#19. Guitar Hero: World Tour
The Guitar Hero series always makes me think about tipping points. The technology is nothing new – we’ve had it for fifteen years. Rhythm games are nothing new. The music itself, in fact, is nothing new (one of the series’ main selling points). The original Guitar Hero was innovative not for what it did but for making the rhythm genre mainstream, for popularizing it both critically and commercially. I’ve always felt that so many games are power fantasies at heart: we want to save the princess and the world, kill the bad guys, feel cool. Guitar Hero plays into that same fantasy, but rather than Conan the Barbarian, James Bond, or Batman, this time we get to be Jimi Hendrix or Axl Rose. And part of me always thinks, of course we want to be rock stars too. Why didn’t anyone think of this before?
I have a hard time keeping GH World Tour separate in my mind from Rock Band (do non-gamers have the same problems telling Half-Life, Far Cry, and Gears of War apart?). Essentially, one to four players can take up the traditional instruments: guitar, bass, drums, and vocals, and play along by pressing buttons according to the rhythms on screen. This would never work with a standard controller – part of feeling cool (and also a bit ridiculous, which I suppose is one of the definitions of fun) is that you’re actually holding and strumming a guitar, singing into a mic, or hitting the pads of a drumset. I have never in my life sat down in front of a set, but World Tour contains none of the hard work of actual drumming. As a pianist, I can use both my hands and my feet at the same time, and I can keep time – and that’s all it takes to get to the flailing sticks and the driving beat. For obvious reasons, this is a game best played with friends.
I have a number of colleagues in sound design and recorded music who find the games fascinating simply because they exist. Every now and then someone asks me about one of these “music” games, and I have to explain that it has nothing to do with making music, learning to play music, or even music appreciation. The beauty of the Guitar Hero series, particularly World Tour, is that you can feel like Buckethead without having to be as talented as Buckethead – the same thing stealth and action games have been mining for mechanics for years. In effect, you “win” by managing to keep the music from stopping, not by adding anything original to it yourself. And that’s fine. It’s actually one of the best party games I’ve seen in years, particularly for large groups – whoever wants to play is in charge of keeping the music going. And as World Tour includes tracks from rock, pop, country, and metal, it’s not hard to find songs that appeal to everyone’s musical taste – at the very least, songs that are more party-friendly than the background music for Smash Bros. levels.
Of course, there are always down sides. My iTunes playlist has certainly expanded, and there’s always the danger of falling in love with a song before you realize it’s being sung by a bunch of emo German teenagers with a screaming, tweeny fanbase (which doesn’t stop me from taking Monsoon off my playlist). But I’m mostly waiting to hear from the guitar instructors. How many students will swagger into their classes explaining that they’re already ahead because they can play World Tour on expert mode?
