Sucks that it'll only be available in the full $170 set until next year. If they put out a $60 disc that'll work with my GHIII guitar and KR mics, I'll be all over it (and the Who's Next download -- and the Metallica download if it's pre-Black Album material).
I really don't want to have three guitars and three mics laying around (and I'm not particularly interested in the drums to begin with).
I had read that as well, but Best Buy is advertising the game only disc as being available on Tuesday. Here's the online link.
I'd be all over it except I don't know if the GHII or GHIII guitars are compatible. I know the RB controller has some extra buttons.
Edit: This post from two weeks ago on XBox360Fanboy confirms the separate availabiity of the game on Tuesday. Apparently it's aimed at those of us who just want to play with our GH guitars. The exclusivity window on the $170 set applies only to the peripherals - i.e., you won't be able to buy a RB guitar, drum set, or mic separately until next year.
Also, it looks like they're going to be quite aggressive with the schedule for releasing extra content. Here's the schedule for just the first several weeks after release.
Well, I bought the bundle and have been playing it yesterday and today.
The drums are really fun! It will take a ton of time to get good on hard mode, but it's really fun on easy mode so far. Very fun addition. Challenging, but very well executed.
The guitar. I'm not a fan of it. I am so used to the guitar hero 2 guitar. This new guitar is just very stiff to me. I don't like the strum bar at all. I do however LOVE the look of it. I will give the guitar a few more weeks and we'll see if my opinion changes.
Singing is alot of fun as well. I love the versatility of this game.
One note. The easiest way to unlock songs is to do a solo career. This is much faster than the co op Band World tour with a friend.
If you do a solo career mode, all the songs that you play in that career mode will be unlocked in the group quickplay co op option. I learned this the hard way!
My buddy and I started the Band World Tour together thinking that was the way to unlock songs for co op play. This takes way too much time and is rather difficult. You have to repeat songs ALOT, earn money from gigs, earn fans, and roadies. It takes an aggravating amount of time to unlock songs in this fashion. Do the solo career mode if you are dying to play with friends. Quickest way to unlock songs garaunteed.
I was playing drums on Medium in solo tour mode. I need practice, but I have been gettin by fine on most of what I play. I'm in the first "Tour" that is availiabe in Europe and doing okay on the drums and then not too far into it a song comes up that even on medium is virtually impossible. I think it's called "A Day Late and a Dollar Short" or something like that. I really can't see myself ever being able to get through it. I can get to about 30% at best before I fail. And this is only on Medium. The worst thing is that the song throws about every screw up trick in the book out there as well.
Anyone know how to select Bass on solo mode. I know to use the drums to select to play drums and the standard controller to select vocals, but using the guitar does not seem to let you decide if you want to play guitar or bass (that I know of)
FYI, the guitar for RB has an extra set of 5 frets lower on the neck for rocking out with (not really required for the game itself). The GH3 guitar works in RB, IIRC, but it's missing these frets.
Walmart had a demo kiosk set up, so I got to try it out. I agree 100% -- the RB guitar looks great, but the GH guitar has a much better feel. I really hate the free-floating RB strum bar. The extra set of fret buttons is neat though.
The guitar was extremely flaky, registering extra notes and missing some, but chalk that up to it being the demo model on the Walmart floor. Anyone have any breakdown problems yet?
Also, does anyone know for certain whether the Karaoke Revolution mics will work with RB?