Are You a Guitar Hero?

December 4, 2007 – 4:06 pm

So recently I joined in on the cultural phenomenon that is Guitar Hero. If you’ve never heard of it before, Guitar Hero is a video game in which you use a little plastic guitar to play songs on screen. It’s somewhat like a real guitar, but instead of actual notes, you have five colored buttons corresponding to falling colored circles and a “strum bar” that you timely hit when the note gets to the bottom of the screen. Quite fascinating, actually. I had played this game a couple times before, but never really fancied myself as part of their target audience. What makes this game so addicting?

The Guitar Hero III Box Set for Xbox 360

The core appeal of Guitar Hero is the chance to be a rock superstar, which every self respecting person on the planet clearly wants to be. Of course, you won’t really become a rock star by playing this game. I, however, like to think that playing this game and getting really good at it will be my ticket into the music industry and instantly make me mega-popular. I’m crossing my fingers.

There’s also the multi-player element, which actually makes sense in so far as adding enjoyment. You can either play cooperatively with another hero or choose to “battle” against them to see who is the superior shredder. The single player game of the third installment even lets you battle well known guitarists like Slash of Guns and Roses fame and Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine*.

The immense popularity of this game got me thinking about why there is such a social draw to super-stardom. It really seems like many celebrities are downright depressed; yet just about anyone you ask would love to be them. By pushing colored buttons on a fake guitar in unison with fake notes that make the real song play, you…um, get a feeling as to what it’s really like to be a rock star. Minus the drugs, groupies, and nasty band breakups. I, for one, am hooked.

You know something like this has hit mainstream when there’s a South Park episode about it. They recently hit on this guitar game that is so heroic. Cartman pretty much sums up this article better than I ever could.

Are you a Guitar Hero?

* The best band of all time

Tags: Games, guitar hero, man did i really buy this game what was i thinking, rage rules, south park