craveonline

By Fred Topel

I missed the whole Guitar Hero/Guitar Hero II craze. I was out of the gaming scene during the later PS2/Xbox days, though I'd seen it at parties and I loved the South Park about it. Now that I've got PS3 though, I figured I should catch up on the cultural phenomenon. Now I understand why it's so addicting.

I approach Guitar Hero III like a puzzle game. I have no illusions that it represents actual musical instruments, but I'm damn sure going to hit all those colors. It's good though because it's a working man's game. You can pick it up for one song (as if…), one hour (more likely) or all night depending on your schedule. I resist in-depth RPGs for that reason.

Guitar Hero III may just be the latest collection of songs, but that's fine. If it ain't broke, right? We need a guitar for the nex gen systems anyway. The game play is the same, as far as I know. It actually kind of reminds me of the old Simon game, where you had to press the musical colors in order. It tries to throw you by changing them around.

To fuel my OCD, I've been trying to play through and unlock as many songs as I can. I try to resist the temptation to Whammy or Star Power when I want a perfect score. Those specials invariably make you slip up, even when it looks like a long straight shot or there's a healthy gap.

I've noticed a few quirky mistakes I'm making. I feel like I have to keep holding the strum button down throughout a long note. You actually don't. One tap is enough. That'll take some getting used to. And to activate Star Power, it's only a slight lift of the guitar. It senses that. Don't go flailing all around. The biggest challenge for me seems to be sweaty fingers.

Already, my fingers are hitting buttons my brain can't even comprehend, which is freaky. I thought Medium mode would be impossible. I couldn't imagine making my pinky hit the blue button, but I'm burning through the songs on all four fingers. I even found I was able to learn Hard songs once I just learned the rhythm and chords instead of freaking out at all the colors.

Getting good at Guitar Hero made me wonder why I'm not just teaching myself to play the actual guitar. Then I realized why. I don't want to play gigs. I just want to play along with songs I already know. Groupies would be nice though.

The battle mode mini-game is fun. That adds a twist of strategy to the main game, which is kind of just getting used to the songs and learning the notes. By the way, you should wait until your opponent actually has notes to play before you try to mess them up. Doesn't really work if they're coasting.

I was also impressed there were so many songs I know in the game. Considering the extent of my musical appreciation is the collective works of Meat Loaf, I got plenty of familiar tracks to practice on. It does make a difference to me because if it takes me multiple plays to nail a song, I better like the music. I mean, Cliffs of Dover? F***in' A, man. I've even had to download extra content because I've burned through so many of the existing ones. And boy, songs are long.

It actually makes you appreciate how integral a part of rock music the guitar is. You kind of take it for granted until you start messing up and hearing the song without it. I've started to appreciate the patterns of notes and chords even in songs I don't care for. I don't mistake it for actual guitar lessons, but it is a musical observation.

Does anyone else's eyes go numb staring at those dots? Do they seem to move faster the more times you play the same song, or is that just me?