A Guitar Hero's journey: Part One

Jared Caraway, Contributing Writer, jcaraway@smu.edu

Issue date: 2/8/07 Section: Entertainment

Media Credit: Cole Hill

Jared Caraway, striking his best rockstar power stance, plays a hardcore round of Guitar Hero.

The "Guitar Hero" video games for Playstation 2 have been steadily gaining followers since their US releases, which occurred about a year apart, in the last quarters of 2005 and 2006 . Ever since my roommate dragged home the hulking box containing the game and a smaller-than-life, guitar-shaped controller, complete with five giddily colorful buttons and a strum bar, I've been completely unable to look back. It's absorbed my nights, occupied my days, and devoured my pristine 2.1 GPA. (If I calculate correctly, I should still be well above half a point; I'll keep you posted).

My friends, our days of boredom are gone. Guitar Hero is a pure injection of fun.

Red Octane (the company behind the game series) deserves kudos for pulling together a diverse collection of songs in terms of genre, tempo, and era.

You get stoner metal with Black Sabbath, you get grunge pioneers Nirvana (love 'em or hate 'em), you get Heart, and you even get contemporary with Wolfmother. Appropriately enough, the second game ends with the Holy Grail of the rock world: "Free Bird." It's a tongue-in-cheek, though still quite genuine, tribute to the popular song, which includes a guitar solo that's self-evident in its greatness. The song is epic; indeed, this game seems to provide the only way to perform it and sound good beside a karaoke bar and half a bottle of whiskey.

All of the games's main songs, for reasons both legal and practical, had to be rerecorded. To pull off the mad licks and flat-out guitar wizardry, a chosen one was summoned. For those of you who play, Marcus Henderson is one to fear and worship. He stepped in and nailed unthinkable solos in both games (tracking 20 of 30 songs for the first), and now everybody's addicted. If you're not, chances are pretty good that you know somebody who is. So when you're enjoying a fierce round of "Bark at the Moon," remember that you're following in Marcus's fret taps with every note you hammer on.

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