This morning I had 3 comment spams to delete and this was one of them: "Cool Blog! If you get a chance I would like to invite you to visit the following Sports Blog, it is cool to!" Notice anything problematic? Like there's no link to follow, even if I'd wanted to? How lame do you have to be to fail at spamming?!? I mean, spammer is like the lamest job ever, but it's even more pathetic that someone can't do it properly. That's going to be my new insult: 'you can't even SPAM'.
For several days I've wanted to blog about my new video game, Guitar Hero. Bo told me about this some weeks ago; he'd tried out a number of games after his Xbox died and he was trying to decide which game system should replace it. At first I was dubious - why buy a video game that lets me play virtual guitar when I have three in the closet? If I want to play guitar, I can get one, amp up and, er, play guitar. But Bo said it was very fun and I was attracted by the guitar-shaped controller, a little mini-guitar which was very cute with its own widdle wee whammy-bar. After looking at it in stores several times, I finally caved last Saturday and bought it.
IT IS SO FUN! TO ELEVEN!
You play the mini-guitar in accordance with a streaming tablature across the bottom of the screen, while on the main screen the animated band and the animated crowd react to what you're doing. If you play well, the crowd really gets into it, clapping along with you and cheering. If you do badly, they boo you and if you do REALLY badly, they start chucking things at you. The more songs you succeed at, the more set lists open up for you to play and the bigger your venues get.
I thought it might be problematic transitioning from how you 'really' play guitar to the seqential button-pushing required for the game, and it kinda was at first, particularly when gaming a song that I already knew how to play for real. I'd find myself automatically putting my fingers into position for the next chord that was coming instead of the next position needed for the game, but it didn't take very long to get into game mode. As in real life, however, the songs I found hardest to play are the ones with irregular timing, like "I Wanna Be Sedated" and "You Got Another Think Comin'" - the ones I do best at, at least so far, are "Smoke On The Water", "Iron Man" and "Ziggy Stardust", although I'm not settling for less than 4 stars on anything. After each song a review appears to tell you how you did, in the form of the front page of an underground mag.
The game also has lots of funny tidbits - the load screen that appears after you select a song has an amp with three knobs. The knobs turn slowly all the way up and once all three are up, the song is loaded - and each knob goes to eleven. Also, little tips and hints appear for you, some of which have to do with gameplay but some are funny, e.g., "They don't really want you to play "Freebird". They're just heckling you."
Alan has even been persuaded to play a few songs. His first time, he flunked "I Love Rock and Roll" before she'd even gotten to the line "been about seventeen" so he tried again and got 95% accuracy! I had only 92% on that song! He's played a couple of times since, and Lachele gave it a try when she came over last week. It's the game SO FUN, even people who aren't into video games enjoy playing it!
For several days I've wanted to blog about my new video game, Guitar Hero. Bo told me about this some weeks ago; he'd tried out a number of games after his Xbox died and he was trying to decide which game system should replace it. At first I was dubious - why buy a video game that lets me play virtual guitar when I have three in the closet? If I want to play guitar, I can get one, amp up and, er, play guitar. But Bo said it was very fun and I was attracted by the guitar-shaped controller, a little mini-guitar which was very cute with its own widdle wee whammy-bar. After looking at it in stores several times, I finally caved last Saturday and bought it.
IT IS SO FUN! TO ELEVEN!
You play the mini-guitar in accordance with a streaming tablature across the bottom of the screen, while on the main screen the animated band and the animated crowd react to what you're doing. If you play well, the crowd really gets into it, clapping along with you and cheering. If you do badly, they boo you and if you do REALLY badly, they start chucking things at you. The more songs you succeed at, the more set lists open up for you to play and the bigger your venues get.
I thought it might be problematic transitioning from how you 'really' play guitar to the seqential button-pushing required for the game, and it kinda was at first, particularly when gaming a song that I already knew how to play for real. I'd find myself automatically putting my fingers into position for the next chord that was coming instead of the next position needed for the game, but it didn't take very long to get into game mode. As in real life, however, the songs I found hardest to play are the ones with irregular timing, like "I Wanna Be Sedated" and "You Got Another Think Comin'" - the ones I do best at, at least so far, are "Smoke On The Water", "Iron Man" and "Ziggy Stardust", although I'm not settling for less than 4 stars on anything. After each song a review appears to tell you how you did, in the form of the front page of an underground mag.
The game also has lots of funny tidbits - the load screen that appears after you select a song has an amp with three knobs. The knobs turn slowly all the way up and once all three are up, the song is loaded - and each knob goes to eleven. Also, little tips and hints appear for you, some of which have to do with gameplay but some are funny, e.g., "They don't really want you to play "Freebird". They're just heckling you."
Alan has even been persuaded to play a few songs. His first time, he flunked "I Love Rock and Roll" before she'd even gotten to the line "been about seventeen" so he tried again and got 95% accuracy! I had only 92% on that song! He's played a couple of times since, and Lachele gave it a try when she came over last week. It's the game SO FUN, even people who aren't into video games enjoy playing it!
4 Comments:
That's great! I love that the knobs go up to 11. What equipment do you need to play it? Is it like playstation or on the computer or what? I know nothing about games.
By
Anonymous Me, at 10:48 AM
It's a PS2 (Playstation) game and it comes with the little wee guitar that you play it with instead of the usual controller. My PS2 is hooked up to the big TV with surround-sound, making it even more fun. I was very loud last night on the Motorhead song ("Ace of Spades").
When I did the ZZ Top song, I tried to get the pets to stand behind me and make that gesture that the bearded ZZ Tops do, but only Finnovar would do it. Sprocket refused to participate unless given a groupie.
By
Helly, at 11:39 AM
Do you read "Joy Unexpected"? Her kids have that game too, and she wrote a blog entry about it. She's a funny chick.
By
Anonymous, at 3:00 AM
I'll have to check that out!
By
Helly, at 6:43 AM
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