Today saw the release of Harmonix and MTV Games’ Rock Band 2 for Xbox 360 (sorry other platforms, you’re just going to have to wait!), and I spent several hours with the title–with of course some friends–to really get to know the game. Rock Band 2 starts out much the same as Rock Band 1 (even to the point of having a remarkably similar intro sequence set in what appears to be the same desert), and aside from new items such as an improved calibration utility and access to the new “Challenges” in multiplayer it never really diverges from the first game in any significant ways.

I’m going to do this a little bit differently than your typical review in that I’m going to start it before I’ve actually completed the game. The idea is that as I progress through the game, I’ll make some extra notes here, tell you about my experiences thus far, and either bitch & moan or fawn lovingly. Knowing me, probably a bit of both, so we might as well start it off right.

Guitar Hero III for Wii is fun. “No shit”, you’re thinking, all the freaking GH games are fun. Yeah, but this is more fun, and it’s that way for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, it’s 10 bucks cheaper than the PS3/360 versions. What can I say, I like saving cash, and 10 bucks off the cost of entry is 10 bucks I’ll spend on addons from DLC to peripherals down the way. Second, having vibration feedback let you know when Star Power is available and then when it’s active, kicks ass. Third…

I was really surprised at how much it caught my attention to hear my numerous screw ups emanating from the guitar itself rather than from the TV. That may seem like a trifle to the hardened GH fan, but I enjoyed it a great deal. It added an extra layer of interactivity to the game and drew me in just a little more than I otherwise would have been (which is a good thing, I’ve always enjoyed the GH series but can’t say I’m particularly good at it on the harder modes nor have I ever been utterly swallowed by the series, but after not realizing I played for 4 hours tonight, I have to say that yeah , I was sucked in).

As you’re already aware, the graphics aren’t on the level of Xbox 360 or PS3, and you’d be loco to expect them to be. That said, this isn’t a game about graphics, and it never was: this is a game about Music and the way you play it, pure and simple. It could have a black background with the fret bar and music and it’d be just as much fun for the player (though to be fair, onlookers would be bored faster). As it stands, the graphics are very serviceable, a shade nicer than the PS2 counterpart, with better lighting and particle effects when they do appear.

“What about the Guitar!?” you ask? Well, let me put it this way: The Wiimote powered Les Paul is the best Guitar Hero controller to date, hands down. It is heads and shoulders above the Xbox 360′s X-Plorer and the PS2′s Gibson SG. We could debate the aesthetics all night (some folks love the SG and are bitching about the Les Paul on forums; personally I like the Les Paul. I thought the SG was serviceable but nothing extraordinary, and I liked the X-Plorer until I owned one, now I can’t stand the POS). The controller has a fair amount of heft to it, though it’s not significantly more so than the older guitars, and when you put the Wiimote in it feels just a bit heavier. I know, I know, imagine that more mass would add to the weightiness of an object!

More to the point, the wireless works as flawlessly as you expect, with no discernible lag. The Wiimote tucks into the back of the guitar quickly and comfortably, with room for the little strap and a small cable to connect to the Wiimote nunchuk style. The fret buttons all have ample squish feedback (that’s the technical term, I swear! Look it up!), and the face buttons all work as you’d expect. I know, a real shocker. The strum bar clicks quietly, more so than on previous versions, and is barely audible at all during gameplay. The good news about that is that when you screw up, the Wiimote’s tiny speaker is that much more audible thanks to the strum bar being quiet. Ah, being reminded that you’re a screw up was never so satisfying

For tonight, that’s all I’m going to give you, bedtime calls and tomorrow, the real job calls too. Dammit. In the next update I’ll tell you a bit about my first boss battle, my first online battle, and what I think of the song selection as it’s been revealed to me so far. Please, for the sake of my ego, remain on the edge of your seats…

Guys? Guys?…Hello?

I’ve recently had the opportunity to spend some time with the new “Freedom V” Wireless Guitar Hero controller, courtesy of “The Ant Commandos” (TAC). These are the same folks who brought us the “Shredder” guitar controller earlier this year, which I also recently reviewed. Luckily it looks like TAC’s really made some headway with their newer guitar, and Guitar Hero fans are in for a treat. We’ll follow the same format as the former review here, judging each aspect of the Freedom V on a scale from 1-5. Let’s take a look at the various categories vying for our loving attention today!

Style:

The Freedom V catches your attention immediately with its very sexy design, metallic paint and chrome details. The Fret buttons are nice and glossy in color with a very smooth sense to the touch, and the Strum bar is a polished chrome color that immediately draws your eye. The Start and Select buttons also carry a nice chrome veneer, easily grabbing your attention like
the strum bar does. Last but not least is the Whammy Bar, which is also chrome
and carries a firm rubber tip that should help to ensure that even the most
enthusiastic players don’t mar the fantastic paint job this guitar comes with.

Our review unit, graciously provided by TAC, is a dead-sexy Candy-Apple red with metallic highlights. The guitar is also available in a striking metallic blue (which I saw at Best Buy and is quite the attractive unit as well), which we hope we’ll get the next time we review one of TAC’s guitars. Hopefully that will be when the inevitable Xbox 360 variant becomes available).

The guitar also comes with a sheet of hot and fancy stickers that many will undoubtedly love, but to be honest I couldn’t bring myself to cover the beautiful red paint job by applying any. Maybe I’ll put them on the Shredder instead.

Score: 5

Performance:

So, how does it perform, you ask? Let’s start with the good news: The Freedom V is superior to the Shredder in every regard, with the one possible caveat being that some people might prefer the style of the Shredder
(or for that matter, the Gibson SG from Red Octane) to the Flying V style. These are issues of mere aesthetic preference, however, and let’s face it, there’s no pleasing everyone.

Right off the bat you’ll notice that the Freedom V feels good in your hands, and the buttons feel easy and sensitive to the touch. The Fret buttons in particular are soft and easy to manipulate, surpassing even the
original GH controller’s sensitivity. Early on this additional sensitivity can take a little getting used to for fans who’ve played extensively with the SG controller that comes with the game, but you’ll notice in short order that the more sensitive buttons provide for a more pleasurable experience that won’t leave your fingers in as much pain as the original. While not completely alleviating the discomfort that some will experience, if you find yourself particularly bothered by the SG (or for that matter, the Shredder) but you still want to rock the house in GH, you will certainly want to give the Freedom V a try.

It’s worth noting that unlike TAC’s “Shredder” guitar, the fret buttons on the Freedom V are oriented correctly (i.e., they’re the same as on the original Red Octane controller), so those put-off by that design
idiosyncrasy will not need to worry about it on the Freedom V.

The Strum Bar feels as you’d expect—it produces a solid “click” sound when flicked, and it does so easily and without too much thumb strength required. Truth be told, neither myself nor my esteemed
Editor-in-Chief (or whatever) were able to discern a difference between it and the original. The chrome plating used is a bit more slick than the naked plastic of the original SG controller, but this neither hinders performance nor is particularly noticeable beyond the initial contact.

The Whammy bar feels very solid and, unlike the annoying SG or the Shredder, it doesn’t exhibit the tendency to fall down out of reach during normal gameplay. The one major gripe I always had about the SG, which the Shredder duplicates in top form, is that the whammy bar would disappear from my normal reach during extended periods where it’s not used. The Freedom
V’s, meanwhile, is rock solid and maintains itself in whatever position I leave it in. This is excellent especially for those of us with smaller hands that might not easily recover well on the harder modes of the game, though in fairness it could potentially get in the way of people who prefer it to disappear when not in use as it does on the SG and Shredder. I happen to find it a major improvement.

One of the most criticized features of the Shredder guitar has been that, unlike the SG, tilting the guitar upward to activate Star Power is iffy at best. Honestly, coming into this review I was expecting the same
trouble from the Freedom V, but to my surprise I have no complaints. If anything, it’s a bit more sensitive than the SG, meaning I don’t have to tilt it quite as far to get my star power action going. Anything that makes my life easier when rocking out to some of my favorite tunes, I’m all for!  In that vein, it’s only proper that I follow the Star Power and talk about the Freedom V’s oh-so-nicely raised Select button.

Like the Shredder (and unlike the SG), the Freedom V’s Select button is elevated above the surface of the guitar to allow easier access for players who’d really rather not tilt the guitar upward to activate their Star Power. Unlike the Shredder, the Freedom V’s Select button is actually located in a place where it’s easy to simply “palm” without significant movement of your hand, thus reducing the possibility that you’ll actually miss an upcoming note. As avid players of Guitar Hero can tell you, this can be particularly important in some of the tougher songs and harder difficulty levels of the game.

Score: 5

Wireless
Functionality:

OK, let’s face it, you’ve been waiting for this part of the review since the beginning. It’s good that all the regular functions of the guitar work as well as they should, but the main point of buying a $59 wireless
guitar is, after all, the wireless functionality. You want to jump around while you rock, after all! You want to fall down and play with your knees bent, your ass on the floor and the frets reaching to the sky, all without getting tangled in the wire and sending your PS2 tumbling to the ground, right? Damn straight!

The wireless functionality of the Freedom V guitar is nearly flawless. Plug in the dongle, fire up the controller and your PS2, and in a couple of minutes you’ll be burning up the tunes just like with your wired controller. Perhaps the sole complaint here is that sometimes it takes a few seconds for the guitar to connect with the PS2. We’re not talking a long time here, maybe 5-10 seconds, but it’s enough to make you wonder if it’s working or not. This can be particularly troublesome if you’re not using fresh batteries (at first, we weren’t). So far we’ve logged several hours with a nice, new set and they seem to be going strong, so we think you can expect to get some good times out of a set of 4 AA’s, though we can’t tell you exactly how long.

What we don’t know yet is how well the guitar will work with Guitar Hero 2, due out this week. There are rumors on the web that there are problems with this guitar in GH2, but until we get our copy we can’t verify
that, so take it with a grain of salt. I’ll update this review as soon as I’ve tested, but I don’t see any reason to suspect there’s any truth to the rumor whatsoever.

EDIT: We’ve just confirmed via a representative from TAC that all currently shipping TAC guitars, from October 1st onward, are fully compatible with Guitar Hero II. For the earlier models an adapter has been made available by TAC for around $6–basically their cost–that will enable your older model controllers to work flawlessly with GHII.

Score: 4.5

Conclusion:

Overall, the TAC Wireless Freedom V Guitar Hero controller is an excellent accessory for those who enjoy the popular Guitar Hero game and would like to get a little more mileage out of the game with some wireless fun. It’s also highly recommended for those with large TV’s (50”+) for whom the typically 6’ cords on these peripherals leave you standing much too close to the TV. TAC’s solution will get you back to a more respectable distance with no worries about connectivity or getting tangled in wires that threaten to doom
your PS2, and it will do with great style and flair. The TAC Freedom V is available in both metallic red and metallic blue and has a variety of skins available to make your guitar more sexy (though honestly, the metallic red is already pretty damn hot, and we suspect the blue will be equally cool for an appropriate metaphor).

As a last note, I’d like to say that I’m very, very stoked about the forthcoming release of Guitar Hero II for the Xbox 360, and I like this guitar so much that I’d love to see TAC release, if possible, a USB dongle that could make this guitar work for that version. I realize it’s too late in the design stages to make the built-in transmitter work with 360, but even an unsightly USB attachment would be highly welcomed if I could get this beauty on that new system with what will undoubtedly be the definitive Guitar Hero experience.

Overall Score:
4.75

The fine folks at TAC (“The Ant Commandos”) were good enough to send along one of their “Shredder” Guitar Hero controllers for us to review. As this guitar has been on the market for several months already we’ll give it a new rundown and see if we can confirm or deny what others have said about the guitar to date. Perhaps more importantly, we have both the current revision of the Shredder guitar and the introductory version from several months ago. What are the differences? You might be surprised!

Style:

The Shredder guitar hero controller is, in style, quite a
bit more attractive than the SG style guitar that Red Octane provides with the Guitar Hero game. It comes in a glossy black with nice chrome accents on the Strum Bar and Start/Select buttons, and the fret board is an attractive silver color that complements the main body of the guitar very well.

The box on our review unit states that there is a “sticker sheet included”, but ours didn’t have them. Of course, it could just be the fact of ours being a review copy, so no points lost there.

One item that might bring concern to some players is that
the Fret Buttons appear to be backwards, at least as compared to the SG reference guitar, but whether this is significant or not will be born out inthe performance reviews.

Score: 5

Performance:

Of course, even the best looking guitar (or for that matter,
any controller) is only as useful as it’s ability to perform the functions it was intended for, so let’s get right to the meat of it. We have two of these units on hand, including the review copy we were recently sent and one I purchased several months ago at a Fry’s Electronics. Both guitars look
identical, though the packaging is quite different. Neither version actually came with the sticker sheet, though to be fair, the original version’s packaging doesn’t claim to.

What’s interesting, though, is that the build quality between the older unit and the newer unit are like night and day.

The older unit’s Fret Buttons stick, pop and crackle and can sometimes screw you up when playing the faster paced songs, especially on the harder difficulty modes. The newer unit’s Fret Buttons are smooth and operate quietly and easily. The older unit’s strum bar clicks loudly and sounds like it’s barely installed in the casing at all. The newer unit’s strum bar clicks
softly and moves easily and without fear that it might fall off.

The older unit’s start and select buttons are a little hard to press because they scrape along the chassis of the guitar and stick a little. The newer unit’s start and select buttons press and release without
issue.

The older unit’s Whammy Bar, like the Red Octane SG controller’s, exhibits a tendency to slip and rotate downward when you let go of it. The newer unit’s Whammy Bar is stiffer and stays in the position that

you left it in. On the older unit, tilting the guitar upward to activate Star Power is, at best, an iffy proposition. More often than not you’ll need to shake the hell out of the unit to activate star power. For those who hate
tilting it up, that’s not too bad, but if you’ve become comfortable with the SG’s method you could be in for some trouble. The newer unit does not have this problem. The tilt-up isn’t quite as sensitive as it is on the SG, but it works well and doesn’t require the user to drop themselves into epileptic fit like the older version.

Both units do suffer from some common design flaws, however. To start with, the Whammy Bar is just too damn long. More than once I’ve either hit the strum bar with the Whammy Bar and knocked myself out of a nicely scoring note or have managed somehow to crush my thumb between the Whammy and Strum bars, neither of which are conducive to a good gameplay experience.

Additionally, the elevated Select button, while a well intentioned idea, simply isn’t placed such that I can easily hit it with my palm without moving my thumb a little further away from the Strum Bar than is comfortable or wise, particularly in fast paced songs. What this means is that I’m forced to either shake the guitar like a madman (on the old unit) or tilt it up fairly far (on the new unit) to get my Star Power action going. While not a fatal flaw (after all, the original forces you to tilt up and doesn’t bother to either
elevate the Select button or place it in an easy to reach position) it does detract somewhat from the experience.

Like the SG, the Shredder guitar (both old and new) has a cord that’s approximately six feet long, a measurement which is, in my opinion, woefully too short. For this kind of game you should have at least a nine foot cord, and preferably twelve, especially for users with a large TV (I game on a 61” Samsung DLP). Luckily a $10 extension cable will eliminate this deficiency, but still, that’s an extra cost on top of an already pricy game/extra controller combo. If you’ve bought Guitar Hero and you’ve bought the Shredder,
you’re already down $110+ not counting tax, and the need for an extension cable just isn’t cool.

Score: 3

Conclusion:

It’s good to see that TAC’s clearly improved their manufacturing process in the time since the Shredder was introduced, but it’s worth noting that as recently as yesterday my local Fry’s still has a stack of the older units sitting in store (an assumption based on the fact that the new packaging and the old packaging are world’s apart and not really confusable with one another).

For those in the market for a Shredder but who’ve read the many negative reviews based on the old version, this can present a problem: which is the old, which is the new? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered, and
there are box shots below. My recommendation is to avoid the older units at all costs and get the newer one if you really like the Shredder style.

In the end, the Shredder is a decent product in its current form, and I’ve aggregated my impressions of the older and newer units to reflect that this is a product which has clearly evolved since its introduction, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are still the older units out there in the wild which could lead to some very dissatisfied consumers. If you can find the newest model you shouldn’t be afraid to pull the trigger (and you can find it now for $29.99, whereas the older model was introduced at $49.99) but do be aware that there are at least these two variations on the product, and if you find yourself stuck with a dud, don’t
hesitate to return it for a refund and go somewhere else to find the newer revision.

Overall Score: 3

This is the older package. Avoid it at all costs!

This is the newer package. If you want a Shredder, get this one!