To kick things WoTLK Classic Gold off, we sat down at the drum kit and set up a six-song quick-play playlist. The ability to quick-play more than one song at a time is one of the game's new features, and a very welcome one considering how much time it saves when bouncing through the menus. Some of the songs available in the Leipzig build included Michael Jackson's "Beat It," Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer," Interpol's "Obstacle 1." and No Doubt's "Spider Webs."
It didn't take us long to realize that we really like the feel of the new drum kit. It begins with the surface material. The drum heads and cymbals feel nice and quiet with the thick rubber and silicone coating, but there's still plenty of bounce-back. The cymbals don't seem to have quite as much give as we initially thought, but they don't exactly feel stiff, either. Moving between the two is easy thanks to the surface area of each drum head, which allows for a friendly margin of error. In addition, the kick pedal feels quite different from Rock Band's version. The pedal itself doesn't seem to require quite as much pressing, given that the default position of the pedal surface is a little closer to the base. This tends to make it a bit easier to do quick double taps, though without anything to attach the pedal to the base, we noticed it sliding a bit more than the Rock Band pedal.
When you first begin playing the drums, the addition of an extra input makes the notes on the screen seem a little daunting, but we felt right at home with the new display in just a matter of minutes. Once we got the hang of the basic playing, we ventured off into some more advanced techniques. Activating your star power is done by hitting both cymbals at once, which is a feat that requires clever timing because you need to hit an extra cymbal at a moment when the game prompts you to hit just one, lest you throw yourself off the beat by going for two cymbals when the game is telling you to just stick with the drum heads. There are moments when the game prompts you to throw in some freestyle fills just like Rock Band, but these are done more for your own fun than anything else, considering that they're not linked to buy WOW WoTLK Classic Gold your Star Power activation.