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Guitar Hero has given me a false understanding at my propensity for rocking out.
Recently, my roommate came home toting a Best Buy bag, sporting an ear-to-ear grin. This is usually expected from a Best Buy run as all residents of my apartment sport painful addictions to the store, but this seemed different as the bag looked unalike from the prototypical Best Buy run that normally features DVD's that offer inane products that you'll never use (and if you don't believe me, I invite you to come over and we'll chat about it over a game of poker with my Snatch playing cards and serve you drinks in my 32oz. Mooby's cup). Instead, inside was a PlayStation2 and these contraptions called Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero II.
For the uninitiated, Guitar Hero is one of those nouveau-interactive home video games akin to Dance Dance Revolution, only without the sweaty douchebaggery. But whereas DDR is just a lame way to teach Asian kids how to Riverdance with a glorified Nintendo PowerPad, Guitar Hero brings another dimension to the table. Along with the standard looking PlayStation 2 game comes a new wrinkle in video gaming. The controller is actually a guitar, the buttons all color-coded and located on a fretboard, and instead of a joystick you have strummable strings and a whammy bar. I immediately discredited my roommates' new toy as the most asinine purchase since 1803 (Louisiana Purchase, FYI) and wrote it off as another passing fad. Then I tried my hand at it and was embarrassed at my lack of ability to correctly play Joan Jett's I Love Rock And Roll . Guitar Hero is not for me, I declared, vowing never to play that stupid game again.
But then a funny thing happened. Guitar Hero became all I could think about. Later that night I snuck downstairs, pulled down the shades in the living room, and had a go. Amazed at my uncanny ability to play Sum 41's Fat Lip on Easy mode, despite not knowing how to play a real guitar (though one could argue that the collective members of Sum 41 could not, either), I became hooked.
At work, while writing about deadly car crashes, I was really thinking about what Iron Man would sound like if I went a little heavier on the Whammy Bar, or if the Queens of the Stone Age took some solace in knowing that No One Knows was even hard to play on Easy mode, or arguing the merits of a respected artist like David Bowie offering up Ziggy Stardust to a video game (with myself). Was he selling out or was this a way to broaden the musical horizons of a younger demographic?
Who fucking cares? I was virtually shredding in my living room. I was even making rock faces
So impressed with my recently realized virtua-Steve Vai-esque chops, I decided to enter an open mic night at the Middle East Upstairs in Cambridge last week. With a guitar unknowingly on loan from a neighbor I headed to the gig .
Treygasm!
Thankfully, there was only 20-30 people on hand, because what transpired would easily place into the top 3 most embarrassing moments of Paul Reubens' life (which is saying a lot). Upon taking the stage, removing (unsheathing?) my guitar from the case, and strapping it on I realized that I had no idea how to play a real guitar.
With no color coded fret buttons, or video reminders of when to strum, I clumsily made my way through what I could remember of Jimi Hendrix's Spanish Castle Magic on Easy mode (which turns out to be a melody-less bassline, thank you very much). Fortunately I was able to redeem myself with an a capella rendition of Take On Me (which, sadly, has been honed long before I signed up for Open Mic night)
Nevertheless, I was thrown for a loop by those fuckers at Red Octane who make Guitar Hero. My virtual shredding did not hold up well in real life despite my numerous 5 Star reviews in the game. So, I'm taking this moment to announce my retirement from music and turn my attention to joining a semi-pro adult football league. After all, I did just win the Heisman award twice in a row in NCAA College Football '07...
Posts: 452 Rank: 26 Joined:
4/23/2007
Location:
Jackson, MI
Posted: 4/30/2007 8:52:54 AM
We all know that chicks dig a man with a guitar, but no one specified what kind of guitar. I have honed my skills in "hero", but it did not provide any more poon than what was already there. I have wasted countless hours for the false promise of getting a little more action. That is the definition of bull-shit, if you ask me.
I know guys who live and breathe for whatever the new game is. Guitar hero has been just that game, although soon it'll change to the yearly Madden (months long) blowjob fest that is the madden chum in the water for all the failed, never was, athletes out there.
Posts: 1072 Rank: 9 Joined:
3/13/2007
Location:
My Cubicle, CO
Posted: 4/30/2007 12:11:53 PM
Is the best pre-bar/party game ever invented. When you start doing terrible on the songs you were nailing earlier in the night you know it's time to hit the town.
Posts: 1928 Rank: 6 Joined:
2/27/2007
Location:
Ventura, CA
Posted: 4/30/2007 12:15:47 PM
GH has tormented my dreams for the past three months. I play that damn game before work and after work, and have even entertained the idea of bring my system to work and hooking it up in the break room during lunch.
I actually get less poon now because I stay up when my wife is going to bed, therefore surrendering my chance for the seven-minute shamefest.
Posts: 6 Rank: 211 Joined:
4/8/2007
Location:
Boston, MA
Posted: 4/30/2007 12:36:32 PM
Who hears songs on the radio, and thinks, "Hey I could totally play this song on GH"?
If you want to see something amazing, YouTube "Divided"+"Sky"+Guitar"+"Hero". Those crazy intraweb fiends have created a way to import any song into GH2.
Posts: 1928 Rank: 6 Joined:
2/27/2007
Location:
Ventura, CA
Posted: 4/30/2007 1:11:12 PM
I believe with the XBox 360 version of GH 2 you can upload your own music to it. YouTube "Guitar Hero Tool Schism" and watch that dude shred the most insane button series I have seen to date.
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