I’m not sure how many people realize this, but Guitar Hero wasn’t the first fake plastic guitar game. That honor goes to Konami’s GuitarFreaks.

This interview with Bryan Lam, who at the time worked for Red Octane, summarizes:

YVG: How much did Konami drop the ball? Their GuitarFreaks franchise has been around for a long time, but [...]

I noticed that Mad Catz is selling some officially licensed custom kick drumheads for Rock Band. They’re not much more than fabric circles with two clips, but still, the effect is kinda neat, and they’re only 10 bucks. So far they come in three designs.

Rock Band Custom Kick Drumhead – Elephant

Rock Band Custom Kick Drumhead [...]

Not much to say about this one — a side by side video of a gentleman playing the Tool song “Parabola” on the GH:WT drums, and a real world drumset.

Note that the real drumkit illustrates some of the limitations of the 2 cymbal / 3 pad layout of the GH:WT drums, as I’ve previously discussed. [...]

Although I have mixed feelings about Guitar Hero: World Tour, there’s one thing I’m absolutely sure of — the new GH:WT guitar is, without a doubt, the best fake plastic guitar ever.

As I’ve mentioned before, the GH:WT guitar is technically unlicensed and “generic”, but appears to be based on the Schechter Classic.

Although the original Rock [...]

Now that Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero: World Tour have been out for a while, we can finally experience for ourselves what “drum compatibility” means.

They promised, and it’s true: either game can be played with either drumset.

However, “compatibility” doesn’t mean you’ll get a good drumming experience out of it. MTV’s gaming blog has [...]