BY JACK KEEFE

In print | September 25, 2008

I hate “Guitar Hero.” Pretty much the only bonus of having certain friends at home preoccupied with school or work is that there is no longer the specter of having a night devolve into fumbling madly at blobs of plastic molded together into something that is supposed to remind me of a guitar for the privilege of hearing sub-par ’80s band covers. I can hear those friends now, “Jack, dudebroman, why do you have to be so lame all the time? ‘Guitar Hero’ is all metal as hell.” (Thanks for the input, imaginary friends.) Mine is not in any respect a popular opinion, as evidenced by the over $1 billion in revenues garnered by the franchise thus far. ¹ However, please indulge me and consider this a shout-out to the few of you out there who just don’t get it, those of us who would rather give a sponge bath to each and every decrepit, drugged-out member of Guns N’ Roses than spend another minute pretending to be a “Hero.”

Perhaps surprisingly, my issue with the game isn’t even the most banal cliché attached to “Guitar Hero” criticism, that Johnny McGamer could spend all the time learning to play the on-rails plastic guitar to, y’know, become an actual musician. ² ­Deeper complaint: “Guitar Hero” is at worst a sub-par (if novel) derivative of the rhythm gaming genre, at best a game that reaches its maximum potential only when played by someone with enough charisma and/or ego to transform pressing buttons into a performance piece. ³

Let’s back off a moment from that assertion. I guess I should explain “Guitar Hero” to those in the reading audience who aren’t acquainted with any garage band rock star wannabees. (Yes, I know GBRSWs do not nearly encompass the “Guitar Hero” playing population, but I’ll be damned if Swarthmore wins Radar Magazine’s “most insufferable” award again, so I’d like to make a ridiculous statement here and there.) The basic task of “Guitar Hero” is simple: you, the “Hero” hopeful, must press a number of colored buttons at the same time you strum a toggle meant to simulate strings in beat with matching colored dots. If you succeed at this task, you are treated to a mediocre cover band playing whatever song you have selected (with a few exceptions to the “cover band” caveat); if you fail, you are subjected to an awful cacophony of noises in the middle of said cover to inform you that You’re Doing It Wrong. At its core, it’s a basic rhythm game defined by its adherence to a specialized controller that you have to train on in order to succeed at receiving your cover song. However, the mechanical concept of the game differs from that of say, “Dance Dance Revolution,” where you’ll be damned if your out-of-shape ass doesn’t have to develop not merely rhythm but also some modicum of actual athletic prowess and whole-body coordination to ascend the arrow-pressing hierarchy. ⁴ More importantly, though, helping to develop a sense of rhythm (possession of which I would actually argue is a requisite for playing the game at all, much less enough to learn from it) might make the game instructional, but it does not make it fun.

Admittedly, while I can’t personally appreciate the draw of playing the game, that isn’t to say I can’t imagine it in the abstract. The first time I tapped along to Sum 41’s “Fat Lip,” I felt mildly entertained, a slight twinge of glee in thinking that, hey, I’m playing that song! The spirit of the game is in part to make you feel as though you are mastering the music by mastering the series of increasingly difficult button combinations. Nevertheless, however difficult the button combinations, it’s still the same cover, and this is what began to kill the magic for me. Song after song, there wasn’t much sustaining me in my quest to train myself at more and more button combinations, and the lack of incentive to try to memorize and execute the most difficult “sets” (except for weird niche gamer cred) left my interest sagging.

“Well,” my imaginary friend would say, “The multiplayer saves it, because it’s awesome at parties!” Maybe, but then again there really isn’t much that isn’t potentially fun when you’re drunk enough. Otherwise, at least in my (sober) experience, a solid hierarchy of dominance develops in multiplayer that makes any hopes at engaging competition between dueling faux-guitarists disappear fast when you realize that who wins and who loses basically boils down to who owns and/or is obsessed with the game. ⁵ It’s skill, but just as in single player mode, the don’t seem to be any intrinsic rewards to this skill; it’s not a fighting game where your increasing mastery of there game is reflected in your corresponding ability to elegantly decimate your friends and foes alike. It’s hard to put my finger on, but there’s no visceral feedback to this sort of competition, no gripping illusion of improvement apart from the increase of dots on the screen.

To be perfectly blunt, aside from pricing concerns (which may answer my question entirely), I’m not even sure why “Guitar Hero” still sells when its competitor musical imagination aid “Rock Band” includes not only the guitar but drums and vocals as well. Furthermore, whereas “Hero” multiplayer is lame, “Rock Band” manages multiplayer coherence through the cooperative mode, where players each contribute a musical track to see a given song to completion. Feeling like a fake band rather than a fake guitar guru is somehow more satisfying to me. Pretty much the only time when playing multiplayer “Guitar Hero” became engaging was when my friends began to compete amongst themselves as to who could be the bigger jackass while playing “Freebird.” I’d be skeptical to ascribe any of this fun to the game itself.

I’m going to nerdwank a bit here and preach to a choir I’m doubtful even exists: if you are one of the few (?) who aren’t enamored with “Guitar Hero,” there are numerous other entries in the rhythm-gaming genre that prove it has a right to exist. Early-generation rhythm games “Parappa the Rapper” and “Umjammer Lammy,” respectively about a rappin’ beagle and a guitar-playing sheep, are remarkably tight game packages that let you move off of the rhythm rails a bit and encourage you to freeform jam to earn greater acclaim in game levels. ⁶ Even “Space Channel 5,” which places you as a pink-haired dancing reporter who saves the universe, manages to be compelling by using rhythm for everything from shooting funky aliens to rescuing space-tourists to engaging in a colorful guitar battle far more fun than anything “Hero” can offer. As it stands, I’d really rather do some air guitar to my Dad’s old Zeppelin records than pretend at being a “Hero.”

Jack is a junior. You can reach him at jkeefe1@swarthmore.edu.

FOOTNOTES
¹ It doesn’t help my nerves much that we have an actual “Guitar Hero” in our midst.
² You could also spend all the time playing “Grand Theft Auto IV” at the firing range so you can learn to really blow away some hookers. This line of criticism misunderstands gaming completely.
³ See, Swat “Guitar Hero,” you have charisma! I mean, if you can play “Hero” with your feet, you fucking deserve $8,000. Okay, my nervous pandering ends now.
⁴ Though neither preexisting dance skills nor a lack thereof are a reliable predictor of your initial success at “DDR.” I used to try to impress a bunch of 8th grade musical theater girls with my impeccable ability at the basic levels of said game. Unable to comprehend how a pudgy middle-schooler was able to beat them at what was allegedly a dancing competition, they thought I was cheating heavily to make them look bad. This did not score me a date.
⁵ I guess you can contrast this with party favorite “Super Smash Brothers” and its associated sequels (SSB Melee/Brawl/Fisticuffs), where at times I’m almost convinced that bashing my skull enthusiastically into the game controller causes my byte-sized marketing idol to be equally as lethal as those controlled by friends who spend hours upon hours trying to master a particular character. I’m a little sick of this game too, to be fair.
⁶ ­I have a gut feeling that “Hero” fails here because it misses out on employing a feature that cartoon animals had available to them years ago. When you fail in “Guitar Hero,” you fail like hell, whereas if you deviate from a set in real life, it can be manageable or even innovative. “Parappa” and “Lammy” both realize this, “Hero” doesn’t.

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