Guitar Heroics

As a pretty hardcore gamer I’ll give almost anything a whirl, but there are definitely genres which have never quite clicked for me. These include flight simulators, racing simulation (as opposed to arcade style racers which I love) and bizarrely Wii boxing. Above all though, rhythm games have always flummoxed me. Given my passion for rock music Guitar Hero is obviously a hugely enticing prospect, but paying £70 for the privilege of sucking seems excessive. Fortunately Zavvi celebrated the hideously overpriced release of Rock Band by dropping the price of Guitar Hero III to just £45 for the bank holiday weekend. For those counting, that means you could buy three wireless guitars for the same price as Rock Band.

“Really?” asked Kirsten with a quizzically raised eyebrow, before proceeding to play for about three times longer than I that night. The easy mode is definitely a cop-out but is well designed enough that many songs are still empowering to play through. Mostly, though, you realise how many notes you are not playing and dread the higher settings. I’m already rocking through medium now, with a couple of 5-star performances under my belt. It’s worth mentioning I find the “boss battles” in GH3 a bit odd. The idea of me beating Tom Morello or Slash in a guitar duel seems wrong on so many levels. I doubt that I’ll ever master expert (five buttons is probably a bit much for my poor four fingers!) but it’s been fun realising I can enjoy this stuff without excelling. Now I need to go find a copy of Guitar Hero II…