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Zen and the Art of Guitar Hero
An anonymous reader writes "Julian Murdoch over at GamersWithJobs.com has what can only be described as a piece of liturgy, proclaiming a religious experience at his local Best Buy as he watches someone beat 'Through the Fire and the Flames' on Expert in Guitar Hero 3. 'At 6 minutes in, a small crowd has formed, perhaps 15 of us. His sravaka — his disciples — look nervously at us, absorbing the distractions, protecting him a bubble of calm. There is complete silence. Even my son is staring slackjawed, like he does in church during communion, not understanding the content of the ritual but understanding the tone and sacredness of the space.'"
... in 3... 2... 1...
Is this for real???
:-)
Come on people. It's a damned game. Get a life. Come back to planet earth where you originated from. What on earth are these people thinking???
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I saw a kid playing Guitar Hero at the Dell booth in the mall on the weekend. The game looked pretty boring to me. Not anywhere close to as interesting as watching someone play DDR well on the difficult levels. Watching Guitar Hero is like watching somebody play Simon. All you have to do is press the right buttons at the right time.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I've been thinking about giving one of those Guitar Hero games a spin but I don't want to drop a crapload of money on a new console (or video card for the windows port) plus the cost of the game and controller. It turns out that there is a pygame project called Frets on Fire that uses your computer keyboard as your axe. It's GNU gpl and cross-platform though I can only vouch for Windows myself.
The only downside is the lack of licensed songs. There looks to be a pretty good community with lots of user-created songs for it, and there is some sort of way to import GH songs if you own the games.
"hey guys lets go down to the best buy and show off our mad guitar hero skillz"
Can I be the only person on earth that doesn't "get" Guitar Hero? I've seen people play it on expert and even write some truly amazing user mods for it (Search for "erotomania guitar hero" on youtube) but it just doesn't make much sense. In the time it takes to get that good at GH, you could learn to play the guitar for real. (Ok, maybe not Erotomania) Personally, I suspect that folks would be more impressed with playing a real axe, even poorly, than a plastic one at Best Buy
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
I've noticed something that Guitar Hero players and real guitar players have in common. Guitar Hero players think you're lazy and suck if you play on medium, real guitar players think you're lazy and suck if you don't play guitar. And unless you're damn amazing absolutely neither of them will get you laid.
Who remembers the crowds that used to form around the one-on-one fighting games? People cheering and booing and complaining about cheap moves and whatever made the game a blast to play. I own most of the home ports of the Capcom and SNK fighters but nothing will beat the times I played Marvel Super Heroes (the only one I was any good at) for over an hour straight on $0.50. I played person after person and then I thought everybody had gone away. I ended up beating the game and realized that everyone else was still back there watching. It was kind of a cool feeling.
Stop being so mean to him. He's probably around here somewhere and he may have mod points. We should go to some less dorky forum and make fun of him there.
Free the Quark 3 from asymptotic confinement! Bring your charm! Don't get down! All colours and flavours welcome!
Oh, yeah? According to this, some guys can get laid just by having a guitar near them and never taking it out of the case!
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/pdx/105596028.html
It's the subliminal messages in the game that tell you to continue to play :)
:)
Why don't they make a guitar hero with a real guitar.. and you actually have to match the pitch.. That would be cool, and teach you how to play all at once.. But then again the nerds who play Guitar Hero wouldn't want to get a sore finger...
Likewise, they wouldn't want to have any real talent
http://www.explosm.net/comics/897/
But TFA reminded me of this piece.
Tennis is also a "damned game," but fans of the sport know it can be a venue for people to do amazing, humbling things. I don't play Guitar Hero, so I wouldn't appreciate the performance in the Best Buy. I expect that as a GH fan, the author had the same experience that millions of tennis fans have had watching Roger dominate the men's tour for the last half-decade. Think about the last time you were wowed at a concert, or at an art museum. Think about touring one of Europe's beautiful cathedrals. There's a reason that they build them that big, and that beautiful. The architecture, and the art all around you, helps people find God. Tennis and Guitar Hero can be art too, and can have the same effect if you know what you're seeing.
If you take the time to get good at something, why not enjoy the benefits? It's not hurting anyone, it might drive interest in the game (good for the manufacturer and for the resailer) and if people enjoy watching, it's good for them too. As long as he doesn't develop his self-worth around how well he plays Guitar Hero, I don't see a problem with it
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
was he deaf, dumb, and blind?
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
"Sure plays a mean guitar hero???"
:(
Just doesn't sound the same.
Certain very insecure dorks need to put down anything others think is cool, in order to try to look big and important, like they've seen it all and nothing can impress them. They only end up looking cool to other insecure dorks who will then put them down behind their backs. Adults don't give a rats ass what talkers say, we care about what doers do, and insecure jaded cynical children don't usually do much of anything.
You know what's cooler than jaded cynicism? Enthusiasm. We don't want to hear how you could have done it better. Show us. We don't need you to point out that it's "been done." Do it, or don't, but don't shit on our graham crackers and call it a s'more.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Seriously, did you never hang out at an arcade growing up? Even if you grew up before video arcades, you'd have found someone who was king of the local pinball tables. People like showing off their skills, and people like watching a skilled performance. Public displays of personal skill have a long, deep-seated tradition in many, many cultures, and are a driving force in many non-team sports, and even some team ones such as the pick-up basketball games played in inner cities. It's really not that strange.
click...clickity clickity click....clickclickclickclickclickclick....clickity...clickity...clickity....click...etc..
Sad but true, wouldn't it be more awesome to play a REAL Guitar?
> Zen and the Art of Guitar Hero
So, combining two colossal wastes of time, music burnouthood and video games, into one and labeling those who do it as "heroes" isn't enough? Now you're intertwining yet another reason to sit around doing nothing?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
If you take the time to get good at something, why not enjoy the benefits? It's not hurting anyone, it might drive interest in the game
Like the people who "freestyle" DDR. It draws people over to watch the monkey dance then some stick around to try the game and/or talk to the player (who may or may not be a jerk about it).
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
Obligatory South Park Quote:
"You reached 1,000,000 points in Guitar Hero!"
(Kids wait to be proclaimed super-stars.)
"Congratulations! You are FAGS!"
1. Sell your copy of Guitar Hero and PlayStation. 2. Buy a Guitar. 3. Buy a bottle of Jack Daniels. 4. Practice. 5. Repeat steps 3-5 until you drink yourself to death. While using this program mock players of GH because you are better than them.
Except those people had to go to the arcade to play the game at all, not to mention playing it there was the only way to hone their skills. This guy went into Best Buy purely to show off. There is a difference.
"There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself"
Johann Sebastian Bach
and 1000+ hrs on rhythm games... Simply put, you're wrong. And you're full of yourself too. Rhythm skills transfer to all instruments. If you can play Guitar Hero on expert, all you've got to learn is the fretboard and NOTES to play guitar; in terms of the rhythm, you've already learned. Of course, I did it backwards. 10+ years of guitar playing, THEN guitar hero. Got through 80% of songs in "HARD" mode in 1 try. I still got the rhythm, and 5 buttons is extremely easy compared to a guitar. The point being: If you learn rhythm, you're about 1/3rd of the way there to playing ANY instrument, not just guitar. (P.S. I drum too.)
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Dude... if you're going to do that, do it at home so you can at least get the achievement for it! :)
It never occurred to me that, immediately after playing Guitar Hero, my eyes were actually trying to look upward
Zen, indeed.
This is not my sig
This is the point where I come out of the woodwork and promote my obscure but incredibly fun music videogame of choice :) If you enjoyed seeing TTFAF, have a look at the boss songs of beatmania IIDX:
Human Sequencer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLJTZJ2Sevk&feature=related
Nageki no Ki: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf3r7gatAiA&NR=1
Not nearly as long as TTFAF, but 2000 notes in 2 minutes is quite a thing to behold.
If you want to score with women, just become a comedian, own a house, and shower her with gifts that satisfy her whimsical desires.
Losers.
.... losers. Put some effort into something that matters.
I'm not sure if this is a comment on how pathetic the people involved are for thinking that a video game is a religious experience, or a comment on how lousy religion is that people equate its experience with a video game.
Either way
Too bad there wasn't a local arcade for him to go play some guitar freak
you forgot..
and don't be ugly
guitar hero is a disgrace to every musician alive
Someone meta-mod that sonofabitch moderator. I may have said he was full of himself, but that post was chock full of RELEVANT CONTENT from someone who has played 100+ hrs of Guitar Hero and 2000+ hrs of real guitar! What the fuck?
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Bow-ties are cool.
They should call it "Guitar for Retards." Typical of the dumbing down and increasing laziness of American culture.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
...apparently you do give a fuck.
Okay, can I slide by with this explanation then?:
I give a fuck about being called flamebait when it's a real comment. I don't give a fuck about the karma itself.
Is that acceptable? :)
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
My opinion is that Guitar Hero is a pretty poor imitation of Jimmy Hotz' work (especially the Hotz Box). The problem with GH is that you can't go anywhere with the notes that inspiration might give you; on the Hotz box, you can. Doing simple things takes genius.
Check it yourself. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f30XAK7p_k
Dave Small
Maybe some day the son will buy a (real) guitar to punish his dad.
Welcome to the machine.
The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!
Some guys I know at school spent the better part of a week practicing to play this song. They put the guitar on the ground, assigned one person to each button and literally lived in front of the television. They only managed to finish with 3 stars and were still proud of themselves. YouTube link provided in case anyone is curious... http://youtube.com/watch?v=vWdmDsRfOeE/
At least the war on the environment is going well
There are some really pissed off mods on this thread, any vaguely negative comment has been modded as flamebait. I suppose this must be the real "stuff that matters" to people on slashdot nowadays.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Who is more foolish, the kid who thinks his button-mashing skills actually translate into some kind of artistic talent, or the people who are impressed by him? What next, will we have "concerts" put on? To see delinquents holding plastic toys while we listen some pre-recorded music? Uh huh... I will call that a performance on the day someone deems this post a literary treasure.
The thing is, this also works with Guitar Hero.
Especially if you're a warlock, because all you have to do is roll your face.
He who has no