PlayStation 3 Rock Band Wireless Guitar

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When Rock Band rolled out last November, Harmonix/EA had some quality control problems with the first wave or two of guitar controllers. Being an early adopter, I lived through these issues and was rather frustrated that this much-anticipated game couldn't deliver on its promise.

It's April, now, and the separate guitar controller is finally available.

So, should you get it, or will you end up sending it off for repair, or returning it, or just plain smashing it out of frustration?

The first thing to address is the quality of the controller. It gets bashed a lot for the one serious defect the first batch of controllers had: the strum bar on many, many of them broke after just a few hours use.

Obviously, that's unacceptable, and Harmonix and EA both knew that. They jumped on the problem with both feet and by the end of January, virtually everyone who had problems finally had a controller in hand that wasn't defective.

So let's put that on the shelf. It's in the past now: I have two of these controllers and they both work as well as or better than any GH controller I ever had.

Let's address the real question: is this a controller you want to play with?

It's decidedly different from every Red Octane GH controller, to be sure, so if you're a big fan of the GH controllers, you will almost certainly not like this controller the first time you pick it up. Unless you're an absolute creature of habit, my suggestion is to give it some time: play with it for a few weeks, recognizing that your performance may actually degrade a bit while you get accustomed to the controller.

* * *

Here are the most obvious differences that affect performance:

1. The neck of the Rock Band controller is longer and thinner than the GH controllers. It feels more like a real guitar, which encourages you to position your hand more like you would on a real guitar. For me, this was a big plus, but I have a friend who much preferred the thicker neck of the more toy-like GH controller.

2. The fret buttons are flush with the neck and nestled directly next to one another, with each button being as wide as the distance between two frets on an actual guitar. The result, again, is that your hand is positioned more like it would be on a real guitar. The touch of the buttons is as good or better than the best of the GH controllers, but on some units, they produce a loud clacking sound. I've played with some that are loud and some that are quiet, and while it's a bit annoying, it's not a game-breaker.

When playing last night, I really felt the smoothness that the fret button design allows: I barely felt my fingers pressing the buttons, yet I was flying through song after song on Expert with better scores than I could ever have imagined getting when I played Guitar Hero.

3. This is the biggie, the game-breaker for most GH players: the strum bar. It all comes down to whether you like the click of the GH controllers or not. A working strum bar on the RB controller is a wonderful thing, frankly. Again, it was designed to feel more like playing a guitar or bass, and as a bass player myself, I'm impressed with the feel...you can really "twang" the bar like a string. The strum bar has a lot more touch than most people realize. Sure, in the end, it's still a switch that either connects or doesn't, but it doesn't have that "all-or-nothing" feel of the GH strum. I love this softer touch...it really allows for that casual/careless rock star feel that comes when you only have a few notes to play during an extended drum solo.

Yes, it feels very different from the GH bar. Learning to alt-strum (that is, alternating between up-strum and down-strum) with this controller is trickier and takes some patience, but once you've got it down, it's every bit as precise as it is with the GH strum bar.

Of course, a huge complaint is that this strum bar doesn't have the click that some people need as a reassurance that they've actually strummed.

I hate the click, myself. It destroys the illusion that I'm playing an instrument rather than a video game. "Match the clicking of your controller to the brightly colored dots!" No thanks.

* * *

I'll admit that moving from a Red Octane GH controller to the Rock Band Strat takes some getting used to, but it's absolutely worth the effort.

If you've never played a GH game before and you're interested in Rock Band, I'd ignore what anyone says about the comparisons between the two controllers: one is not objectively better than the other, and if you learn on the Strat, you'll probably find the GH controllers to be the annoying ones.

For me, games like this are all about feeling like you're actually playing a song, even though you know you're not. The more they can make me feel like this plastic thing is a real guitar, the happier I'll be.

The real measure of this controller for me is how much more I enjoy playing guitar-based games with it than I did with the GH controllers. As a result, my game has improved tremendously over what it was after months of Guitar Hero.

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I didn't purchase mine from Amazon, but from gamestop store.

First one I got, it will not sense me have tilted the guitar, and not matter how hard I try to tilted it, it will go into overdrive mode, I have to press "select" button to use it.

Returned, and got another one. This time, when I tilted it, it does go into overdrive, but not as sensitive as the one that came with the whole package. The stock one will go into overdrive if it senses me slightly going upward. This one I have to do it hard, or maybe twice or three times before it would go into overdrive, it is kind of frustrating, but just to share with you guys the experience that I had.

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I've waited 4 months for this guitar. Since the initial purchase of my Rock Band on PS3, I've waited patiently for the 2nd guitar to complete out the band. Choosing not to go the devious route to get my second guitar was hard, but worth it.

The guitar is exactly like the one in the Rock Band box set and works seamlessly with my PS3 and the game. Now to win more fans and money.

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We purchased this to give as a Christmas gift to our children as they enjoy playing Rock Band / Band Hero with their friends and were wanting another guitar to allow for more players. When it arrived it came in a basic brown cardboard box with the item information printed on the side, not in the original box which was tacky in and of itself, but the box was also covered in large red dots leading my husband and I to believe these are seconds or refurbishments being sold as new.

The product information should note that it is not shipped in the original box and that it may be a resale item. The guitar itself is finicky and does not work as it should. The keys are loud (the clicking is very distracting) and tend to stick and do not always register when they are being pushed. This does not work as well as our original Rock Band 2 guitar that came with the set when we purchased it last year. We are not pleased with our purchase at all.

I wish I had read through the more recent reviews rather than the most helpful as apparently others have experienced similar issues. BUYER BEWARE!

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I just got this today, and it works perfectly fine if you don't want to go into overdrive. Trying to deploy overdrive with this thing made we want to scream. I felt like smashing it into tiny little bits because I would spend so much time frustrated at it while trying to deploy overdrive that I would completely fail out of the song. Don't buy this. Look for the newer model.