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New Guitar Hero Drumset Showcased
Kotaku is just one of many to have captured a recent showcase of Guitar Hero World Tour by Activision's CEO, Bobby Kotick. They have a nice video highlighting gameplay on the fancy new drumset. Looks like Guitar Hero is really turning up the heat in the ongoing war with Rock Band for dominance.
It doesn't even show Chad playing the drum pads. All that told us is that they're pressure sensitive... great. I would have like to have seen his reaction to playing it; not just his reaction to hearing about what it was.
Harmonix got a lot of bad press lately for declaring that the Wii version would have no online play, no band tour support, no custom characters, no DLC, no support for the GHIII guitar, and just about every other major feature removed or gimped.
Harmonix has tried to pass the blame on to every possible target, especially Nintendo and Activision. Yet Activision already had most of the features in GHIII that Harmonix removed from Rock Band. Now with GHIV, Activision is announcing every feature that Harmonix claimed was impossible to support on the Wii, AND they have the full band support. Which further makes Harmonix look like they're trying to gyp customers.
The truth is that Harmonix had a contracted developer do a cheap-o port of Rock Band to the PS2. Since the PS2 had the weakest hardware of the last generation, they replace the game visuals with FMV and hoped that no one would notice. (Thus the lack of character creator.) At some point, some Harmonix or MTV exec got the bright idea that doing a quicky port of the PS2 revision (which is completely inappropriate for a console of the Wii's caliber, regardless of its graphical capability in comparison to the 360/PS3), thus resulting in a ton of missing features. Especially things that didn't make sense on the PS2. (e.g. No networking meant no online play or DLC. And the more massive FMV wasn't a problem since no one could download new songs anyway.)
Honestly, I think Harmonix would do a lot better if they just owned up to their mistakes and worked to correct them in the future. Instead, they keep blaming Nintendo for all their problems. As a result, I've decided that Harmonix does not need my $170. I'll be saving it for GHIV.
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The reason why features were stripped out of the Wii versions of both games is that the Wii itself doesn't support the features very well. How in the world is Activision going to support downloadable content on a system that only allows 512 MB of accessible space? 4 songs can add up to be 100 MB. Now they are saying they'll allow "Create A Song", downloadable content, dynamic customizable characters, "just like the other versions"? Where are they going to hold all of that on the Wii??
I don't think Activision or Harmonix had much choice of a choice but to strip these features out. So what has changed on the Wii where suddenly Harmonix is screwed and Activision can succeed? It still has the same storage restriction. It still has no common online framework. Nintendo's online store isn't geared to sell this type of DLC. I'm very dubious of Activision suddenly claiming they can do now do it for GH4.
ps. I don't know if anyone is blaming Nintendo/Wii for any of the problems but consider what happens to those faithful GH3 who bought 3 song packs at $6.25US. Compatibility goes beyond the stuff you plug into the console...
I would bet that you could take one of these drummers, sit them in front of a kit, and they could actually PLAY a song. Not like that joke of a guitar thing. My God! I have no talent or patience to learn an instrument so I'll spend close to the same amount of money to basically masterbate in front of a tv.
In my not so humble opinion, this is the biggest joke I've ever seen. If you can play this "game" you can play drums. You can buy a decent begginer kit for under $500.
I'm not anti-social, I'm anti-idiot.
It's not really masturbation.
It's Simon with a really intricate skin.
But really, who cares? If someone wants to play Red Steel instead of learning how to fence, that's their prerogative too. Surgeons don't get uppity about Trauma Centre, do they?
I've been playing Baritone for almost 20 years. I guarantee you that there's a community band out there who would like to have another percussionist join. Heck, we'd like to see someone whose interest in music has been kindled by the fun they had playing Rock Band or GH:WT.
Should I tell you that several of the people I'm in the band with get together and play RB? I'm a reasonably good singer, too - I spent 8 years in a Convert Choir and have nearly perfect pitch. (Thanks to a quirk in my physiology, my natural speaking voice is a perfect D.)
And for those who enjoy irony, I sing baritone. When I sing, I can't read treble clef. When I'm playing brass, I can't read bass clef.
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I am a drummer with 20 years experience and it's exactly the same motions and training.
Really? These games teach people the proper wrist action to play drums? Dynamics? Paradiddles? The multiple-bounce roll? ANY rudiments at all? No?
You've got the prickish attitude down, but I think you need to go back to drum school before you can call yourself a drummer.
Because guitar is hard as fuck. Before I eventually got rock band (play drums all the time now ) I've had zero musical training, and had just bought a guitar and was trying to teach myself via videos/books whatever. All I ended up being able to do is play a few chords and bore myself trying to learn scales. So after a few months I could finally comfortably get into chord positions, and kinda sort switch in a second or two (not fast enough to play a song correctly), I still couldn't play ANYTHING I wanted to play. Every time I tried to get tabs, people would all be like, oh this song is easy, and it did look easy, and then I tried to play it, and I just did not have the hand speed to keep the rhythm of the song.
So guitar hero in 3 minutes i'm "playing" a song that I like. Real guitar, a few months in I just put the thing down out of frustration. I kinda half want to play the guitar, but I don't really want to take the years it would take to do it right.
Now, someone trying to learn guitar hero III on expert, i can see, maybe they should seriously think about picking up a real guitar, but if someone just wants to have a good time playing on med/hard difficulty, theres no sense in learning the real thing unless you want to.