Rock Band - with Cymbals?

So if you've played Rock Band drums and you think that you're rocking out to your favorite songs as best as you can, think again.

Mad Catz has created Rock Band 2 cymbals that sync up with your pads to enhance your drum playing experience. For those of you who have played Rock Band drums, you know there are four pads - red, yellow, blue, and green going from left to right. Most actual drum sets have a snare drum, three toms, a hi-hat cymbal, a ride cymbal, and probably a number of crash cymbals. Look them up if you don't know what I'm talking about - they definitely have different sounds, and I bet you'd recognize them if you hear them.

With four toms, Rock Band did a great job matching up the colors with realistic locations for the cymbals. The red is always the snare drum. The yellow can be a tom or the hi-hat cymbal. The blue can be a tom or the ride cymbal. And the green can be a tom or the crash cymbal.

Well thanks to a $40 addon (we got two of the cymbals for $25 total, and the third for an additional $15 at Walmart), we now have cymbals that take the place of the overlap. Rock Band 2 has a setting that allows you to add these cymbals, and if you play the pad, it plays the tom sound. If you play the cymbal, it plays the cymbal sound.

For gameplay purposes, there is no difference between hitting the hi-hat cymbal and the yellow tom. You can still play everything on the pads. If you hit the tom where a cymbal should be, you don't mess up the note. It doesn't increase the difficulty too drastically.

But if you're anything like me, who loves to play the songs that he knows well, I love trying to figure out whether I'm supposed to be hitting the tom or the cymbal. It adds a whole new level of complexity. Instead of concentrating on getting the highest score now, or getting 100%, I'm not concentrating on playing the song correctly! Imagine that! I'm focusing less on the bass drum pedal (which is usually my primary focus) and I'm thinking about the other notes. This has made me a better Rock Band drummer already after 3 songs.

It would be neat if there were some way to tell other than your ear how to play it, but this add-on takes you another step toward realistic drumming. It takes you a step away from just playing "Simon Says" and makes you more of an actual drummer where you have to make your own musical decisions. A friend of mine, after trying the cymbals once said "I never thought drummers really ever used the cymbals." The cymbal addons make you a better musician overall, which is pretty neat to think about.

I know that $40 is kind of expensive, but I will say - if you enjoy Rock Band drumming and would like a new challenge - get them. It takes the drumming to a whole new level.

Now if only they could make the guitars more realistic...

Side note: I still like Guitar Hero World Tour better, but they are much closer now.