I got Rock Band the other day, as I so subtly bragged about earlier. While I love the songs, the character customization, multiplayer, so on and so forth, the equipment is downright crap.

I opened the box, removed about ten layers of useless packaging, and found a guitar that doubles as a maraca. All the buttons work, but something is definitely bouncing around inside. Maybe it's part of the motion sensor, because I can't hold the guitar anything steeper than 20 degrees without the overdrive going off.

One of my friends, who bought Rock Band the very next day, has the same rattle, if not a little worse. At least his Overdrive works properly. Even so, the guitars just feel cheap, like they're going to snap in half at any second. Playskool makes more durable instruments than this.

Then there are the drums (my favorite part). My yellow pad makes a disturbing "clank" sound with every hit. You really have to nail it to make the beat register too, so as you can imagine, I fear that it'll break at any second. Oh yeah... my friend's yellow pad has the exact same problem.

I love the game, but with gear that crapped out before it left the box, I don't know how much use I'll get out of it. At least the microphone works, which is the one thing that I absolutely did not buy the set for.

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	daff - March 04, 2008 (09:47 AM) My stuff works fine, but I'm still going to buy a 3rd party guitar when one is available.
	pup - March 04, 2008 (10:18 AM) You have the PS3 version and, from what I remember, the equipment felt a lot more sturdy. My guess is that the PS3 and Xbox versions are being manufactured by separate companies.
	Halon - March 04, 2008 (11:18 AM) You're not alone, I know one person with a broken guitar and two people with broken drums.
	overdrive - March 04, 2008 (09:03 PM) This OVERDRIVE works fine. At least that what the ladies tell me. Oh, you're talking about a game. Nevermind.....
	jiggs - March 04, 2008 (09:35 PM) this is the experience i had when Guitar Hero 1 came out. the guitar was defected. the strum bar only registered downstrokes but not upstrokes so i had to go back to the store and exchange for another one. the one i have now works fine in the begining but after playing about 4 or so hours on hard and expert, the spring in the strum bar feels like it's starting to wear out now i'm probably going to wait on Rock Band later on when the equipment gets better. the les paul guitar for the wii version has come a long way from the feel of guitar hero 1 guitars so things will definitely improve.
	pup - March 05, 2008 (12:26 AM) I can't say that I was overly shocked by the failures. On the box is a conspicuous sticker urging customers to contact tech support if they "...encounter a problem with any Rock Band peripheral..." When you open the box, the first thing you see is a full-size sheet of fluorescent paper with the same message.
	True - June 20, 2008 (02:31 AM) You know it's funny... Well, not funny. That sucks it happened but I bought Rockband around Christmas and about two weeks later, something happened to the guitar and I could no longer strum down. Two of my friends at work that bought it had the exact same thing happen to them. I'm just looking forward to Guitar Hero IV and hope they did it right.