An Old Friend...and Sworn Enemy

Last week I rediscovered Guitar Hero.

It had been months since I played a musical game of any kind with any regularity. And I'll be honest, I've been underwhelmed with Rock Band. I'm not that into it. The game looks great, and the song list is top notch, but the PS3 guitars are crap, the singing portion manages to take any fun out of actually singing, and the drums, though fun, often seem to be reduced to an activity of wearying noise making at times. As people everywhere rant and rave about Rock Band, I guess I've simply missed the boat.

I was thinking about my lackluster opinion of Rock Band the other day and wondering what happened. When I first played Guitar Hero, I took to it like moth to flame. I was on leave, from Iraq, and staying with Eryn, who had it. He showed it to me and I played. And played, and played. I was jet lagged on West Coast time then, and remember getting up early and slipping out to quietly whale on the plastic guitar while Eryn was still asleep. I must have played Boston's "More than a Feeling" about thirty times that week.

As my leave from Iraq neared its end, I knew I had to have this thing. I went to amazon, and ordered the game and two guitars and about a week back into the desert the magical package arrived. I hurriedly carried the bulky but light box the three-quarters mile walk (through the blistering 120 degree summer heat) from the mail room to my room. I ripped it open, plugged it in, and then played every waking, non-working moment for about a week straight. I got my roommate Jeff hooked, and then Pete later when he visited old FOB Falcon again, and even a handful of the other providers who I worked with.

By the time I was back from Iraq, my game was elevated past my early "Medium Days" and I was into higher levels. When Gwen returned four months later, I had already hooked Pete and Libby and was working on others. Gwen herself took to it quickly, and after a ski vacation a few weeks later we had Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero Two, and one GMount sucked in too.

All told, I think I know at least six people who have bought playstations simply to play Guitar Hero, including several of those listed above. I've never seen a video game take down non-gamers like that before. It seemed infectious.

And thus we enjoyed our Guitar Hero. And things were good.



And then time went on, and I kept playing, but less so. Guitar Hero 80's version came out, and it was OK. Some good songs for sure, but nothing groundbreaking in terms of the play. And, at about that time, there was news of the supposedly groundbreaking Rock Band in the wind, so by the time Guitar Hero 3 came out (a game which had been farmed out to another company as Harmonix worked on its newest baby), I was like several others and already looking past it to the oncoming Rock Band.

Then Rock Band finally did come, and well, see my lukewarm review above. I played it a fair amount early, and then sort of soured on it. For the past couple of months, I haven't played any musical game other than a smattering of Rock Band at social gatherings, and at that I'm usually only interested in drumming or at times relegating myself to simply filling a spot, sitting lazily on a couch strumming away to some non-intense medium setting and watching the guitar be unable to handle the "fast parts" which look so easy that the whole exercise only becomes frustrating.

Gwen continued to play more than I. In particular she played a lot of Guitar Hero 3, and I would watch from my laptop while she rocked out and went through the game. As now, even after a week of frenzied playing, I would say confidently that she is now the superior player.

For some reason, last week I decided to pick the guitar back up. Not the PS3 Guitar, which resides over at Man Room - and which I hate with its mushy strum bar and non-clacky frets - but my old friend the PS2 guitar. And I didn't decided to try and finally play more than a song on Guitar Hero 3. I decided, unsure why, to fire up the original. Guitar Hero.

I think I did it because I never finished that game on expert. Even at my peak of Guitar Hero powers, I left Guitar Hero undone because of the newer, fresher, Guitar Hero 2. In particular I had never completed the songs Frankenstein, Cowboys from Hell and Bark at the Moon.

So I picked the Guitar back up, and began to wail. At first I was predictably rusty, but much of the muscle memory was still there and soon I settled in. Surprisingly, I warmed up on some easier songs and even beat my old records on some of those songs right out of the gate.

After a fair warm up, it was time to move on to the uncompleted songs.

After a handful of failures, I was able to power through Frankenstein. I haven't really tried Cowboys from Hell more than about five times, and those were all dismal failures. I decided to work on it later. Bark at the Moon, as well, remains a bitch. I must have played (and failed) it 40 times this past week. About half of the time I get to 92% (mid-way through the second solo) which just makes it sting that much more. Often I fail at 62% (near the end of the first solo). I will say that I've somewhat proficient at the other parts of the song, especially the lead-in to the first solo, which I can nail, and must in order to get the bar green enough to face the brutal solo. One tough thing about the original Guitar Hero is that hammerdowns and pulloffs are much harder than in subsequent versions, and it's required me to tighten my playing a little.

I continue to try. I think I might have forgotten how frustrating the game can be. (Though having experienced Gwen's screaming at the TV all too often, even recently, it's hard to think I could have.) I've almost broken the guitar twice in artery-popping frustration, and I've sworn and cursed dozens of other times, but so far I've managed not to break anything. (Once, in Iraq, during a particularly bad day - on multiple levels - I slammed my guitar on the ground, cracking it. Still today, there is something rattling around in there, sternly reminding me of my misbehavior. Another interesting caveat to that story, is that since that smasing, the Star Power mechanism is moody, only working when it feels like it (I think it's still mad at me for what I did), and I've since failed countless songs while gyrating my guitar upward repeatedly, hoping fruitlessly for the saving Star Power that never comes...)

I guess, in conclusion, it's both good and frustrating to be playing again. I've enjoyed it for the most part. And for now I'll go ahead and call the frustration a bizarre form of passion.

And I swear I will not rest until I beat that damn Bark at the Moon.




Starting it all - Iwan and I square off back in 2006




Rockin' the 'Raq




Smilin' Pete can't believe it





The Ali/Frazier of Guitar Hero - Summer 2007