I finally managed to get a Wii a few weeks ago (it’s not a coincidence it’s been that long since I last posted) and got Guitar Hero III to go along with it. It’s an incredibly fun game, and I’ve been playing the shit out of it. I powered through the easy and medium difficulty levels fairly quickly, then cut back on my playing for a while.
This was partly because once I’d gotten to the “hard” difficulty level, it’s too difficult to be as much fun–but also because every time I closed my eyes I saw notes coming down the fretboard at me, and couldn’t get the songs out of my head. There’s actually a name for this: it’s called The Tetris Effect. It creeps me out that my brain is rewiring itself in order to concentrate better on a stupid game.
I thought I’d give it another shot, so I picked up the “guitar” yesterday and immediately failed the first song. Then again. After getting booed off the stage for the third or fourth time, I thought I’d give practice mode a try, to see if I could actually manage to complete a damn song.
Here’s the thing about practice mode–it’s just practicing the fucking song. That’s it. The rest of the band doesn’t even play along with you. Depending on how slow you’re playing, the guitar part sounds tortured and distorted by the console streeeetching out the original soundtrack. (This might be a Wii-only thing, since the PS3 and 360 have a lot more horsepower available to them.)
As I was flailing wildly through a half-speed rendition of Poison’s “Talk Dirty To Me,” it all suddenly felt very stupid–I was practicing “playing” a fake guitar, to “play” a fake song, and it wasn’t even fun. If I wanted to pointlessly grind away at something I’m bad at, I could pick up my real guitar, fail miserably at that for a while, and actually be sort of accomplishing something.
June 17, 2008 at 1:36 am
but does it actually help you learn to play the guitar? I have to say, I’m very impressed that video games are getting people off the couch and doing something. We recently got the Wii with Sport and are trying to get fitness. I’m too crippled to go out and do the real thing, but I can at least have a fun way to get moving.
June 17, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Unfortunately, no.
You learn as much about the guitar from playing Guitar Hero as you do about apes from playing Donkey Kong.
July 13, 2008 at 3:15 pm
You should e-mail me your Wii console code. We have one too and I’m obsessed with it.