On Guitar Hero 3.

It’s a new yearly tradition in my life, it seems: Play the latest Guitar Hero well before I have any means of owning it myself.

Today I spent the whole afternoon playing through the latest Guitar Hero. I had my share of concerns, what with the game having a new developer in Neversoft (of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater “fame”), and a new generation of controllers which I was super wary about. Some of my fears were allayed. Some were confirmed. But at the end of the day, I can sit back and say that I already kick ass at a game that’s been on the market for merely 24 hours.

The track list is rather impressive, boasting over 70 songs (including bonus tracks) that range from classic rock to punk to alternative to heavy metal to the clusterfuck of a genre that is “nu metal.” The game (finally) kicks off on a strong note with Foghat’s “Slow Ride,” but a lot of the tracks are kind of forgettable. Thankfully the encores are all really huge songs that you’ll be excited to play.

The new controllers, while sporting some nice new features like added heft and a detachable neck, have exactly the problem I was afraid of: the strum bar. It feels as loose as the guitar controllers at a Best Buy kiosk, and if you (like myself) like to put vigor into your strumming, you’ll end up screwing up more than you should because of “bounce-back,” a Guitar Hero-controller phenomenon that occurs when the strum bar is flicked too hard and hits the intended downstroke followed by an unintentional upstroke. This will break your streak and make you just look bad. I found a little of it with the GH2-era model controller, but to this day experience virtually none with my GH1-era model. So I ended up not so much strumming as much as simply pressing the strum bar ever so gently. Let me tell you, something gets lost in this concession.

My other major gripe is with Neversoft. The original developer, Harmonix, had a certain logic to their note charts for the songs in that you knew which passages you’d likely have hamer-ons and pull-offs, and more importantly, where you wouldn’t find them. Neversoft has seemingly thrown that mentality out the window and gone bat-shit insane with their startlingly confusing placement of hammer-ons. Never before in a Guitar Hero game would you find a hammer-on after a sustained note, or in the middle of a passage of chords. The Guitar Hero veteran in me was none too happy about learning a whole new school of hammer-on logic.

Guitar Hero 3 also has a feature called “Battle Mode.” Predictably, two players trade “battle” each other by trading passages and in lieu of Star Power, you get Mario Kart-style weapons that will distract your opponent and make them screw up. have to say, I’m not really a fan of this mode. We already have a competitive mode with Face-off and Pro Face-off; we don’t need any more chest-pounding meathead posturing. Maybe I’m not that competitive, maybe I’m just a perfectionist and hate the idea of a mode where screwing up is an inevitability and not a possibility. Whatever the reason, I think “Battle Mode” is stupid.

Don’t even get me started on why they think Slash is the best guitarist they could find to be in this game. I am glad that Tom Morello makes an apprearance, but Slash? Bret Michaels? Are you kidding me? The subtitle (which I also hate) is “Legends of Rock,” not “Peaked-in-the-80′s of Rock.”

I’m sure once I pick up a copy of the game for my good ol’ Playstation 2 and am able to play with my trusty GH1 controller I’ll be a lot happier.

I’m not saying I’m disappointed with the game, but I will say this: I’m even more excited for the release of Rock Band now.

Guitar Hero Etiquette

It’s been fairly well established that Guitar Hero is around to stay.The game is a near-universally enjoyable way to kill an afternoon or evening with your friends. Oftentimes entire parties are centered around the game, bringing a whole new social slant to playing the game. Whether you’re playing with a partner, against an opponent, or flying solo in front of adoring spectators, I think it’s time some basic rules of etiquette and common courtesy were laid out to make Guitar Hero fun and enjoyable for all involved.

• Establish Order of Turns. This is obvious, and should be gotten out of the way immediately. Especially if only one controller is available. Have co-op partners pair off early, and have Pro Face-Off challengers sign up, a la beer pong. (This really only applies to larger gatherings; groups of 5 or less need not adhere.)

• Limit Re-Tries. No one wants to watch someone fail a song 4 times in a row. Try this as a rule of thumb: If a player fails a song before reaching 50% Completion, allow one re-try. If they fail at 51% or later, that’s their turn.

• No Repeat Songs.This isn’t Top 40 radio; no one wants to hear the same songs over and over. If a song you wanted to play has already been done, allow a buffer of at least 5 songs before selecting it. If a song you wanted to play has already been done twice, forget it. There are 50 songs to choose from; don’t just play “Jessica” nine times.

• Don’t Backseat Play.If you know the tricky strumming pattern, or the fact that it’s easier to anchor the index finger on the red for this passage, keep it to yourself. If the player hasn’t asked for your help, they don’t want it. And for God’s sake, don’t drum out the strumming pattern on your lap.

• Don’t Hog one Guitar. Unless the room is trying one-by-one to unseat a current champion, no one single person should bogart one controller for 3 songs in a row. This includes the host, or whoever owns the game or controllers.

• Avoid “Freebird.” Unless there’s only a couple hardcore players left around, or you’ve been playing tourney-style and Freebird is the ominous, looming final round, steer clear of this 10-minute test of the rest of the room’s patience.

• Showmanship, People!Don’t just stand there like you’re in the Dandy Warhols; Rock out! There’s a reason they made that wonderful little plastic Gibson, folks. Jump around! Bang your head! Get funky.

Of course, once Rock Band comes out, all bets are off.

A Full-Fledged Addiction.

I can’t stop.

Once I get started, I get such a rush. I feel fulfilled. I feel alive.

I am speaking, of course, about Guitar Hero.

For the ignorant, Guitar Hero is not so much a video game as much as it is the video game. It is played using a controller actually shaped like scale model of a Gibson SG guitar, featuring five colored buttons on the “fretboard,” a strum bar that is flicked as one or more buttons are held down to achieve sound, and a functioning whammy bar. The game is played much in the fashion of other rhythm/music-based games such as Dance Dance Revolution, where you hit buttons in correspondence with on-screen prompts, but without as much of the palpable shame one may feel after a round of DDR. Because the songs featured in Guitar Hero 1 & 2 are, for the most part, universally beloved classic rock and fucking roll tunes,it is a game that nearly everybody can get behind and enjoy.

The first game begins simply and straightforward enough, commencing with Joan Jett and the Blackhearts’”I Love Rock & Roll.” There is a sloping curve of difficulty; the songs get harder by nature as you go, touching on White Zombie, Black Sabbath, Incubus, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, just to name a few, and culminating finally with Ozzy Osbourne’s “Bark at the Moon.”

In the college environment, Guitar Hero proficiency is looked on with almost as much reverence as a beer pong champion. If you strap on a guitar and defeat an opponent in a face-off, you truly are a Hero. However, as with all things, a line must be drawn. A line between game and addiction. For you see, I fear that I may be, in fact too good at Guitar Hero.

Standing there, guitar in-hand, I become the guitar man. Tightly clutching my pick (yes, I use a guitar pick to play a video game) I hit the first sustained note with a Pete Townsend-esque arm windmill. My opponent merely stands, slouching slightly, as he tries to hit the buttons and strum at the same time. I, on the other hand, am not even looking at the screen, and am playing nearly entirely from memory. Rocking back and forth to Wolfmother’s “Woman,” I am pulling out every rock star move in the book as I hit chords with a surprising accuracy rate considering I’m barely paying attention to the actual game.

It is at this point that I wonder: have I crossed that precarious threshold? Have I leapt from the realm of enthusiast to that of nerd? The thought sends shivers down my spine. Could my skill actually be costing me respect? I am actually hesitant to respond when people ask “How often do you play Guitar Hero?” because, well… “At least an hour a day, every day,” is not an answer I am particularly proud of. But, I suppose I cannot hide who I am. I am an addict. I am a guitar hero.