I don’t know if any of you here play Guitar Hero or Rock Band, but I do! That’s right! I’m a full-on geek/nerd when it comes to those games! I first got into Guitar Hero when I went over to one of my former friend’s houses one evening after school looking to hook up with her and ended up hooking up with Guitar Hero 2. Well, the relationship between me and the girl didn’t pan out. She agreed to go out with me and said she liked me and then ended up going out with one of her weed smokin’ buddies. Oh well. At least me and Guitar Hero are still together! Right? But either way, I got kinda hooked on the game and put it on my Christmas list for last year (along with an Xbox 360). I really wanted Guitar Hero 3, but Guitar Hero 2 was still good. It’s not like it was incredibly outdated! I liked a lot of the tracks off there as well. At Christmas time, I ended up getting my Xbox (which is half my father’s) and I also got my Guitar Hero 2. I was so happy! I beat the easy mode tour in like a week. Wasn’t hard. But for me, at the time, it was difficult. If you don’t know how Guitar Hero or Rock Band works, there are 5 buttons on the neck of the guitar you have to hold in for the note, but to play the note, while holding in the buttons on the neck, you have to strum this bar on the body of the guitar. It’s as close as a video game can be to actually playing a real instrument. Either way, on easy mode, you only use to top 3 keys. For a beginner, that’s great. On medium, you use the top 4 keys. Now you’re using your index, middle, ring, and pinky fingers instead of just your index, middle, and ring. On hard, they add the dreaded final fifth key to the mix. I think “How the hell am I going to play five keys with only four fingers?” Well you have to be quick with your hands. But we’ll get to that later. On expert mode, it is much like hard, only they throw a lot more notes at you fairly quicker than they do on hard mode. But getting back to the game and how I played it, I started a medium tour shortly after I beat the game on easy only because you don’t get money on the easy tour and you unlock more songs on medium. The money you get for doing a “gig” is usable in the Guitar Hero “store” at the main tour menu. You can buy new characters, new guitars, new outfits, new looks for certain guitars, new songs, videos on how the game was made and how the songs were recorded, and I’m sure I’m forgetting something. If you want to download new songs or updates for the game, you have to PAY, though. Well, as far as I know. After a while of charging for certain downloads, Halo 3 put some of their downloadable content out for free. But either way, back to the game. When I beat the game in easy mode, I unlocked a guitar called “The Fish”. Why? Because it looks like a giant fish. That’s why! I still have to BUY it (Guitar Hero money; not real money) to use it, but I unlocked it. Then I could get ANOTHER guitar unlocked if I get 5 stars on every song. I’m working on that. Then I unlocked all the bonus songs (not the songs that I have to buy, though) and I unlocked “The Coffin” guitar when I beat the game on medium. Again, these names are pretty obvious as to what the guitar looks like. So either way, I also have to get 5 stars on every song if I want to unlock ANOTHER guitar. Whoopy! More work! At least the game has good replay value. But I got bored with the easy and medium tours, so I’m currently working on hard. God it sucks! How can anybody do that? The first song that gave me difficulty was “Surrender” by Cheap Trick. I eventually beat it. The second song that gave me issues was “Woman” by Wolfmother. I have played that song AT LEAST 20 times and STILL have not beat it! The furthest I’ve got in the song before losing is 76%! I swear that the guitarist for Wolfmother had to be on crack to do that! There is no way! Another song that gave me a bit of difficulty was “You Really Got Me” by Van Halen. I eventually beat that song, but it took about 5 tries. Eddie Van Halen is the man I most look up to as far as guitar talent. He is the undisputed champion of guitarists in my eyes! You can say Jimi Hendrix all you want, but I say Eddie VH, damn it! Getting off subject a bit. Either way, I’m working on that. “Woman” is the last song in that set I have to do before I get to do the encore song and then move on to the next set! So it’s really startin’ to tick me off that I can’t beat it! Ugh! As far as Rock Band goes, my homie, Mark has it for PS2, so he brought it over to my bro, Steve’s and we played. I had only played it for 360 with simply a guitar (‘cause that’s all I got). But since Mark bought it (as apposed to I, who rented it), he got the guitar, microphone, and drum set. Man, is that fun! He brought it over to my house last weekend and we rocked out some more! We were challenging ourselves to get 5 stars on every song. Well, we got pretty far. We’d switch up instruments every now and then. I’m decent at drums on easy, pretty good on guitar at medium, and above average on mic on easy and/or medium. Mark does phenomenal on guitar on expert mode, phenomenal on drums on medium, and does a phenomenal job on the mic on medium! Steve does a good job on the guitar on easy and/or medium, does a good job on the drums on easy, and does a fairly decent job on the mic on easy. Steve’s dream is that we will get a fourth member (to play lead or bass guitar, so I can sing, Steve can play drums, and Mark can play lead or bass guitar) and we all get so good that we can travel around like a real rock band and go to competitions and earn money. I thought that’d be a wicked idea, but we don’t really know a fourth person, Mark is being shipped off for the Navy on July 7th, and well, I don’t know how we’d even go about doing that. I just want us to learn REAL instruments and become a REAL rock band! But it’ll never happen, so I’ll stick to my original plans of going to Full Sail, becoming a director, marrying Britney, and buying a two-story home. Maybe not all in that order, but you never know. The real reason I’m writing this Blog was to say that one, Guitar Hero 3 looks awesome! They have “Devil Went Down to Georgia” by the Charlie Daniels Band on there, and I’m trying to figure out how one would play that on a guitar. If you have any idea, let me know. But the set list looks great for GH3, and I notice that I haven’t even played GH3 and GH4 is gonna be coming out in fall! Hopefully I get that job at Wal-Mart soon, so I can afford to buy GH3 before the summer’s up. As far as Guitar Hero 4 goes, it looks awesome! They kind of ripped off Rock Band with the drum set and the microphone, but at the same time, they WAY improved the drum set! It’s like an actual drum set! It has the big round “drum” up front with “Guitar Hero 4” on it, the 3 regular drums, the pedal, and then the two cymbals. It looks so wicked! I can’t wait to get my hands on it! And with people like Travis Barker (of Blink-182) and Chad Smith (of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers) helping out with the drum set, it looks to be a can’t-miss gaming opportunity! If you like rock ‘n’ roll and you like video games, by God, you’d better get this game! But either way, I’ve gotta go to bed. Hope y’all read this without falling asleep. lol! See y’all later! PIMP…OUT!