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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...
You realize DDR and Guitar Hero are basically the exact same game with different interfaces right? Both games ultimately boil down to hitting a button (with your foot or with your finger) in time with the music.
All you have to do is press the right buttons at the right time.
All the best games have simple objectives.
Post-rock/Ambient/Drone and other noise.
Let me translate for you:
Kid who is very skilled at a game decides to play the game on the demo unit at the store. Kid does very well. A few people stop for a few seconds to watch him play, as people tend to do when others are playing the demo units, especially if they're doing well. Kid finishes playing, one or two people clap briefly, people leave.
The rest is just storytelling. The author was impressed by someone who was obviously far better at the game than he could ever be, but he was being a little melodramatic about it.
I realize that. But it's much more exciting to watch somebody with that kind of coordination with their feet, than it is to watch someone do the exact same thing with large buttons laid out on a stick. Actually using your feet, rather than your fingers, makes the game a lot more interesting.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I too felt that way. The strange part is watching (the game looks retarded) but playing with all that mystery of "air guitar" and being a rocker it really brings it to life... now as you watch you say wow.. red and green same time then move to blue.. that doesn't look hard at all.. its just a pattern. Then you play... realizing your fingers do not listen to your brain. and it gets a lot more exciting.. The next time you watch someone pull off some insane finger combo's you understand how hard it really is and you appreciate their talent for dexterity and coordination. Again I agree you look stupid playing it and it looks like a boring game.. my only recommendation is give it a try for a couple of songs... .you may not go out and play at best buy, but you might just end up adding it to your game collection for playing in your house.
love the taste, hate the texture
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.
All you have to do is press the right buttons at the right time.
Isn't that all any video game is really?
But we see the exceptions if we think about it and that's why there is a current trend in gaming. Namely the Wii and Guitar Hero. We're use to the game pad or WASD controls. The Wii and Guitar Hero leads us to a different style of play that is exciting to people. For Guitar Hero it's people's chance to play on a "real" guitar without the years of practice it would take to play these same songs for real.
In the case of the Wii people are all up on a different controller style too. The idea of waving one's hand and making something happen on-screen is a form of magic to most people.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Perhaps not as exciting to watch as people playing DDR in public, but just as dorky...BOY BANDS OF THE WORLD UNITE!
It might be fun to play. I wasn't arguing that. What I was saying, was that it isn't fun to watch. Playing Simon is fun. Watching someone else play Simon is not. I don't know why somebody would be drawn to watch someone playing Guitar Hero unless it was just to pass the time while they were waiting for their turn to play.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Come on people. It's a damned game.
Tell yourself that the next time that it's ESPN or ESPN2 or The NFL channel or any other number of sports channels that guys gladly pay money to see people playing a game. It's a big business.
Granted, the story is a bit gonzo but every game has it's fans that are going to make it out to be more than it is. Why not let the geeks be happy about it for a minute.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
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.
Exactly, Guitar Hero is to Guitar Playing what kareoke is to Singing. Its not about what you're doing, its how you're doing it.
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
12112
well, then try it yourself i've played it a bit, and can see how it can be just as hard as DDR the main issue is that with the way you hold the guitar, that you've got 5 buttons and 4 fingers... also, having to tap the strings at the right moment als adds a challenge etc... it looks very easy, but is hard to master, like most games that are a lot of fun to play :)
Yes, theoretically that's all any video game is about. However, Guitar Hero lets you play the same level over and over again, memorizing the same moves. Contrast that to other games, where there is a little randomness thrown in, so you can't just press the exact same buttons you did last time in order to repeat your performance. Or contrast even further with games where you play against people, where you have to think even more, and adapt to their strategies, because they are adapting to yours, and it becomes apparent that games like Guitar Hero are nothing more than just memorization.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I get that it's fun, I get that it's challenging. What I don't get is why anybody would want to watch it be played. I think it would be fun to play. I don't think it's a fun game to watch.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
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!
I would equate it more to lip syncing. To be good at Karaoke, you still have to know how to sing. To be good at lip syncing, you just have to move you lips in time with the music.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I saw this kid playing it at some game store and it seemed like a neat game. What really struck me, however, was all the clacking that came from the controller itself. For me it hurts immersion when the controller is making the same kinds of noises as a cheap keyboard.
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
Watching someone play DDR is definitely more fun.
Especially if said someone is a cute girl (or guy, depending on how your attractions lie).
But, then again, most games weren't meant to be watched, they were meant to be played.
Prince of Persia is an exception.
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/
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Fortunately, with Guitar Hero, you're not splashed by the player's sweat when he's playing hard songs.
Stupidity is the root of all evil.
Some games are beaten through memorization and practice, (GH3, Rock band, Ikaruga, Most old Nintendo Games) and other games are beat through strategy (multiplayer games, RPG's, etc), they are fun for different reasons, and exercise different parts of your brain. Bemoaning the quality of one as opposed to the other is only opinion.
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
I'm not exactly sure why it's entertaining to watch, but damn it is. I think it's because you see a visual approximation of what's going on in the song (sort of like a score) AND you get to see people make funny faces and dance while they play.
Post-rock/Ambient/Drone and other noise.
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.
A real guitar has 6 strings. And you have to push down the strings at the right time. And actually use a pick (or finger pick).
After all, I am strangely colored.
Strangely, I do not feel the same about boxing...
Stupidity is the root of all evil.
I can remember wayyyy back..
When the local Macs Milk. We got the first video game.
Kids were crammed around it for hours. Fascinated by what was happening.
It doesn't happen so much anymore, because they is not so much a public display of skill.
I think that is why the pro-gamer thing has taken off.
There is an audience because the people that were looking at these people playng that game, are the ones who are the spectators.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
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
I had the same problem when I first picked up GH2 after playing it at a party, I came up with two solutions:
1) Turn the music up. Obviously, if you can't hear yourself think, you can't hear the guitar click.
2) Be gentle. The clicking spring only makes noise if you hammer on the strum button or release it quickly. I can play on hard and expert, only moving the strum button a small degree of it's full range of motion, just enough to trigger the switch in the guitar, without the clicking.
3) It isn't the cheap keyboards that make those loud clicking sounds, it's some of the best damn keyboards ever IMO.
Okay, the last one wasn't a solution to the guitar clicking problem, but you get the idea.
Lose: misplace or fail || Loose: not bound together
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Oooh yeah. *remembering cute girl with high heels and light summer clothes playing DDR*.
This was a hot summer!
Stupidity is the root of all evil.
I hate to burst your bubble, but memorization is the way to play that game on the harder levels. You think a player doing Through the Fire and Flame on expert is actually reacting to what's coming down the fretboard? Hell no, they've worked on it enough that they already have all the patterns down to muscle memory.
From the perspective of 'real' musicians, memorization is very common. Just about anything I played in a concert was memorized. Sheet music was up for reference only. You're watching a conductor 90% of the time. Some instruments pretty much require it. Piano, for example.
"Sure plays a mean guitar hero???"
:(
Just doesn't sound the same.
>All the best games have simple objectives.
Including the game that is woman. I know the objective but have yet to score.
To tell you the truth, I don't even understand the rules.
It's different though. In DDR, your steps go along with the music. If you miss a step, nothing happens other than a couple boos or dead arrows. But in Guitar Hero and Rock Band, the music of the instrument will actually cut out if you aren't performing it properly. So it's a different sort of feedback mechanism, and a better one, I think. It feels like the music is caused by you, which makes it feel like you're really rocking out. That and it's more of a group experience. The game gives a lot of bonuses for coordinated effort, while in DDR, there really wasn't any sort of synergy between players at all (strictly versus).
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
Thanks for the translation, Captain Miserable.
And yet Dragon's Lair made boatloads of money on the same concept back in the day.
(And Simon was more memory, and less rhythm based.)
This sig intentionally left justified.
Play the game. When you see how challenging it can be it becomes easy to understand why it would be fun to watch the game played on its highest level. Even if you have experience playing a musical instrument (I play the violin), it still is very challenging.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
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.
Exactly. As a DDR fanatic, when I first played GH, I was like, "Hey, this is just like when I want to be lame and play DDR with a hand-held controller". Unfortunately, since my fingers get sore and lock up quickly from doing things like GH, I can't go around and "pwn" everybody. But I did surprise the people who were watching me play for the first time.
Plus, DDR has doubles mode where you have to dance across two pads. (Crowds will often form when I do that.) Some rare arcades have quad mode where you dance across four pads lined up. I wish there were a version where the four pads were arranged 2x2 and will try to write a program to handle that if no one else comes up with it.
As for the person who made the comment about "four fingers to five buttons", DDR has two feet to four buttons, or two feet to eight buttons if you do doubles.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
If you've been around some of the people I know that do karaoke, knowing how to sing is not a factor. All said and done, GH is exactly what a video game should be. It's simple, addictive, challenging, nad makes you feel like you are a part of the game. My only problem with it is that I keep trying to play the songs like I was playing my real guitar. I keep trying to finger a chord when I should be pressing a single button...
I'm the root of all that's evil, yeah, but you can call me cookie.
No.. Young grasshopper. The best games are those without any objectives at all.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Sadly in most game stores you can't turn the volume of the game up all that much. I'm not one of those people who drives down the street with his car stereo shaking all the vehicles around him, but when you get into the game and you're having fun pretending you're a rock star, you pretty much feel the need to crank the volume. And then you don't hear the plastic at all.
And if you take it in a different direction, and are trying to play the game 100% technically perfect, the clicking is a good indication that helps you improve your timing and such.
It's not a dealbreaker by any means.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
What gets me is this kid gets a crowd around him for a video game.
Joshua Bell, one of the foremost violin players on the planet, with a Strad, incognito at a D.C. metro station can't get more than 5 people to stop and listen while he plays.
> 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.
Shoppers are not commuters. Commuters have trains to catch. Shoppers are just killing time.
When I am trying to catch a train it wouldn't matter *who* was playing - if I miss my train and am late to work it'll matter a whole lot more.
An operating system should be like a light switch... simple, effective, easy to use, and designed for everyone.
It's a pretty impressive thing to see, although I'm not sure I'd watch it on TSN. Now, play through 'Through the Fire and Flames' on expert using a DDR mat ... that I'd watch.
Seriously, you people are starting to sound like a broken record. Why bother to post a comment like this when what seems like half the internet has already said it?
And it's a poorly thought-out thing to say in the first place. Why don't Tony Hawk players go out and actually skateboard? Why don't DDR players just go find a real dancefloor? Why don't Madden players grab a real football?
Because the video games are FUN, so SHUT UP.
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
Well, to be fair, most people including myself wouldn't know what a strad looked like. Now if he had a sign on pointing out its a strad, he'd recieve a lot of attention. Mainly from muggers, but still lots of attention.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
I like that. You are awesome.
Post-rock/Ambient/Drone and other noise.
All the best games have simple objectives.
Recent research reveals that people like to press buttons to lights and music.
Guitar Hero is an odd phenomenon. On one hand it's good to see kids take any interest in guitar playing that exceeds two out-of-tune chords, on the other people are starting to equate playing Guitar Hero with actually playing guitar! People need to gain some perspective and stop trivializing the work of people who actually put in years learning to play. They are two completely different universes. It's baffling how everyone will crowd around someone with a plastic guitar pressing some buttons, but would have no interest in actually seeing a band play the exact same songs. Me playing guitar A song of mine that was reviewed in Guitar Player magazine.
Music is very easy, it's only a matter of hitting the right keys at the right time.
J.S. Bach
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.
All you have to do to write a piano concerto is to press the right buttons at the right time. All you have to do to write the Great American Novel is to press the right keys in the right order. All you have to do to write a great application is to punch the right keys in the proper combination. All you have to do in order to get a hole in one is to hit the ball in the right place with the right club. All you have to do to obliterate life on this planet is to press the big red button on the desk at the White House. Everything is easy, you see?
FC Closer
It's sad that the person that made the joke didn't get the +5 funny, but instead it was the person who spelled-out (perhaps ruined?) the joke who did.
"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
If by "a little melodramatic" you mean "cloyingly fawning like some kind of loser who probably needs therapy," then yes, by all means, his interpretation was a little melodramatic.
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
And you must hit balls in golf.
"If you could go through and memorize the hundreds and even thousands of notes on all of the songs, then you would be some sort of... memorizing guy with lots of stuff memorized."
Um, how do you think real guitarists play real guitars? There's no screen showing me what notes to play when I'm on stage with my band. And I know far more songs than you'll find in all the GH games combined. I guess I'm some sort of... memorizing guy with lots of stuff memorized.
Trying to follow the notes on screen at the higher levels is just silly. It's all about learning the songs.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Yeah, right, like how playing a real guitar and flamingo dancing are totally the same game with a different interface. Both require you to hit the right spots at the right time (with your finger or with your foot) with the music, right? What other performances of music isn't the same game with a different interface?
Dude... if you're going to do that, do it at home so you can at least get the achievement for it! :)
And all the best-selling games are mere simplified simulations of things people could do in real life if they dedicated enough time, effort and money to it.
DDR, Guitar Hero, The Sims, Rock Band... I'll give sports games an exception since you really need inborn talent and/or steroids to really play professional or even college-level sports.
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
Namely, sloppy drunk in front of a crowd of Japanese businessmen at 3 AM.
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
Nah, golf is boring to play too.
Deleted
A guy goes out fishing. He catches a marlin. As he is bringing it home, sharks eat it.
The rest is just storytelling. The author was clearly being melodramatic.
Culture is more than commerce
Exactly. I was at the IGC recently, and one of the games presented on demo night was a Guitar Hero clone that uses a real guitar. A mic was sitting on the floor next to the amp, and as you played along to scrolling tablature, it would let you know when you were playing it right. It wouldn't be bad educational software, but as a game, guess what? It's not fun. It's hard and complicated. Furthermore, I've broken my left pinky twice, and it has no strength or flexibility. My left hand is simply not capable of playing a real guitar. It's basically a game that is impossible for me to ever master. Guitar Hero is simplified. Despite my lack of monkey hands, I can truly master it. I can play through expert and five star most songs, though the Dragonforce song still owns me. It lets me engage in that wonderful dream realization that good game designers know you should tap into. I can play pretend, like EVERY OTHER GAME LETS ME DO. Nobody seems to call you a loser for playing Grand Theft Auto, instead of going out and stealing cars and shooting cops.
you know games based in reality just as much as religion is!
Balderdash!
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.
And that difference is HUGE from a difficulty standpoint, if you screw up in GH it makes it much more difficult to get back on track. This is even more the case in Rock Band, if the drummer or the bass player screw up, it tends to screw somebody else up. Personally thats why I love Rock Band, more than any other game I've played (except maybe end game raids in EQ or WoW) you need to really cooperate and work as a team to get through it.
The Answer
I played piano for 16 years, memorized (and forgotten) hundreds of songs in that time. Yet rarely could I tell you (without a piano sitting in front of me) what any of the notes were that I was playing. For me it was a form of procedural memory. Your hands start in this position, then after a certain time they move to this position... repeat a few hundred times and that's Chopin's Prelude in D flat. It's interesting to me because I'm VERY bad at memorizing things like facts and numbers, but procedurally my fingers are good at things.
In my case it's carried over to IT. If I'm working at a server or trying to fix a workstation or whatever, my fingers hit Win-r and type lusrmgr.msc and hit enter. Or type emerge --sync. Or whatever, often without even thinking about it. I know what's wrong with the system, my fingers know how to fix it even if I can't necessarily verbalize what it is I need to do.
The Answer
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
...not to mention 21-24 frets (depending on model)
No sig for the moment.
Flamingos != Flamenco
In any case, thanks for the funny image of flamingos dancing flamenco...
No sig for the moment.
To be a pro athlete you need natural talent and you need to be in good shape and all. But, you know, any slob could go out and play some football with friends. It's just most people don't bother. So why do sports games get a pass?
Bow-ties are cool.
Bow-ties are cool.
You create a perfect opportunity to draw an elucidating analogy: gawking at someone playing guitar hero would be just like gawking at someone playing All Pro Football 2k8. Yes, gaming skills can be impressive. But there IS a difference between being an elite athlete on a real football field and being an elite gamer when people are looking not at the skill but at the game. Transpose (no pun intended...) said analogy to Guitar Hero and playing a real guitar, and the point is the same: At the moment it is not as 'cool' to be a star gamer as it is to be a star football player or a real guitar virtuoso. That may change one day, but for right now that's just how it is.
A-Bomb
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
Well yes, except the marlin chap spoke of life, death and another hundred ideas to big to discuss unless you're all alone with yourself and have the time to think about what it means to be alive, whereas the Best Buy dude is going on about how fast a kid's fingers move on a piece of plastic. Other than that, your irony fits marvelously.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. -- G.B. Shaw
There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
It's a bit rich that you get to decide what is, and what is not a religious experience. Who's more of a loser? The person with enough apathy to sit here and say that someone is "pathetic" for "thinking that a video game is a religious experience", or the people out there enjoying themselves, watching something they think is a bit cool?
--H
Um.. No. The right strings have to be pressed when you strum.. The guitar, for the most part, doesn't care when you pushed 'em down.
Um.. Yes. The right strings have to be pressed down when you run the plectrum over them. If you're playing arpeggios, getting the timing right is a lot harder than playing a plain old chord. This is true of most forms of guitar playing, by the way.
After all, I am strangely colored.
What was he playing?
Your sort of forgetting that Guitar Hero has an almost cult like following. People actually think they are good at the guitar after playing Guitar Hero it well. I actually saw a post on here a few years ago suggesting that playing Guitar hero was a way to improve at playing a real guitar.
There are usually two types of people with Guitar Hero, The ones that like it, love it. The ones that don't like it don't like it. There really isn't an in between where some people sort of like it.
So in the story tellers eyes, this kid was just as good as the original artists and it needed to be acknowledged. To many, this wasn't a kid hitting buttons on a piece of plastic. It was a juvenile doing something amazing.
PS, I'm in the group that just doesn't play console games do I don't like or dislike it.
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()!
I was really thinking more in terms of the "barrier to entry", like you said. Any idiots can form a garage band nowadays that will actually play a few performances before someone notifies them of how badly they suck, so why do they play Guitar Hero instead? Because "real guitars are for old people"?
On the other hand, very few people ever get to seriously take up a sport. I can understand why someone would want to pretend they made it to the NFL, whereas pretending to play guitar at some random party seems much more like being too lazy to learn to really play guitar at some random party.
Then again, being a dancer with good speaking and singing voices, I guess I may have underestimated the level of inborn talent needed to form a competent musical group.
And, finally, I just generally have a bias against any video game that doesn't violate the known rules of reality six ways before breakfast. In video games I want to fly, shoot things, find magical items I'll only use for one dungeon, kill giant turtles, save the world due to convoluted prophecies, and run at speeds only achievable in real life by finely tuned automobiles, not throw a goddamned virtual ball around!
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
It can be done, although you probably have to make some size adjustments to the mat for it to be practical. It's called tap-dancing.
The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!
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
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html
Bach's Chaconne and Schubert's Ave Maria amongst other pieces. He was there 43 minutes.
On the other hand, very few people ever get to seriously take up a sport. I can understand why someone would want to pretend they made it to the NFL, whereas pretending to play guitar at some random party seems much more like being too lazy to learn to really play guitar at some random party.
Then again, being a dancer with good speaking and singing voices, I guess I may have underestimated the level of inborn talent needed to form a competent musical group. Well, here's the thing: Nobody can do everything for real. There's just no time. People choose the things they're gonna do with their life: and once they've filled that schedule of stuff, they can't necessarily add more stuff, no matter how easy it is to learn. "Oh, learn some Assembler. It's not that hard." Sure, but if you're already busy doing a dozen other things...
Don't think of Rock Band as a substitute for starting a real band - think of it as what it is, a game. People play it and they have fun. What a concept, huh?
Bow-ties are cool.
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
Its a bit rich that you'd actually defend calling a video game a religious experience. anyone ... ANYONE ... who thinks about it for more than a few seconds would realize how demeaning that is to people who LIVE their religious experience, day in and day out, struggling with their faith in a hostile world, and still stay true to their beliefs.
Now me, I don't care for religion OR video games. So I don't care either way.
"[anyone] who thinks about it for more than a few seconds would realize how demeaning that is to people who LIVE their religious experience"
/. says.
Oh sorry, I forgot having a different viewpoint is banned on teh intarwebz. Seriously man, I ask again, who made you the boss of what is and is not a religious experience? Will there be Denmark-cartoons-scale rioting if I said that Final Fantasy VII was a religious experience for me? Of course not. Someone who has had the kind of experience you speak of would have strong enough faith that it wouldn't matter what you, me, or anyone on
I just generally have a bias against any video game that doesn't violate the known rules of reality six ways before breakfast.
Believe me, for some of my friends, playing an instrument does violate the known rules of reality in many ways. Tonedeaf mofos.
Post-rock/Ambient/Drone and other noise.
Your inability to recognize and appreciate the sacred is the key to your constant insecurity and demoralization.