Guitar Hero Cabinet

[xdjbx87]

I'm not sure if this is the correct place for this but I've been spending a lot of time on these forums and thought I'd ask. Does anyone have any experience on building a cabinet for Guitar Hero? I have looked around but I dont see any custom ones anywhere/

[wesfranks]

No custom Guitar Hero cabinets that I know of. The main focus is HyperSpin with various systems incorporated. Most here would likely think a dedicated machine/cab a waste. Why have a couple of games when you can have 250 systems?

But as to Guitar Hero/Rock Band, if you see the videos on YouTube, people claim to have all the console games functioning perfectly in emulation. But if you look at the games/emulator compatibility lists and watch the theme video, all but 3 or so versions of the games are even "playable". And by playable, I mean that most have video glitches, freeze/crash and if "playable" are laggy and not fun. 

The problem with lag in most games is between the video and the controller (the time delay/difference between what you see and the actions you take). Music games, like Guitar Hero add a third element. The timing between what you see on the screen (the note highway), the action of holding the fret buttons/hitting the strum bar on your controller, and the strum tempo (or beat, in the case of drums) of the song you hear.

In a normal game, if there is an obstacle in front of you and you want to jump, you wait until you are close enough, hit the button and jump it. If you miss the first time, your brain adapts and says jump a little earlier next time. If you see something threatening you and you want to move away, you move your joystick and your character moves. If there is lag, you usually see the threat in advance and begin to move soon enough to escape. If not, you die. One death. Life goes on.

In a music game if there is lag, you fail each and every time you miss a note and the game let's you know it. Off-note string twangs, crowd boos, and eventually a fail screen. No big deal if you suck. But if it is the game that is screwing up, it makes you not want to play. It gets worse if your strum tempo doesn't match the song you are playing to. When I play, the timing of what I see on the note highway controls my left fret button hand. But it's what I hear (the song tempo) that controls my right strumming hand. This is especially true with fast tempo songs. You just don't have time to think.

What does this leave you with.....

Emulation or simulation. You can suffer through lag, video glitches, crashes/freezes with emulation or you can move to a PC guitar/drum simulation program and get most of the fun music gameplay elements of the original game. But sorry, you will not have the character animation videos. For a lot of people, this matters. For me, gameplay is all about the note highway and the songs.

On a side note, if someone wants to come in and provide full band character animation for several thousand songs, I would appreciate it. I have the rest of it figured out. Themes, music setlists per version, career modes. All good, just no animation.