Just saw this game at Putt Putt and had a chance to at least physically inspect it, so here's my thoughts:
malictus wrote:
Pros:
...
- It does look rugged enough to withstand a major beating.
I'm not so sure about that. There's some stuff exposed that tends to get easily banged up. Those speaker grills especially are more durable than most, but I'm sure they'll get smashed eventually.
I'm also not sure how well the monitor will hold up. It looks like it might be a plasma. We all know how well those do in arcade environments. Not really related to "taking a major beating", though.
malictus wrote:
Cons:
- The guitar weighs a ton, presumably to make it durable. It was so heavy, in fact, that Ian (my seven year old) couldn't even use it. The 'strap' looks more like a seat belt.
It didn't seem much heavier than a Guitar Freaks arcade controller to me. It should hold up OK, though. I'm not fond of the "rack" system, though. It's just friction based, and I'm sure eventually that holder will get "spread out" enough that it won't hold the controller.
I can't comment on the lag, given that the Putt Putt machine is broken. Yes, it's already broken, and it can't be more weeks old, though the problem seems to be software/electronic, not physical abuse related. Anyway, there was an out of order sign on it. It seemed to not be displaying any background images (including the play lanes). It was only displaying foreground sprites and text. The background was always the high score screen.
The monitor was fairly clear, though it did exhibit the "screen door" phenomenon. It didn't seem overly bright, either, but it may just be that it is set correctly and seems dim compared to all the other "cranked to high heaven" monitors in that place.
The cabinet has lots of colored LED lights on it. Cool. There's no diffusers or anything over them, so they look like lots of little spot sources. Not cool. I think some of the lights were not working, too, but that may just be related to the aforementioned problems it's having. It looks like they bought some off-the-shelf "LED light bulb replacements" and dumped them in there.
The cabinet itself is otherwise pretty bland. It looks what you'd get if you crossed a DDR cabinet with a Guitar Freaks cabinet. The cabinet art is also nothing to write home about.
Where's the class? Where's the finesse? Where's the "oooh, shiny!" factor? This is an arcade game where the only real thing setting it apart from the (much more popular and also more feature-filled) console version is the fancy cabinet. Put a little effort into it. Maybe it's a little better in terms of ambiance when actually being played, but it's otherwise just blah.
Oh, and FYI, Raw Thrills is definitely NOT Betson. Betson is probably a distributor for them, but Raw Thrills is an independent little shop in Chicagoland. They are one of the VERY few remaining arcade game makers in the USA.
There might be a way to adjust the lag, and the pricing could be altered. In that case, it would STILL be a watered-down version of a 2-year old console game, but at least it would be playable.