rantlust

Posted by anupcs on December 22nd 2006 in Entertainment, Games, Music, Raves
::  [Print This Post]

We are at the Oakland Arena. I am on stage with a bright red Gibson Les Paul slung low over my shoulders. The crowd is warming up. On my right, Ozzy Osbourne starts the count… 1-2-3-4… and off we go. I start shredding the opening riffs of “Iron Man” – a Black Sabbath anthem. Ozzy starts wailing into the microphone. There is no sign of Tony Iommi, the legendary lead guitarist of Sabbath. With each ensuing note, the crowd gets wilder and by the end of the song, I have achieved guitar hero status. I wrap it up by setting my Gibson on fire à la Hendrix. I hit 98% of the notes right and the morning newspaper gives me and the band a four star rating. My dream of becoming a rock star has finally come to fruition.

Lest you think that I am really this talented (no smirking please), all this happens in the virtual world of the best PS2 game I have played: “Guitar Hero” (GH). GH and its sequel “Guitar Hero II” are among the most talked about games this year. Even somber business newspapers have written about GH. Real rockers use this game to warm up before going on stage. There was a story about how the sister of the lead guitarist for Incubus beat him in GH… playing his own song!

GH comes with a guitar like controller that replaces the original PS2 controller. There are five buttons that are color coded on the controller. When the notes of a particular color come at you in each song, you just press down on that “fret” and “strum” the guitar. There are multiple characters, guitars, and difficulty levels to choose from. More songs get unlocked the better you play. In between songs, you get rock and roll bon mots thrown at you: never trust a drummer with the money; they don’t really want you to play “Freebird,” they are just heckling you; always keep an empty bottle in the van, you’ll see; never wear your guitar above the waist, you’re not in The Beatles. And so on.

Both versions allow you to compete with another shredder by plugging in a second guitar controller. In GH II, there’s also a co-operative mode in which you play as a team; one of you plays the lead while the other plays rhythm or bass. Since buying both games last weekend, the wife and I have been playing a couple of hours daily. TV dinners have become PS2 dinners. Our fingers have become callused. What’s surprising is that my wife never plays video games and this is the first game that she is really interested in. She’s beaten me in every one of our face-offs. While knowing how to play real guitar doesn’t help you in this game, having a musical ear and knowing the song does.

Get this game even if you are transitioning off to PS3 in the near future. This is your chance to become the guitar god that you’ll never be. And it might even make you pick up that real life guitar gathering dust in the closet.