Hmmm.... not wowing me like I had hoped.

This is bad news:

At least with Rock Band 1, the cymbals proved quite unresponsive, and no matter how hard we hit them, it only seemed to register about 65% of the time. It was especially noticeable going through "Tom Sawyer" on expert.

Like we did at E3, we still have our reservations about the novelty of the cymbals.

This is a minor quip, but one thing we liked about the RB set is that each tom gave off a slightly different noise when hit. That's not the case here, where every pad makes the same thud.

$300 for unresponsive cymbals? Nice.

^^ I've read quite a bit about ION quality issues on other sites. No matter, I opted for the Guitar Hero: World Tour instrument package and I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that the drums are quality and BC with RB2 (as they're rumored to be).

Glad I preordered it from Amazon then. Any problems and its going right back to them.

IGN has rated every song in the game for each instrument from easiest to hardest.

Here are the final songs for each instrument:

GameSpy did this last week. I'm sure it's hidden in the thread somewhere.

Also, I seriously laugh at Australian IGN posting this info. I mean, RB1 isn't even out there yet, and the MSRP on it is close to $500(!!!) when it does come out.

So, is Moving Pictures still not up on the marketplace? It wasn't when I checked this morning and HMX hasn't said anything since late yesterday about technical difficulties.

WTF am I supposed to do on a Tuesday without Npeaen's videos? Work? Fuck you...

I guess Bodhissvata isn't the toughest. But it is in the final set.

A couple quick little notes..

Looks like Moving Pictures still isn't up, but hopefully will be up by the end of the day (no confirmation yet). All that has been said is that there are technical difficulties, and that HMXSean has no ETA. I know it's not an issue with YYZ, but I don't know what it is.

Also I got confirmation from Dan Teasdale that lefties won't be left out of the cymbal fun. For those of you not in the know, neither the new RB2 kit or the ION have a port for a red cymbal (which is what we use for crash). Therefore if you're on lefty flip, whatever's plugged into the green cymbal slot will be considered the crash. Awesome confirmation!

My question is... Why is/was it such a big deal to everyone that the content on the RB1 disc would transfer over to RB2, yet no one was bitching when GH2 content didn't transfer to GH3, and (I assume) GH3 content won't transfer to GH4? It just seems to me that RB is under more scrutiny from the masses about everything, while GH keeps leading us on with unfulfilled promises, like continuous DLC. I really started thinking about this when I was playing 'Smoke on the Water' DLC from GH2 and thought, "Why the Hell aren't these songs transferred over to GH3?".

The main reason that GH2 songs weren't transferred to GH3 is because they're two totally different engines. Also, Harmonix retains the rights to all of the note charts from the ones they did (GH1, GH2, GH:80's).

Because I believe harmonix claimed early on that RB was going to be a platform and not just a game.

RB is more party-friendly... and nobody wants to switch discs every 10 minutes during a party

Harmonix has touted RB as a digital delivery platform. An ever-expanding library that you can tailor as you see fit.

I think that when RB2 was hinted at, we were all mostly skeptical about that. Under EA, we don't want to see a Madden syndrome. Where the game remains largely unchanged but for minor tweaks year-to-year. When roster updates are more than sufficient.

Similarly, no one wanted to leave our 58 tracks behind or swap discs or play on the old version just because.

That all said, I don't recall anyone demanding the on-disc songs be exported. IIRC, it was just a surprise announcement that everyone embraced.

Yeah I wasn't expecting it and was pleasantly surprised by both DLC and On-Disc transfers.

New features w/ old songs = win win.

So still no moving pictures eh? What's the story?

No word from HMX on that yet.

Damn. I just got my 2nd replacement drumkit today and I wanted to bust out Limelight before I head down to San Diego tonight.

People are saying it is an issue with YYZ's vocal track... the main problem is that there is no vocal track which is a first for Rock Band.

I've never played the game in my life so I'm just saying what I'm readin on the Rush boards.

Here is the thread on the Rock Band website if anybody is interested: http://www.rockband.com/forums/showthread.php?t=73939

People are saying, or Harmonix is saying? That thread is all sorts of useless, and HMX has closed it because of the amount of BS in there. With posts like

Cock of Doody 4 :')

omgwtfbbq...

You have nice eyes.... I mean nipples xD

Then yeah, I can understand why they'd close it. Guess I'll have to wait until Friday

I blame Corvin...

I guess I can see why an instrumental could possibly cause some problems with the current engine, but why would they have announced this album if they hadn't sorted it out? I find it unlikely that at like 4:30 yesterday someone at Harmonix said "Ok, let's all finally listen to that Rush album we've got coming out tomorrow. Then we can start charting the tracks."

It's not a problem with YYZ not having vocals. I can guarantee that.

I wonder if they transfer the glockenspiel on Witch Hunt.