You would think that Activision/Red Octane would have taken a REAL close look at what happened with Harmonix last year with Rock Band (the faulty strats, the easily broken kick pedals). I had to get *TWO* replacement guitars from Harmonix after the initial strat in my bundle had a barely-working strum bar, and the replacement wouldn't go into Overdrive unless you positioned it 65 degrees to the left of your groin and did a pirouette. That was a disaster for Harmonix (especially the Warranty situation afterwards, which to their credit the quickly rectified).

QA is absolutely critical if you expect your fan base to drop nearly $200 on game and peripherals. The drum issue is *NOT* something that they didn't expect, given the failure rate (even at 10%, is STILL completely unacceptable). Believe you me, they ran the numbers on this regarding release date, rate of return, cost of repair, lost sales, profit potential, etc. Shame on them.

The song is growing on me, but it is a bit too long for my tastes. After failing it at 99% a second time on Expert drums, I played it a third time on Expert and finally beat it, and...I'm not exactly itching to play it again.

I wonder when Activision Blizzard is going to offer Warcraft armor as DLC for customizing GH characters...seems like an easy way to make some money.

Man, you guys are making me want to play Stranglehold even more.

My kit appears to work perfectly, although I often have trouble getting SP to engage. I think it's something I'm doing wrong, rather than the kit though.

I'm loving the hell out of the game so far, but I've only had a very limited exposure to RB. I do have some gripes (particularly the quickplay song list) but I'm having a lot of fun with it. The new guitar is wonderful as well... just don't expect to get too much mileage out of the touchpad.

I'm considering getting the GHWT game only, with the RB2 Drums. I read that GHWT drops a note because the RB2 has 1 less pad. Does that mean the note is dropped alltogether, or is it just mapped to one of of the 4 remaining pads? And does anyone know if the Cymbol add-ons for the Rb2 drums will bring that dropped not back into play? Man I've never had to do so much friggin research before buying a damn video game in my life!

Get the game. RB is a perfect 10, easily....and GHWT is a solid 8. I would not mess with the kit because the problems are widespread enough for a press release.

I would, however, get the guitar bundle because IMO the guitar is perfect, though the slide bar is pointless.

That's the sort of rancid, secular answer I've come to expect from your ilk.

I dunno... I play Expert Guitar/Bass and Hard Drums (no singing), and the song is neither challenging nor exciting as a game track. It just kinda drones on and on and onnnn and onnnnnnnnnnn until you're really jonesing to play something else and you still got about 14 more minutes to go. And by the time you're done, you're already filling up all the bird-feeders with Zyklon B.

I don't get the appeal. If you're gonna do a long song, do something like GG&HT and make it an ongoing challenging solo or something. It would be like doing the 17 minute version of In-A-Gadda-Da Vida, only without the Rue McClanahan reacharound.

Here's one thing I don't understand. Every track on GH3 is a "master track" with no covers. But who the hell is singing on Stranglehold? His voice is horrible and it's no version I've ever heard. Compare for yourself.

The Version I've (and probably everyone else has) heard:


The GH:WT version:

Is that legit? That's the vocals that are in the game? That sounds terrible.

Not a "Nuge" fan, so I'd never heard the song before playing WT and didn't realize anything was off. I couldn't find any reference to it being re-recorded for the game, so maybe it's an alternate take or something?

The original vocals were done by Derek St. Holmes, one of Nugent's band members. I'm guessing that the version on WT is sung by Nugent himself, but then again, it doesn't sound all that much like Ted to me either.

Even crazier is that as far as I can tell, I'm the very first person on the internet to bring this up. I know it's a game that a lot of kids play, but some of them have to have heard the song before right? I've tried every google search I can think of and nobody has said anything.

I was wondering that SexualPudding, but it doesn't sound like Ted to me either.

That is odd. Nothing on the GH forums either? Does Neversoft take part in the forum like HMX?

Needless to say I'm a little less excited about Stranglehold now.

From the little I've seen, some Neversoft employees post on the forums but seem much less involved than the HMX folks.

This might be the greatest thing in the entire history of rhythm based music games:

I...can kinda understand why. It's not segmented at all, there appears to be little-to-no effort at merging duplicate threads, and there's a whole page of threads from just the past 10 minutes. It's kind of unmanageable.

So if anybody is taking requests for songs to create (Rabbit? )...I'd love to be able to play Linus & Lucy (aka the Peanuts/Charlie Brown theme):

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Here's the best version I could find on guitar:

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/kzcHyM_269w&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/kzcHyM_269w&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

For all I know somebody already made it, but if anybody could even make a half-assed attempt, I'd be grateful. I think it'd be cool with only a guitar track, but that full band version is pretty neat.

Here's the best version of Linus & Lucy:

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/F47nSQuDfnE&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/F47nSQuDfnE&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

Badass.

So I started a Bass career this afternoon. Got through the first 4 gigs and I have the following to say about the Open Note:

1) I like it

2) It is way too hard to see

3) Open Notes as HOPOs? I don't know much about playing guitar, but it seemed strange to me...

jeebus I need to make a hands video of that.

And yes aktick, I really would dig that (Linus&Lucy) - my wife and I actually used that song as our walk out song at the end of our wedding ceremony.

I just need to get my damn bundle in, I don't know what the hold up is.

I still haven't unlocked the Satriani song yet, although I probably will tonight. I was more thinking the lyrics were awesome. Two handed tapping should be a lot of fun on this one (although I won't be using the slider area!).

And for bunkaroo: Stuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!

Was that Stu Hamm?

yes! I just got a message that my bundle arrived. Hopefully I'll be able to pick it up tomorrow and get my grubby hands on this disappointment.

I don't play drums well anyway so if they're messed up I won't be in a huge rush to get the sensitivity up to snuff.