It is but less than a month away that the number of aspiring rock bands in the world will increase by roughly 1024% (yes, I spat that out on random, but it’s a pretty accurate notation). I won’t be getting the game, since I don’t have a PS3, 360, or a PS2, and because I have a real instrument — a piano — to master. Besides, my dorm mates next door have a plethora of 360’s, so I’ll just mooch off of them and play from there.

The topic of this post? Well, there’s one little particular thing that’s been bothering me about Rock Band, and I’m sure many other people will agree with me on this: What the hell were they thinking with the drumset?

Yeah, it’s too late to change it now, but it looks like nothing close to an actual drumset, yet alone, one that’s made to “simulate” drumming. I mean look:

This looks more like a Taiko drumset on crack than an acoustical drumset. Well, at least there’s a bass pedal — that’s a good start, especially considering from the looks of screenshots, it’s most likely usage of the bass pedal will not be needed below hard difficulty (though I’m most likely wrong on this). Either way, does that layout of the drum notes in the game look familiar? You’re damned right it does: StepMania.

In other words, when Rock Band comes out, I and other StepMania/ITG/DDR players will be almost instantaneously good with the drumset, if not, able to master every single friggin’ song that’ll be in the game regarding drums. And should frequent use of the bass pedal occur, that’s only one more note for us to deal with. We got this stuff down. Way to give us an edge, Harmonix.

Of course, that still doesn’t change the fact that the drumset looks dumb. I want my DrumMania now!

Oh, and a Harmonix dude said this:

“If you can play the drum parts on hard, you can pretty much play the drums [in reality].”

Uh, no you can’t.