The Authentic Chords of Self-Respect
Everyone wants to be a rock star. The screaming fans. The seven-digit contracts. Your rock-hard abs. Fame and fortune is always just a dream away. But how can a game capture something as intangible as a "rock star"? How can a mere slab of zeros and ones bring out the Jimi Hendrix in all of us?
Well, Guitar Hero won't make you feel completely like Jimi Hendrix (if you do, please stay away), but it comes pretty darn close. The dream of being a rock star is extremely close to the Harmonix staff - many of the programmers, project managers, and producers have been in a band before and know how it feels to be driven on rock adrenaline.
From the tutorial voiceovers, the unlockables, the venues, down to even the loading screens, nearly every opportunity has been taken to infuse Guitar Hero with rock energy. Song titles on the selection screen are written like lyrics on a scrap of loose-leaf. Saving screens post an old, suit-and-tie congressman in the background covering his ears, and loading screens feed flavorful comments - "If a band member insists on wearing a white belt, kick them out immediately." How true. How true. The game also allows you to choose from one of six default characters with names like Pandora or Axel Steel, but Harmonix knows that just because you happen to select a rock star won't make you feel like one.
You need a guitar. But you will be skeptical. The guitar peripheral looks like one of those xylophones you played in kindergarten but even less persuasive. It's plastic. It has a flimsy strap. It comes packaged with stickers. There are no strings. And the fret buttons on the guitar's neck are colored red, orange, yellow, green, and blue - one Care Bear short of a rainbow. How cute.
But after a few hours, you will forget just how ridiculous you look. Don't worry if you have never touched or seen a musical instrument in your life. If you played Harmonix's Amplitude or Freq, the gameplay is immediately familiar - small capsules representing the five fret buttons zoom toward you. Once they reach the bottom of the screen, you simply hold down the right fret button and strum the guitar to blast the capsules to smithereens. Blasting them at the right time makes the audience go wild and your rock meter climbs. And at the very end, an imaginary critic gives you a rating from one to five stars. If you still don't understand it all, going through the hands-on tutorial is worth its weight in gold - it's easy to grasp and the voiceover is actually interested in what's its saying.
In short, Guitar Hero cares. The music selection is essentially an ode to rock. While it's not going to win any awards on genre variety, the game has songs that you actually want to play. In fact, you will probably recognize a few melodies, despite not knowing their names. Most of the songs are not performed by the original artists, but the new vocals don't take anything away from "Take Me On" by Franz Ferdinand, "Crossroads" by Cream, or "No One Knows" by Queens of the Stone Age. If you're not familiar with "rock culture", think of the game as an introduction, a sampler to different rock palettes. Guitar Hero attentively diversifies classics with "Fat Lip" and "I Wanna Be Sedated", and their appreciation will probably rub off on you.
As you progress from difficulty to difficulty, you will experience a natural progression that is only marred by the lack of a practice mode. Since you have to use your thumb to grip the neck, your four remaining fingers will have to work to span the five fret buttons. And that causes a lot of awkward fingering (I mean, phrases… oh, never mind), especially with your pinky, which probably doesn't get much action (…). The learning curve, however, is quite generous, and you can use your star power to get out of tight places. Blasting a sequence of star-shaped capsules builds your star meter so that you can amplify your guitar riffs and restore your rock meter. In a stroke of genius, activating star power has you tilt the guitar upright, away from your body. Rock my world, baby!
Unfortunately, the game doesn't allow you to practice specific sections of a song. While you probably won't experience any difficulties early on, there are a few riffs that will probably rip your hands off. However, the only way to practice a song is to play the damn thing all over again. When Ozzy Osbourne has problems hitting a riff (amongst other things), he doesn't go back to the beginning. And while this may be a small gripe, it's enough to get on your nerves.
A few other blemishes also prevent you from feeling like a guitar player. For one, the rock meter goes from red to yellow to green - whenever you go up to another color, the crowd goes wild, and whenever you fall, you get a torrent of boos. So if you are hovering between two colors, you will get a schizophrenic audience. Boooo! Yay! Booo! Yay! And if you look closely at the crowd, you will notice that it's comprised of only four different characters. Imagine jamming on your guitar and then seeing sixteen identical people head-banging in perfect unison.
Thankfully, Guitar Hero more than makes up for its flaws by being one of the best party games around. Don't get confused. The multiplayer experience is actually bland - it's just one overly simplistic versus mode - and you will have to dish out another forty bucks for the second guitar. Despite this, Guitar Hero has the immediate presence and casual approachability suitable for a social gathering. Friends will want to watch you play or try it out for themselves. It would have been nice if there was a Soundtrack mode so you can listen to the songs without having to play the game, but regardless, Guitar Hero creates the perfect party atmosphere.
And while you're having so much fun, you will forget one thing: Guitar Hero respects the guitar. The soundtrack embodies rock history so well that you won't have to buy one of those TimeLife compilations. Each seemingly insignificant artistic touch will make you feel the effort missing from other simulations. And like any musical instrument, Guitar Hero has an air of seduction. Find yourself bored and you will magically wander over to the guitar, glance at it, and accept with little hesitation. Guitar Hero is the guitar. And that's real.