Guitar Hero for PlayStation 2

Let me start by saying, I'm not a big gamer, nor am I a teenager, so it was with much amazement that every time I was over at my boyfriend's house I wanted to play this game.

My boyfriend's roommate introduced us to this game when he moved in. I was skeptical at first, but after watching my boyfriend's roommate play a few songs I was offered the mini Gibson shaped controller & decided to give it a try.

There are four levels total Easy, Medium, Hard, & Expert. Not being a gamer I of course chose, Easy. After a few failed attempts as I was getting used to the the controller & how the game is/was played I began enjoying myself.

The idea is to watch the screen & hit the button on the controller at the same time that colored button appears at the bottom of your screen. If you miss a note, there's a plinking sound, so the better you play the better the song sounds. After you hit a series of buttons in a row you achieve "star power" which can help you through tougher "solos" by raising the top of your guitar in the air. You can also increase the crowds response by hitting the whammy bar on the controller. The more notes you hit, the greater the crowds response, the higher your score is & the greater the "ranking" (3-5 stars) is when you finish a song.

You don't necessarily have to complete a level to move on to the next level. After having used the Easy level to learn how the game worked, I moved on to the Medium level where the incentive was to get a high enough ranking to get a payout. After I had a certain amount of money I was able to "unlock" (purchase) additional songs, guitar skins (designs), & characters (such as the Grim Ripper).

After having completed most of the songs on medium (as the songs don't change between levels) just the amount of notes & chords etc that flash on the screen do I decided to try my hand at hard. Occassionally, I would fail a song over & over again which made me that much more determined to complete that particular song.

After playing Guitar Hero a number of times I became more familiar with the songs like "Godzilla" by Blue Oyster Cult or "I Love Rock & Roll" by Joan Jett & The Blackhearts & the easier it got to play them.

Now my boyfriend, a die hard gamer skipped the easy level went straight for the medium as his training ground. After about a week he was playing songs on hard. He's still playing songs on hard, but it has gotten easier for him & he even plays some of the lower level Expert rated songs.

It feels so much like you're actually playing a guitar that I wondered if an actual guitarist would be able to breeze through the game. Curious to see if this was the case, my boyfriend's roommate had one of his guitar playing friends over to play the game. We discovered that Guitar Hero is just as difficult for guitarists as it is for the average joe & they have just as much fun playing it given their appreciation for music. Plus, they feel they have to do better because they are guitarists. ;)

As much fun as I was having with the game, I hated having to wait for my turn as only one person could play the game at a time. Additionally, I wouldn't recommend it with those that have carpal tunnel or tendonitis as it would tend to aggravate those conditions. (I'm telling you this because I have tendonitis & I play the game despite my condition, but afterwards I tend to pay the price.)

Fortunately, there's a co-op (meaning co-operative) mode in Guitar Hero 2 (the sequel to Guitar Hero 1) which allows 2 people to play at a time.

A word of warning, people have been known to have so much fun with this game (Guitar Hero) that Guitar Hero 2 came with a disclaimer from the makers at Red Octane that warned against smashing the guitar shaped controller on the floor when overzealous as this will in fact damage the controller.

In the immortal words of Red Octane after you've successfully completed a song, "You Rock!"