Yes, I suck at Guitar Hero and I'm okay with that.
For a long time (read: pretty much as long as I've been playing video games), I've not been a huge fan of console games. It's not that they are necessarily bad games, they just aren't really the kind of games I like to play for the most part. I find console RPGs kind of railroady and shallow, and I much prefer the Fallout-style genre to the Final Fantasy-style genre. I hate, hate, hate jumping puzzles (to the extent that after trying to beat the computer brain thing at the end of the second to last level in Oni for the 900th time I about threw my monitor out the window), so platformers are not really my thing (Psychonauts was the rare exception). Driving games, sports games? Eh. I like a good game of Mario Kart, I guess, but not to the extent that I feel like I want to play it more than once in a while when I go over to CK and Mel's. I think it's fair to say I have been a computer gaming snob for a long time, even if I know there's really nothing wrong with most console games.
A month or so ago though, CK introduced me to Guitar Hero, and that pretty much spelled the end of that snobbery. I'm not sure what it is about the game really that does it for me, but the week after I got introduced I went out and bought a used PS2 and Guitar Hero 1 & 2 (and preordered the 80s game that came out the following week). There's something about it that just latched onto me and pulled me in, to the extent that not many games do. Maybe it is that I have no actual musical talent, and this is the closest I'm ever going to get to actually playing an instrument, maybe it's the fact that Guitar Hero is a social game (something that Wil Wheaton talked about in his PAX keynote this year) and I've been starved for social activities lately, or maybe it's because the difficulties are tuned in such a way that you can rock pretty hard on a lower difficulty level, but whatever it is, I'm hooked.
It has a similar effect on my dad and my brother too -- shortly after I introduced my brother to it, I went to GenCon and he borrowed the PS2 while I was there. And then he asked to borrow it again. And so on. My dad loves to play it when he comes over here (or when I bring it over there). It really is something that you can have a lot of fun doing with friends and family, and it's almost as much fun to watch people play as it is to actually play it yourself -- it's no wonder there's a lot of bars around here that are having Guitar Hero nights now, that GenCon had a Guitar Hero tournament this year, and that I hear DJs on the radio talking about how Matthew Sweet's "Girlfriend" is a fun song to play in Guitar Hero (it is).
But here's the problem -- I suck, and I know I suck. Right now, I'm trying to go through and five-star all of the original Guitar Hero on medium. I've had the game for six weeks now, and I have coworkers who are now beating the game on expert, who started playing it after I bought it. I've tried playing on hard and....well, I really suck. I can't get the hang of moving up and down the neck of the guitar for the fifth note (I lose my place) and I still haven't quite got the hang of hammer-ons and pull-offs (I do it too fast or too slow), and double-strumming continues to elude me (screw you, Pantera). All of this means I have a hard time getting out of the first bracket of songs on hard. Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure my brother is to the point where he can start cruising through songs on hard, CK is playing "Freebird" on expert for kicks, and benoc and Pat are trying to five-star everything on expert. While I sit there and wonder my my fingers are apparently going crazy on their own and curling like an arthritic old woman. Not exactly the best feeling.
For a while, I've been stuck on "Fat Lip" -- I just couldn't seem to get the few extra points to push it from a good four-star performance to a five-star. This morning, I finally did it, and I realized that I don't really care if I suck at it. It's still a boatload of fun, and I like it when I play with other people more anyway, so who cares if I'm horrible at it. I'm sure I'll have another white whale come up before I inch my way ever closer to a five-star performance of "Bark At The Moon," but for now, I have conquered the one peak that has eluded me for so long. I'm sure I'll finally make it to that stupid Viking guitar someday, but until then, I'm okay with only presenting a challenge to small children who haven't yet memorized every single note so they can do this.
But I am a little jealous.
A month or so ago though, CK introduced me to Guitar Hero, and that pretty much spelled the end of that snobbery. I'm not sure what it is about the game really that does it for me, but the week after I got introduced I went out and bought a used PS2 and Guitar Hero 1 & 2 (and preordered the 80s game that came out the following week). There's something about it that just latched onto me and pulled me in, to the extent that not many games do. Maybe it is that I have no actual musical talent, and this is the closest I'm ever going to get to actually playing an instrument, maybe it's the fact that Guitar Hero is a social game (something that Wil Wheaton talked about in his PAX keynote this year) and I've been starved for social activities lately, or maybe it's because the difficulties are tuned in such a way that you can rock pretty hard on a lower difficulty level, but whatever it is, I'm hooked.
It has a similar effect on my dad and my brother too -- shortly after I introduced my brother to it, I went to GenCon and he borrowed the PS2 while I was there. And then he asked to borrow it again. And so on. My dad loves to play it when he comes over here (or when I bring it over there). It really is something that you can have a lot of fun doing with friends and family, and it's almost as much fun to watch people play as it is to actually play it yourself -- it's no wonder there's a lot of bars around here that are having Guitar Hero nights now, that GenCon had a Guitar Hero tournament this year, and that I hear DJs on the radio talking about how Matthew Sweet's "Girlfriend" is a fun song to play in Guitar Hero (it is).
But here's the problem -- I suck, and I know I suck. Right now, I'm trying to go through and five-star all of the original Guitar Hero on medium. I've had the game for six weeks now, and I have coworkers who are now beating the game on expert, who started playing it after I bought it. I've tried playing on hard and....well, I really suck. I can't get the hang of moving up and down the neck of the guitar for the fifth note (I lose my place) and I still haven't quite got the hang of hammer-ons and pull-offs (I do it too fast or too slow), and double-strumming continues to elude me (screw you, Pantera). All of this means I have a hard time getting out of the first bracket of songs on hard. Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure my brother is to the point where he can start cruising through songs on hard, CK is playing "Freebird" on expert for kicks, and benoc and Pat are trying to five-star everything on expert. While I sit there and wonder my my fingers are apparently going crazy on their own and curling like an arthritic old woman. Not exactly the best feeling.
For a while, I've been stuck on "Fat Lip" -- I just couldn't seem to get the few extra points to push it from a good four-star performance to a five-star. This morning, I finally did it, and I realized that I don't really care if I suck at it. It's still a boatload of fun, and I like it when I play with other people more anyway, so who cares if I'm horrible at it. I'm sure I'll have another white whale come up before I inch my way ever closer to a five-star performance of "Bark At The Moon," but for now, I have conquered the one peak that has eluded me for so long. I'm sure I'll finally make it to that stupid Viking guitar someday, but until then, I'm okay with only presenting a challenge to small children who haven't yet memorized every single note so they can do this.
But I am a little jealous.
The only way to get used to the orange button is to do it. Start bumping up to hard when you're playing cooperatively and it'll start working for you.
The transition from hard to expert is the only one that doesn't add a button, so once you've figured out hard, you're good to go.
Well, cooperative isn't such a good idea -- it ends up killing the song if the other person I'm playing with isn't great (like my dad). I did play through "I Love Rock and Roll" on hard just to get a few extra bucks to unlock the last video on Guitar Hero today, and I managed to five star that one on the first try. It's an insanely easy song though, and only had two orange notes in the whole thing (both of which I missed).
You are not alone in the suckiness at Guitar Hero.
I think I made it through one song on hard. I was in the red on the rock-o-meter the entire time. I'm currently working on getting 5 stars on medium. I've been stuck at monkey wrench for a while. Since that is in the third bracket I have a ways to go before I think about attempting hard again.