Guitar Hero: Enough is Enough

Sometimes I get the feeling that I am the only person alive who has refused to succumb to the pressure and join the Guitar Hero movement. I fail to comprehend what is so earth-shattering about these games that forces herds of people to flock to Best Buy and plunk down ~$30 every time a new version is released.

Every game is exactly the same. A rock song plays as several terrifying 3-d characters jump around in front of a fake audience while the player attempts to press color-coded buttons on his or her plastic guitar in time with the music. The number of notes that you have to "play" along with and the speed at which they appear depend on which level of difficulty you are playing on. The more you play, the better you get, and the more songs you unlock. Play enough to earn the right to call yourself a "Guitar Hero."





This is where my real problems with these games begin. The game play is just so limited and repetitive. Nothing has changed in the four years since Harmonix released the original Guitar Hero, yet people continue to snatch up every version that is churned out. The marketing companies want you to believe that you are buying a new, more satisfying game because this one is Aerosmith-themed, or '80s-themed, or Metallica-themed, but in reality they are all still the same exact game.

Have you ever noticed that the notes never really match up with the song that is playing? The notes that you play for Mother would fit in just fine if you played them to Carry on Wayward Son. The songs are just window-dressing, there to make it seem like you are actually creating the music that you are hearing, when that is far from being the case. These games would work just as well without the music playing over them. The entertainment comes from being able to match up your fingers with the notes in the proper timing, which takes a good deal of hand-eye coordination, and not from actually believing you are a rock star.

Here's something else that bothers me. I know someone who bought Playstation 3 to play Guitar Hero III, even though he already owned the same game for Playstation 2. I asked him why he would waste his money like that and he told me it was because the graphics are better on PS3. I nearly had a coronary.

If you want to defend Guitar Hero by insisting that each game is different than the last because of the new songs and playable characters that are available, that's fine. While I do not agree with that thinking, I can at least sort of understand it. I will not, however, pretend to understand how Guitar Hero's graphics can be used as a defense for purchasing the newest game.



They sure look similar to me. In fact, I could argue that the graphics were actually better in the original.

Last year Neversoft released Guitar Hero: World Tour, which upped the game play by making more instruments available for use. No longer was the individual guitar hero limited to just a guitar, they now also had access to a set of drums and a microphone. Now that may sound awesome, but even that is a recycled gaming concept. Doesn't the addition of drums and a microphone make Guitar Hero eerily similar to a game that was released in 2007 by Guitar Hero's original developer, Harmonix? Rock Band anyone?