So many responses piled in while I was asleep! But I'm glad I've made an impression on people. I encourage other reviewers to show such integrity and list their credentials, an unflinching admission of how good or bad they really are at a game, and a careful analayis of why things worked that way for them and how things will probably work out for others. It's a lot more useful than just some "out of 10" scale, if you ask me. Sure it takes longer, but the end product is so much more useful.

Dazkerieh: You can in fact record Balance Board drumset performances just like any other. The Drum Mode Jam Session mode just forces you to use a drum kit (obviously).

Garcian Smith: I suspect that a great deal of the hate towards Wii Music thus far has been due to a failure to acknowledge the learning curve. If you go into the experience with little to nothing and expect little to nothing, that's exactly what you get. But if you're of a mind to improve yourself, you can and almost certainly will find a way.

Wii_R2_Hardware: Yes, the Wii really is something. It can be something great or something terrible, all depending on what goes into it, from either end. That kind of power over games is definitely a change.

That was really informative, Sky, and I'd like to thank you for posting it.

Here's a quick piece of advice in return, as a (casually) trained musician. You're making a common mistake of beginners when they first start arranging: your harmony parts are too busy, too complicated. You can get your music to sound better by sticking to more simple chords; more whole and half note parts instead of running quarters and eighths. Try listening to the auto-accompaniment that the game provides. The harmony lines are usually very simple, just changing along with the chords. Now you can do counter-melodies and make it sound good, but that requires a LOT of music theory! Maybe not the best thing when starting out.

A thought, in any case. Thanks for the thread!

Sky Render

This is what a review should be. Maybe we should all take games and give them such a treatment -- then explain worts and all.

And thanks for confirming that I made a good decision to get this.

Mike from Morgantown

Very good review, thorough and honest, great to see. You put the only other review I've read (the infamous IGN review) to shame. I think you've managed to see the depth of the game a lot clearer than people getting paid good money for understanding games, good job.

I am just a couple of lessons and a monstrous jam sessions into this 'game', but it's easy to see that the criticism of this game being shallow are based on not understanding the game itself. This game will prove to be immensely deep, even if the game had only twinkle twinkle little star, you could spend forever perfection your skills on the different instruments, and developing complicated arrangements.

The IGN review made fun of the song selection, but I find the selection of songs perfect, and I have only played a few of the songs so far, trying to improve my skills with simple melodies that I know very well is very rewarding and a perfect entry point into learning the game.

This game is about understanding and creating music, it can't be compared to Guitar Hero etc. as the experience is much more challenging and require a different set of skills and interests. For what it does, the game is absolutely brilliant and will not only provide massive amounts of fun, but it also teaches how to understand music. I absolutely love it!

Agreed 100%.  I wish there was a way to let the "professional" reviewers know this.

I don't think your average game reviewer cares much about being useful or helpful. Alot of video game reviews now read more as sales pitches, rants, or self-indulgent babbling meant to justify their own love something.

I really like your review. It's very genuine and honest, and revolves entirely around you and actually playing the game. So many reviewers prefer to blather on about superficial things or wedge in key buzzwords to build everything up. Your review is very refreshing.

I do know this: from now on, reviews I write will follow this same basic layout of tackling the review from what I go in with, what I get first off, what I find hidden deeper in, and what I get out of it. Future reviews probably won't be quite this verbose, but they will follow the same principles of critically thinking about why the game is what it is.

Very true BrainBox. There have been plenty of games this generation that I think received inflated review scores because of all the hype surrounding the game. It is most likely due to the advertising on the review sites. If a big game gets a bad review, the publisher is likely to pull their advertising dollars in favor of a site where they know that they get good reviews. That's why these reviews read like sales pitches.

On the other hand, Sky did it out of a genuine want to inform VG Chartz users.

It would be great if we could somehow separte reviews from advertising. That seems to be more the case for movies and books. I'm not sure hoe that would be done though, since the two seem so entangled in this industry right now.

nice review, though I brose more than read the whole thing.

still not sure i'll buy it, but now it's a not up GHWT for me (not considering RB cause I want the mii jam if I get one of these games)

The real problem, of course, is that you have to cut the developers out of the loop entirely if you want to have fair reviews. Otherwise, the review side of an industry will literally find itself being bought by companies, and reviewers with low integrity will go further than ones with high integrity due to the nature of pandering to developers being rewarded.

So how do you cut developers out of the review loop? It's not that hard, actually. Just draw your revenues solely from the people who value your reviews. That's how reviews in given industries tend to start out, but then the greed usually sets in for a few reviewers and the downward spiral begins as the corruptible and corrupted start to outnumber the ones who are in it for the review instead of the money...