Classic Lanes - Bloomington, IN

[lgolem]

The infamous place where Chad punches the basketball machine. Piu is long gone but they have a Guitar Hero Cabinet in, brand new, very shiny, lovely lovely machine.......1$ a song >_<. Which is sad....very very very very very sad pricing. Also apparently the lag is GOD AWFUL!!!!

[WhiteDragon]

Also apparently the lag is GOD AWFUL!!!!

D'oh! >_<

[MonMotha]

Also apparently the lag is GOD AWFUL!!!!

D'oh! >_<

Hey Bob! Dun we need a pitchur maker for that there "Gitar Hero" cabinet?

Yah! I hear they gots them Vizio things on sale over at the Sam's Club this week. Whyduncha pick up a bunch of those?

(I'm sorry)

[Ho]

Isn't Konami supposed to be involved with these cabinets? They usually know better. Although it's probably "Konami USA" (read: Betson), in which case all bets are off (see: DDRSN US vs. DDRSN JP -- Although at least they used a nice monitor on DDRSN US.)

[malictus]

Wait, $1 a SONG? What?? Ridiculous, especially if the lag is bad. I'm still going to go try it out, though...

[Amp Divorax]

The primary developer of the Arcade version of GH is Raw Thrills, who made those godawful Fast and The Furious (more like Faggy and Furrylike) arcade games. The cabinet was a collaborative work of Konami, Activision, and Raw Thrills so if somethings wrong then it's their fault.

Betson doesn't produce any arcade machines for Konami of Americunts anymore but still helps distribute them. (I wouldn't be surprised if this was entirely due to the negative feedback from fans.)

[Ho]

Due to the negative response from fans

Who listens to fans?

[malictus]

I did actually go try it today. Jeremy, you can tell Daniel that he should definitely NOT get one of these. It's a complete and total DISASTER! Here's a mini-review:

Pros:
- It's all new and shiny looking.
- Someone has cranked the volume ALL THE WAY UP on the stupid thing. It sounds great.
- It does look rugged enough to withstand a major beating.

Cons:
- The guitar weighs a ton, presumably to make it durable. It was so heavy, in fact, that Ian (my seven year old) couldn't even use it. The 'strap' looks more like a seat belt.
- The guitar has no whammy bar, and no way to initiate star power other than the tilt sensor (which is overly sensitive and goes off erratically). This essentially eliminates any chance for true competitive-level play.
- Ridiculous prices; not only is it $1 per song; but some songs are 'premium' songs that require $2 instead of $1. I don't know what qualifies a song as 'premium'; longer ones maybe?
- Song list and game play are a watered down version of Guitar Hero 3. We've seen these songs, and this gameplay, in a game that came out on the consoles 2 years ago.
- Lag is HORRIBLE. How in the world can they release a game with lag this bad? I could barely pass the easier song I tried, and I FAILED the harder one.

So yeah, I'm the biggest (only?) fan of guitar hero on this forum, so you know that if I don't like it, it's pretty bad There might be a way to adjust the lag, and the pricing could be altered. In that case, it would STILL be a watered-down version of a 2-year old console game, but at least it would be playable.

[lgolem]

Raw Thrills is Betson

Talked to the Betson rep about it, Raw Thrills is just another name Betson uses.

[lgolem]

Also apparently the lag is GOD AWFUL!!!!

D'oh! >_<

Hey Bob! Dun we need a pitchur maker for that there "Gitar Hero" cabinet?

Yah! I hear they gots them Vizio things on sale over at the Sam's Club this week. Whyduncha pick up a bunch of those?

(I'm sorry)

I loled and jizzed in my pants

[MonMotha]

Just saw this game at Putt Putt and had a chance to at least physically inspect it, so here's my thoughts:

Pros:
...
- It does look rugged enough to withstand a major beating.

I'm not so sure about that. There's some stuff exposed that tends to get easily banged up. Those speaker grills especially are more durable than most, but I'm sure they'll get smashed eventually.

I'm also not sure how well the monitor will hold up. It looks like it might be a plasma. We all know how well those do in arcade environments. Not really related to "taking a major beating", though.

Cons:
- The guitar weighs a ton, presumably to make it durable. It was so heavy, in fact, that Ian (my seven year old) couldn't even use it. The 'strap' looks more like a seat belt.

It didn't seem much heavier than a Guitar Freaks arcade controller to me. It should hold up OK, though. I'm not fond of the "rack" system, though. It's just friction based, and I'm sure eventually that holder will get "spread out" enough that it won't hold the controller.


I can't comment on the lag, given that the Putt Putt machine is broken. Yes, it's already broken, and it can't be more weeks old, though the problem seems to be software/electronic, not physical abuse related. Anyway, there was an out of order sign on it. It seemed to not be displaying any background images (including the play lanes). It was only displaying foreground sprites and text. The background was always the high score screen.

The monitor was fairly clear, though it did exhibit the "screen door" phenomenon. It didn't seem overly bright, either, but it may just be that it is set correctly and seems dim compared to all the other "cranked to high heaven" monitors in that place.

The cabinet has lots of colored LED lights on it. Cool. There's no diffusers or anything over them, so they look like lots of little spot sources. Not cool. I think some of the lights were not working, too, but that may just be related to the aforementioned problems it's having. It looks like they bought some off-the-shelf "LED light bulb replacements" and dumped them in there.

The cabinet itself is otherwise pretty bland. It looks what you'd get if you crossed a DDR cabinet with a Guitar Freaks cabinet. The cabinet art is also nothing to write home about.

Where's the class? Where's the finesse? Where's the "oooh, shiny!" factor? This is an arcade game where the only real thing setting it apart from the (much more popular and also more feature-filled) console version is the fancy cabinet. Put a little effort into it. Maybe it's a little better in terms of ambiance when actually being played, but it's otherwise just blah.


Oh, and FYI, Raw Thrills is definitely NOT Betson. Betson is probably a distributor for them, but Raw Thrills is an independent little shop in Chicagoland. They are one of the VERY few remaining arcade game makers in the USA.