For those who were lucky enough to come to our exclusive GameSpot AU Rock Band community games night live event late last year, you may remember that we asked you to be gentle with the guitar. Late in the afternoon on the day of the event we performed emergency surgery on the guitar controller to repair its dodgy down strum. Unfortunately, while the guitar trick worked a treat, immediately after our community games night drew to a close and we returned the kit to the office for safe keeping the foot pedal broke and we were stuck with a half working drum kit. Fortunately, years of conducting brain surgery and playing puzzle games has made us quite adept at solving problems.

　　Our first solution followed the simple premise of KISS--Keep It Simple, Stupid--and after pulling the pedal apart we discovered a magnet which sets the bass drum off. Removing some large magnets from a set if drawers in the office we were able to duct-tape them to our shoes, leaving us able to play Rock Band again...kind of. It wasn't elegant, but it got the job done.

　　Coolness: 3.5/10

　　Ease of use: 5.0/10

　　Solution two called for a similar plan, and saw us making creative use of a discarded chocolate box. By taping the magnets to the underside of the box--which was large enough to accommodate a shoed foot--we were able to party down to Rock Band with significantly better results that the original duct tape design. Sadly though, it was still no substitute for the original foot pedal as it was prone to losing contact, and required a spotter to help the wearer hit the mark.

　　Coolness: 6.5/10

　　Ease of use: 7/10

　　Over the Christmas break, Professor* Randolph Ramsay, who just like Gordon Freeman has an MIT education, successfully operated on and repaired the damaged foot pedal. Using only the sole of his partner's sandal and a tube of epoxy he was able to achieve drum kick success. Under the new system the sole of the footwear acts as a brace and holds the two pieces of the snapped pedal together. It may look a little unorthodox (and we'd hazard a guess that this wasn't one of the original designs by Harmonix during the peripheral development process) but the pedal works just like it used to and we can again raise the chalice of rock.

　　Coolness: 9/10

　　Ease of use: 11/10

　　*May or may not be true.