am in the latter category.  The RB fans are louder on the Internet.

And the old GH2-3 Gibson guitar works fine on World Tour.  Its what I am using.  I miss out on slide note action, but I saves cash.  Bought a 30 dollar duet set generic mic today for the game as I aint buying a single 60 dollar Rock Band 2 mic just because it has a control pad built into it.  Seriously, is EA high or something?

--Random, "edgy" icons taking up 3/4th of the screen while the game affecting options are in a small corner is what you call a good UI?

--I never thought you could have a death penalty in a rhythm game until I saw that screen shake when you miss a note. There is a huge, huge difference between providing visual negative feedback, and disrupting game play by making one error (missed note) compound into multiple, additional missed notes (screen shake disrupting visual timing feedback).

--when perusing a list (song list), using both scrolling text based display and using size enlargement to highlight the current selection instead of backlighting or font change causes huge multiple micro-focus events. Every time a new item scrolls onto the screen, your eye is drawn to it, but every time a test display changes size your eye is drawn to it as well, causing repeated eye strain by forcing the viewer to rapidly change eye position while trying to assimilate the options.

Highlighting, backlighting, and minor font adjustments do not cause this micro-focus flickering nearly as badly as the size change does. It's why you only see size highlighting on fixed length lists, and not on scrolling lists in most current games.

--Explain how I can grab downloads again? According to the message I got in game, I should be able to download 2 more packs--yet there is no Music Store, and the obvious section ("Downloads") has nothing to do whatsoever with DLC. Go figure.

--Again while scrolling through songs, how do I tell how hard a song is for, say, vocals and base?

These are all just after 2 sets. If this were an MMO, or any other game, it fails the "30 minute rule", and would be considered a terrible game...why does this one have any special acceptance?

I'm absolutely a fan boy--a fan boy of being able to get together with friends while half drunk and have a blast playing songs together.

In my band, the guitarist (a HUGE GH fan--1, 2, 3, and controllers), the singer, and the bassist (myself) all dread putting in the GH:WT disc even though we want to play several of the songs that are only available on that disc. The drummer hasn't had a chance to play it yet, but even if he's 100% for it, a 25% favorability rate is terrible.

It sucks, because we really wanted to enjoy it...but there are just too many unchangeable interface issues, and unfortunate UI decisions to make it enjoyable.

I had a big long post here, but I really couldn't be bothered. It sounds more to me like you're playing Guitar Asshole instead of Guitar Hero.

Also, since you mentioned worrying about difficulty, it sounds more like you suck than the game sucks  :oh_i_see: Oh god, I went there. Epeen++. Start complaining when the interface covers up the 4 dots and notes coming at them, because honestly, that's all that matters. Everything else could be Multicolored DreamShit and penises and I probably wouldn't notice.

I think you replied to multiple posts here, because I didn't complain about the difficulty at all. All I complained about was presentation and idiotic, poorly thought out, gimmicky interfaces.

For someone that gives other games such shit for poor design, I think you're the one acting like a fanboi. Just look at what you said--you don't care how the game presents, as long as you can see the notes? That's like saying you don't care how the fights happen, as long as the loot is teh shiney.

I'm sorry, what?

Everything else could be Multicolored DreamShit and penises and I probably wouldn't notice.

That was you...I'm saying that everything else -is- Multicolored DreamShit, and it's distracting my band so much we don't want to play the damned thing...which sucks royally.

Dude, even people who love Rock Band admit GH has the better interface and controllers.  (If the Drums are flawed I am sure itll get fixed soon enough.  And then be awesome.)

But my current two characters.  Aron Stewart my Guitarist, and my Singer, his wife Mindaria.  They are from some stories mostly residing in my head since I was 13 or so:
(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3045/2980700764_5e24314b42_b.jpg)
(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3003/2979842671_4aa3e63ea5_b.jpg)

I like em, even though I wouldnt mind some ponytail options for males.  Unless I missed it.  That and I would like arm and hand accessories to show up even on longsleeve shirts like these, at least bits that would be visible.

And that 30 dollar duet mic from this company called Block Head works pretty well.  Outside of not being able to activate SP with it (I just hit a controller button), it works great.  Might even see if itll be a proper mic for my computer.
I haven't tried the second mic but being able to have 2 people singing to the same song is kinda neat.  Even hand off song parts and such!  Compatible officially with every version of Rock Band and PS3 Singstar.

Update: Mics work wonderfully with Garage Band.  Compared to the internal mics better sound and no hissing.  So 30 bucks netted me multi use mics as opposed to just a game bit.  Now I just need a little mic stand for my computer desk.

You might want to go check both the RB and GH:WT forums. Fanboys on both sides, but from what I saw, those that actually provided facts about their experience mostly felt the interfaces were weak.

Honestly go through the QuickPlay song selection in RB, then the one in GH:WT, and say GH:WT is even close in ease of use, flexibility, and information provided. Then go play the songs that are common (with the same instruments), and then form your own opinions regarding which is better game play (important note: I never said anything negative about the actual song game play in GH:WT--it's acceptable, and in some cases possibly better), and then which is a better overall experience.

Meanwhile, my band is playing RB 2, and wishing the damn interface and game experience was better in GH:WT, and praying for Tool DLC in RB.

Just an aside, but how much do you want for that disc?

It looks like the characters that you make look much cooler than the rockband counterparts. It seems like all you can make in rockband is models and characters from dawson's creak/one tree hill. I will go as far to say as I hate the way the characters look in RB. I DO have to agree with the way the interface is handled in RB though. I never have trouble finding songs, setting up song lists etc. but seriously, let's quit bullshitting each other, the interface mid song on both games is trash and getting into a spitting contest about it is just lame.  It is all about playability and I am sure GH is just as playable. The note charts are close enough in my opinion, with both being different than guitar IRL but GHWT being slightly harder than RB2.

To be completely honest though, I really wish we weren't having this conversation. There should only be one game and it should be fucking great. Instead we have 2 really good games that are competing for our money and most of us are unfortunately putting out to both Activision and EA and that is a shame. I got RB2 but I am hesitant to buy GHWT only cause of price. To be honest I am starting to care less about which is better and looking at which is played more widely and is most accessible, cause I don't want to be a dick about it, but I can trash the shit out of both of these games on pretty much all the instruments. There is an occasional drum line that kicks my ass, but I shred the piss out of the axe on all these games and it isn't fun. I want to play with my friends, I want to just enjoy being a band, and at this point RB2 does it better mostly cause of ease of use.

On another note, Harmonix seems much more capable and consistent with the updates and track releases. If GHWT is anything like GH3, I wouldn't be buying many songs for it.

 

Haven't really followed GHWT much, but are the covers as shitholetastic as they were in II and III? 

All master tracks - no covers.

Excellent news, told you I haven't been paying attention!  Thanks

I'm glad that consumers put up with having to do this kind of shit (http://community.guitarhero.com/forums/14/forum_topics/131078) just to get what should have been working out of the box.

Wow, that's hilarious. I'm totally trying that, or the "cardboard method (http://community.guitarhero.com/forums/14/forum_topics/131083)".

Have to say I agree with Stephen Zepp.  Except for the improvement with returning from pause, I really dislike a bunch of the interface functionality points he brought up.  One more favorite that wasn't mentioned...

In GHTunes, there's a search by name.  Let's say you want to look for songs that start with "J"...  Enter that in, and you get the first page of J songs.  "J, Ja, Jan, Jay..." and then hit next page.  You'd expect to go to things like "Jer", right?  Ha, very funny. :)  Sorry, you're being sent back up to the A's...  And with there being an achievement for creating a song, guess how many pages of songs named "Achievement Song" you have to go through? :)

There's one song on the disc (Hotel California) that I've always wanted to play in a guitar game, but sadly, it seems like that's going to be the only reason I end up keeping GH:WT around. 

Parting note:  The game not working with the Ion drum kit (yes, I know, patch promised) is also rather lame.

I have to say that everyone naysaying Guitar Hero is absolutely fucking crazy,  there is no comparison in the charts between the two games. If alt strumming is your bag then I'd say go with Rock Band, but if you want to actually play varied solo riffs you have to go with GH.  Even songs that both games have like Today have much better charts on GH than they do on RB, though I'm not sure what the comparison is if you guys don't play expert.

Anyway thank god GH is out, I was tired of playing the only GH-like song RB2 had which was Alabama Getaway.  Though I suspect most haters here are PDA (the RB2 Interpol song) fans.

I know I haven't commented negatively on charting, and I don't think anyone else has either--our issues are with interfacing with the game itself, not the play mechanic.

I'm not sure what you meant regarding "alt strumming", but are you saying that you don't need to strum both up and down on GH:WT charts?

I honestly think the core difference for my band at least is this:

We don't give a shit about "whoo, we beat a super-hard song!!one!!cos(0)". We care about getting together weekly and jamming together, making good music. The GH:WT interface simply does not allow us to enjoy playing in this manner for multiple hours, while the RB2 interface not only doesn't get in our way, but it assists us in several areas.

wat

Um, doesn't GH:WT have an option or method by which you actually CAN "make music", though?  I mean, as opposed to playing simon says on the controllers.  (Which I'm all for, I love Rock Band)

It does but the music comes out sounding just a little better than a midi.

Q: What is alt strumming?
A: Alt strumming(or double strumming) is when you grab the strum bar with two fingers and jiggle it up and down. You can increase your speed at alt strumming by holding only the end of the bar and making small movements rather than large ones.

Most non-guitar players only strum downwards, but when they reach long sections of chords or notes at an even rhythm it's only natural to go into alt strumming.  Interpol's PDA is a pretty extreme example of this since the whole is basically at the same rhythm, while Alabama Getaway's rhythm varies so it makes it harder to alt strum (for the non-guitar inclined).  GH contains more songs of the latter while RB contains more songs of the former.

    We will be picking up a few GH:WT everything packs, just wondered how the online play was.
   We play RB online with my family and friends online, except for holidays/etc when we all get together.
    Looking forward to it since we all love the GH series.

   Hows that ION trap set ? So tempting...
   

Sooo... I'm a cheapass with GH3 and two of the GH3 controllers for the Wii.  :oh_i_see:

Anyone else playing the Wii version and would like to comment on this version?  IGN told Wii users to skip the drumset and wait for a third party set.  If I get the game only, am I doing it wrong (entirely)?

Is it actually possible to alt strum quickly with the RB2 guitar?  I didn't notice any difference between it and the old guitar in that area, and the old guitar is absolute balls for alt strumming because you have to move the bar all the way from one side to the other to register a strum (as opposed to doing a "quick picking" movement over the middle).

The new RB guitar makes it a little easier to alt strum, but it doesn't make it any more fun. It's still just a grind to get through the songs.

Ok, band got together tonight, so we played through two full sets of GH:WT in addition to our couple of hours in RB2. Here were our general thoughts:

--GH:WT's tracks are easier to play--not because of "better" or "worse" charting, but because it's simply more forgiving..for everything but singing, which they seem to have reversed. Our singer normally nails songs on expert (she FC's much more than the rest of us on the easier songs, and is rarely below 85% on -any- song), but she can barely pass quite a few tracks in GH:WT on hard.

--we all bitched a lot about the song selection interface, but ultimately the current "exclusives" (no solid word on if it's just timing, or really exclusives) make it barely worth the negatives. We'll probably continue to do about 2-3 hours of RB, and finish up with a set or two of GH:WT.

--having the greatly enhanced stats was really nice, but again, the interface is just so damn ugly we don't spend much time looking at them.

--the cheat that is supposed to allow you to always use the touch bar doesn't seem to work at all, or at least didn't work the way we expected.

--I had a minor complaint that the charts seem to have a bit of perspective shift--kind of like a visual red shift. It was hard to visually tell the tempo changes and triplets/doubles/triplet change ups visually when they were far up the chart bar, but they "spread out" enough as they approached the hit bar to be able to see them at that point. Again, a minor complaint, but made sight reading harder.

Overall, for us at least, nothing about the experience was compelling at all (other than the songs). The only reason we'll keep playing it is because of the songs we can't play on RB2. I sincerely wish this wasn't the case personally, because I do like some of the features of GH:WT's actual song play, and I especially like that it's more forgiving.

Yeah, that whole forgiving thing goes right out the fucking window when you play through it solo.... we demolished the whole game with the band. But as we figured out, its much easier with virtually unlimited star power!

Not really sure how to describe what I mean to be honest: "playing songs we know and love without actually having the skills to play them with real instruments" is what I was trying to get at ;)

We aren't looking for game mechanics that artificially increase difficulty (I'm looking at you, fretboard shake on missed notes)--we aren't interested in boss battles, or super-powers thrown at opponents. We just like jamming as a group.

That's my biggest complaint about Rock Band 2.  Too damn many of those.  I fucking despise "Are You Ready to Rock?" for that reason.  My hand gets tired just doing downstrums and I can't time the alt strumming worth a shit.

My GH3 guitar is pissing me off with the detachable neck, the green button keeps screwing up.  Is the new one any better?  If so, I'll probably get the guitar bundle.  I can't shell out for another toy drum kit.

Since I'm on the drum subject.  I've heard the RB drums work; but how do they deal one fewer pad?

It took me a long time to get alt-strumming down well. One of the techniques I used in RB 2 (doesn't work perfectly in GH) is to watch the fret bar carefully before the song starts and get the timing in my head by counting it out.

If you watch carefully, you'll see that the primary meter is displayed on the fret bar as bright solid white lines, while the up beats are also displayed, but with dimmer, grey-ish lines. If you count out the meter of the song for a couple of phrases, using numbers for the primary meter and the word "and" for the up beats, it becomes a lot easier to know when to up strum.

It kind of sounds like this "ONE and TWO and THREE and FOUR and". Normally, I just go "ONE and TWO and ONE and TWO".

How does this relate to up/alt strumming? Once you get the meter locked down, 90% of your up strums will be on the "and". If a note is on the primary meter, strum down--if it's on the up beat, strum up.

Pretty much every song I've played works out this way, although there are transitions that can get you off beat, and triplets work a different way (requiring you to change your actual strum speed for each triplet).

Problem with alt-strumming, hop back to an older version and practice on that foo-fighters track or misirlou.

It's so fantastic it can't be described in words.  It's really a joy to play.

Regular alt-strumming isn't that hard, strum down AND THEN up at the same speed your normally just strum down.  Problem solved.

lol, I remember you starting out playing Guitar Hero, and myself. Alt-strumming isn't as easy as you put it.

Well yeah, that makes sense to me too, but I'm finding it harder than it sounds.

Thanks for the tips guys, I'll try some of that stuff out.

I think this is a terminology issue, but the way I personally defined alt-strumming, playing the same riff with simply down strums requires twice as many strums as playing that riff with down and up strums, doesn't it?

What converted me over to alt-strumming was not being able to physically move my hand fast enough to play 120 strums/minute tempo riffs, but adding in the "1 AND" down/up strum pair cut my total strum speed to 60 downstrums per minute (plus of course the 60 up strums per minute).

<- still can only down strum...  :ye_gods:   which is why ill never overcome the horror that is Muse Assassin.

EDIT: Ookii just owned Muse in the face with his impressive alt strumming.

As fate would have it, picked this up this week and have yet to play it because of the red ring o' death.  You know this game has to be bad if your Xbox committs suicide so it wont have to play it...

The new guitar looks nice though  :oh_i_see:

Man all this talk about Alt strumming is funny. I think that guitar tabs are pretty decent on both. They are more accurate to guitar on RB but funner to play on a plastic guitar on GH. The drums W/ the madcatz cymbals kicks the hell out of the GH drum stuff though. Seriously, RB drums + cymbals is mean. I play mostly drums now cause guitar is boring since I have been playing lots of real guitar recently, the drumming on RB/.GH is just funner than the guitar stuff to me.

OOki / Cory: Man we need to get together and play man, i miss you guys! Seriously, set a date man!

So...

Short version. GHWT instruments or RB1 Instruments? (RB1 about to be released in Australia, no sign of RB2 of course).

I'm gonna buy one of the sets, not sure which, but within a week. Possibly today. I'll buy the standalone game for the other.

leaning towards GHWT since the instruments (on 360) are supposed to be cross-compatable?

I will say again, the GH:WT guitar is the best guitar controller available period.

Hm, ok. The RB full set is AU$70 cheaper than the GHWT one, but if only the GHWT set will work on both... Well I have a week to work out that purchase at least.

And I will say again that many disagree with you--it's personal opinion!

Hell, I play regularly with a guy that uses a real guitar pick on the RB 2 guitar, and absolutely loves it. To each his own.

Using real guitar picks on RB or GH guitars is stupid.  :uhrr:

Geeze.....

Blew me away when I heard him say, "hey, where's my pick?" and I figured out what he was talking about. Works for him though!

Just maybe play the strum bar like a pick?  Its designed that way.

Hell, the suck ass RB guitar seems INTENDED to be played pick style.

Yeah, the strum bar (on all the RB and GH guitars) is built to be held like a pick.  Using a separate pick on it is pretty bizarre.  Is he able to play fast songs that way?

He's not very good, is he?

Honestly, anyone who prefers the RB guitars over the GH guitars of any generation (except maybe the Xplorer) doesn't really play the game at a high level.  There's no way you're hitting those long tricky solos on a RB guitar.  This is especially true if you want to buy both RB and GH and use just one set of instruments, you will get nowhere using the RB guitar on GH.

But then again if you dig medium everything will be jazzy anyway you slice it.

Man I have to say that I would pick any GH guitar over any of the sucky RB controllers. I like the RB drums, but the guitar is not very good. I played a little of the new one and it was still too much like the old one. The new GH controller though, is really good.

On another note,

Schild & Ooki: Man the guitar stuff on AC/DC RB2 is just crazy fun. Really well tabbed.

e-peen arrogance at it's best. You and your friends can't do it, so no one can, right?

I didn't see any of the top 4 RockBand bands (from the leaderboards for RB 1) on the SpikeTV launch party using GH guitars, so they must not be competitive I guess.

Seriously, that was a silly comment. No on that show will use stuff from GH. The show is sponsored by EA/HMX get the hell out of here with that lame poop. That show is absolute trash as it is. I know people personally that would thrash those chumps at all their virtual instruments individually.

Seriously, the RB guitar is trash. It is designed for having fun, playing some RB Etc... GH controllers are made by one of the the best peripheral companies with an emphasis on reliability for competitive use. For the longest time the best DDR mats were made and are still considered to be the RO mats. Almost all the highest quality Bemani peripherals were made by Red Octane.

You can BS about preference and all that silly crap, but that is all it is preference. Most of the high score RB/GH stuff is done on GH3 controllers or old SG's.

I'm not one of the typical users on here who thinks that my every whim and opinion is gospel, but this point I really have to drive into the ground.  It isn't a matter of opinion, it isn't subjective.  The RB guitar just isn't as good as the GH guitar and due to its design it can never be utilized as well as the GH guitar when playing either game.

Like I said though, if you start out at the ground floor and judge them both you might go with the RB guitar, but I am telling you it will become readily apparent that the RB guitar just isn't up to snuff.

What exactly is your standard then for "up to snuff"? I think this is where we disagree, because there isn't anything you can do with the GH guitar that you can' do with the RB guitar--clickiness and throw distance of the strum bar is simply a matter of preference, not a blocker to performing any song in the game.

One of the "better RB guitarists swears by the GH guitar, and plays songs very well on expert--but I just found out recently that he doesn't know how to alt-strum, so even on the 240 beat per minute songs, he's only downstrumming (he beats the strum bar with his thumb). For his playstyle, of course he prefers the GH strum bar, because he is failing to use the guitar itself to it's full potential (either one). The tiny throw distance is mandatory for him, but I can do just as well strumming wise as he on an RB guitar with literally 1/2 the effort.

NSFW:  Heidi Klum likes to play GH:WT (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4x1ORED5uY)

They've had a series of those commercials. I love them.

Funny they didn't pick a song on GHWT though.

It is a matter of how the tool is built man. It is like saying, This mouse is exactly like that mouse, except one is a stock dell mouse and the other is some $100 logitech mouse. Sure they both do the same job, just one is clearly made to perform better and last longer. It is everything from weight, to button responsiveness, to how close the lower frets are to each other to, give on the strum bar Etc. That all matters, the GH guitar is just better.  You can do the job with a RB guitar, but if you chose that on some serious score attack run, it would  have specifically cause you are accustomed  to that controller alone, not cause it is better.

On that "better RB guitar player" thing. Not playing with alternate strumming makes you a scrub. You need to use the right techniques for the right sections. It doesn't matter if he is getting the notes, in certain songs he wont be able to hang like that. It is bad technique. Alt strumming needs to be used on certain songs, plain and simple.

Gotta say, now that my Xbox has been repaired and I have had time to play GHWT with my usual batch of folks, I have to agree with some others in the thread: RB2 is a superior game than GHWT.  The new guitar controller is sweet, the songs are fine, but the user interface, the avatars and shop items, the rigid setlists, the stupid boss battles, etc... everything just feels a little off and it amounts to a bundle of small annoyances.  I think it was also a mistake for them to include songs that were already in RB2 as well; it further contributes to the game feeling "smaller" than it should.  There are 86 songs GWHT and close to 10 of them are also in RB2 so it feels more like 75; comparing that to what Im have right now in RB2: songs from RB1 (minus 4), RB2 itself, plus the ones I've downloaded.  Im up to over 175 songs  to choose from which gives RB2 that much wider appeal for songs people want to play.

It's pretty unanimous with the folks I play with: GWHT has some cool songs, but RB2 remains the game of choice for parties and such.  It's not a bad game by any stretch, I just think RB2 is better.  YMMV.

So you're a medium player too then?

Finally got GHWT because Phildo moved here. Gotta say, much like the others, the lower "tiers" have like no appeal to me and the expert ones are uneven (like the previous entries). Hendrix was too easy. I use the GH3 guitar over the GH4 guitar, that'll probably change once we break in the buttons on the new ones. The whole thing feels a little easier than the previous entries. Will talk more when I actually finish it though, which should be in a couple days.

It really is easier than previous installments.  The only songs that should give you trouble are Satch Boogie, Hot for Teacher, and BYOB.  That said I'd take any GH song over any RB song any day, Sweet Home Alabama and Love Spreads alone are better than RB's entire playlist.  And that's not in my opinion, that's fact.

The WT Guitar is up a notch from the GH3 Les Paul, although the slider pad is a real waste of space. It's alot easier to just play the slider parts as hammer ons.

I found the song list mainly boring with a few helpings of awesome in between. The interface is really really bad. You have to skip 6 or 7 intros just to get to the main screen and it's even worse after that.

What I really hate (and I mean frothing at the mouth hate) is that they use master recordings but totally fuck up the mix in order for the intrument you play to be more recognizable. They completely mixed the keyboard away in Pull me under and most Aerosmith parts sound totally different on the CDs (although it is the same master). That just sucks. Also when you do the vocal career they sometimes drop you into the middle of the song if it has a long intro.

Oh and european drums still have the same issues as the american ones. They are really well built but don't recognize some of the notes.

It's nice because I finally have the whole instrument set but other than that I am a bit underwhelmed.

Realizing this was snark, I'll answer anyway.  No, I'm mostly a Hard player but it depends on the song and instrument.  But even the expert players in my normal play group agree that it's not the music which is the problem, though they wished there were more new songs (for example, BYOB was somethign we already downloaded for RB2 so again, didnt feel new).  A crappy interface is a crappy interface even at Expert.

Love Spreads has been on RB2 for several weeks (probably more than a month now)--yep, it's an awesome song--and I'll never open up GHWT to play it (and yep, I play it on expert).

If any of you are having trouble with your GH:WT guitar not registering strums you can easily replace the component responsible.  I recently soldered on a new SPDT switch (http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2049718) without having any soldering experience and the guitar is working perfectly.  Worth the hour or so it takes and the 3 bucks for the SPDT switch if any of you are having trouble.

I was given WT for Xmas, and I have to say I was very let down. The new guitar while feeling nice, I cant stand the strum bar, it feels all soft and has a lot of play in it. I much much prefer the GH3 one with the very precise and clicky strum bar. Maybe I got a defective strummer? Mine feels much more like the rock band strummer than the GH3 one. I was very excited to try the new guitar, and I am pretty disappointed.

Also, the game doesnt feel polished at all, and the note layouts just seem to not really make much sense. Half the time it feels like I could play the game on mute and it wouldnt matter, as the notes dont seem to fit with the music.

Now, I am far from a RB fanboy, I loved GH3, but WT just seems like a step backward in terms of the core gameplay.

Necro!

Any word on whether the currently-available GH:WT instruments fix the problems that the initial release had?  I still want to get my hands on this game, but I'm not interested in paying $200 for plastic instruments and then having to repair them myself.

We just bought this things a week ago for the PS3 to use in a party we had during a weekend. Didn't notice anything being wrong with the instruments, but I've never played any game like this before so I don't really have a comparison.

Edit: Who the fuck thought it's a good idea to make people unlock some of the songs? We're having a party and hey, we can't play half the songs written on the box because we have to unlock them first. Stupid shit.

Use the unlock code. It saves them to be unlocked too.

My green drum is fucked. I'm getting the USB dongle sent out. Hopefully that fixes it, else they'll be a-replacing them drums.

When did you buy the drum kit?  I've been operating on the theory that they'd fix whatever the problem was after the holiday rush, after which point it'd be safe to buy them without having to worry about shipping them back umpteen times.

The more I play RB2 the more I dislike GHWT. The game just feels clunky and loose. The guitar stuff is just way too loose and the drumming just feels tacked on. I really like the open note stuff with the bass, and I hope that is something that Harmonix incorporates into RB3.  The sliding pad on the guitar is not cool either, it just feels wacky and adds very little for me. To be honest, aside for the separate inputs for drums, I am not too down with anything on the GHWT stuff. I hope that after playing it more I will warm up to it, but as it stands I would rather play RB2 any day of the week.

I plan on buying both, but playing both with the GH:WT instruments.  Assuming they're actually going to work.   :grin:

my plan is to buy teh RB2 kit (drums, bass, mic, game)  and the GHWT guitar kit (guitar, game).

main reasons include:

1)the GHWT drum lay out looks...weird to me.  specifically the 3 instead of 4 layout.
2)i HATE RB1 guitar.  i assume the RB2 is similar so i'll make it my bass and use the GHWT one as the guitar. (plus people can choose pref)
3)both have ~same mic.

The drums are the main reason I want the GH:WT hardware.  When I tried them out I thought they really blew the RB drums out of the water, and even RB diehards generally seem to grudgingly concede that they're superior.  But that's assuming they actually work in the first place.  Fuck having to solder and/or return shit, I want my overpriced toys to work right out of the box.

please elaborate. 

Bought it on release. Which was shortly afer the US release. Hey, they finally despatched the US dongle today. Hurrah.

The drum pads are solid, nicely padded (i.e. they're quiet and they give a nice amount of bounce), and ergonomically spaced.  Having the two "cymbal" pads at a different height might look weird, but it actually feels a lot better to have the pads arranged in two dimensions and evenly spaced from you than it does to have them all in a row.  The foot pedal on its own does a better job of not sliding around the floor, even not not being attached to the main stand, than the entire RB drum kit does.  The foot pedal also has a lot more "spring" to it, so you can comfortably rest your foot on it without having it fully depress, and the range of motion when using it is much more comfortable (i.e. your foot doesn't have to go through as great of an angle).

As always, your mileage may vary, so I recommend trying it out at a store or a friend's house before committing.  I got about ten minutes in on it at PAX and that was enough to convince me.  Most of the people there were RB diehards, and although they had mixed things to say about the guitar and interface, they were pretty unanimous on (sometimes grudgingly) embracing the GH drums.

out of the box I would say that yes, the GHWT set is better. It has the cymbals and a better pedal and it is a bit sturdier but not by much. Fact is though, most of us will buy a little something more, and in the case of the drums, having more equals more fun. A GHWT set is maxed out from the gt go. You may be able to toss some extra silencers on it but that is about it. There is not way to improve the set without actually modding the set entirely. On the other hand the RB2 set is less impressive out of the box but if you choose to mess with it a little you get my set...

(http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e359/ARTUNIT4/IMG00055.jpg)

My set complete obviously costs more but it is a full set. It has 3 cymbals as opposed to 2 which all register their own sounds. I have 3 toms(the to middle toms become tom 1 and 2 while the green drum becomes the floor tom) The cymbal set up is like a real set, so yellow becomes the high hat and blue and green are interchangeable, so you can have them set up with the ride inside our outside. You can also set the cymbals where you feel comfortable with them as opposed to the rather limited mobility of the GHWT set. In addition to that, there is a optional second jack which is for future expansion, but you can buy a separate kick pedal (which I did) and have double bass, (which I do) so now you have a full set with double bass. toss in the kick drum cover and some pad silencers, grab yourself a drum throne and use the handy (albeit limited) drum free play mode and you can teach yourself to play real drums. Not RB drums, or fake drums. the set is a full electric set. I have been playing drums since RB2 came out and because of my set a majority of what I play in RB is transferable to real drums. Which I can also play now, BECAUSE of RB2. So no, the GHWT set is not better than the RB2 set. There is potential in the RB2 set. The GHWT set is pretty decent, and like i mentioned before better out of the box, but RB2 allows for much more.