I played Guitar Hero for a couple of hours over at chalain‘s place last night.
Lots of fun. And apparently a solid music background and the ability to actually play a guitar carries a little weight in the game, because I was griping about fingerings just like I remember doing back when I was learning to play the guitar.
The best thing about the game? I have no desire to beat it. I just played, had fun, and can move on to do other things now.
Games like that are my favorite to play. As I get older I find I just don’t have time to sit down and play a game for very long, so anything I can walk away from without putting a large time investment into is a plus in my book.
I told you it was awesomesauce! My little brother schools me at it, but that’s okay, because we had a lot of fun playing as a family when they were out here.
Ohhh so you think. Soon you will begin craving playing it again and will find yourself staking out the display booth in Best Buy for a turn on the demo.
I swear, Guitar Hero is the most addictive game I’ve ever encountered. I bought my first gaming system since the SNES JUST TO PLAY GH. Two other people I showed it to bought their own copies within two weeks.
I am told that guitar hero has the same relationship to playing the guitar as dance dance revolution has to dancing. That is basically no relationship at all.
I wouldn’t say that it had no relationship. A sense of timing will still benefit both, as will good control of the fingers of your left hand. Fingering a Guitar Hero controller is a lot easier than a real guitar, but you still have to think about when you’re pressing which fret, even if there’s only one virtual string.
Speaking as someone who plays guitar, I think you’re exaggerating the lack of a relationship. As points out, you still need a sense of timing, and some finger control.
I’d say that Guitar Hero is to playing guitar as Afrikaans is to Dutch.
(And now the Afrikaaner guitarists are going to jump on my case.)
Yup, it’s very much a “fun” game, if only for the fact that you and a friend can rock out a bit. Was it Guitar Hero, or the sequel? The former’s got a better playlist, but the latter has better multiplayer (co-op lead/rhythm).
Guitar Hero 2 has the 2 players playing simultaneously (lead and rhythm). It is scheduled for release on the Xbox 360 next month, and it will have down loadable songs.
Yeah, it’s pretty fun. We have a Guitar Hero set on demo at Myer, have a lot of people coming in to play it, but few buyers. Good fun to listen to, though.
SUCH a great game, but OH so addictive. I got hooked on it when I played it at a friend’s. Finally ended up beating it and the sequel on Expert mode. (Surefire sign that I’m wasting too much time with the thing!)
The relationship between real guitar and GH is questionable. One of my favorite articles I’ve read is one about the bands whose songs are featured in the game. Quite often, the members of the band are unable to do well on their own songs. 😀
Music skill doesn’t matter as much as you think
That has little or no bearing, since the musician in question already had one set of kinesthetic memories for the licks, and could therefore be expected to fail at a set of pidgin controls.
“Dada, play the happy song with the wheel!”
Roughly translated from my 4-yr old, “Play Iron Man at the Red Octane stage.” Dont ask me how Iron Man became known as the happy song to him, but he just absolutely loves it. The giant fan behind the stage is the “wheel” and the gears are cool to him as well.
He’s not quite ready to play GH2 with me in coop mode but my 11 yr step daughter has taken a liking to it and she’ll be playing the guitar section on easy and ill be playing bass on hard. Not quite the quality type activity the experts would recommend but it is good hand-eye coordination training.
Also, GH is more violin than guitar, IMHO. The 5 “frets” are more akin to the basic 5 notes per string on a violin and the single strum motion is much like the violin stroke only you dont have to arc your elbow to hit a single string.
Funny you should say that.
The most impressive person I’ve seen playing (completing Smoke on the Water at Expert difficulty) is, in fact, a violinist.
That Donkey Konga that I just lent you? Yeah, you can collect coins to buy songs and stuff… I think that’s how they encourage you to “beat” the game, but fortunately I’ve never gotten sucked in.