Guitar Hero III Through The Eyes of a Guitarist

Being a guitarist of about 8 years experience, I always scoffed at the prospect of games such as Guitar Hero or Rock Band. I considered it gimmicky, air guitar with a high score even. But a few weeks ago when I was offered an opportunity to play my curiosity got the better of me, so I took hold of the plastic replica Les Paul and selected a difficulty. I chose medium but very quickly moved to hard, because I figured it can't be far enough removed from the basic mechanics of playing as to render me useless. What transpired was a nail-biting and elating few hours that ended in my purchase of the game. I now venture to compare the game with the real thing and how neither is like the other, but the one contributes towards the mastery of the other.

Firstly, I was right in my assumption that the game is like the real thing. You press a chord,and strum the note. You also have a tremolo arm(referred to by its fashionable name of whammy). It feels surprisingly like playing a guitar, although the lack of weight makes it a little tricky to keep stable. To play the songs a certain degree of timing is needed, especially on the more difficult songs where offbeat notes and different time signatures come into play, such as the intro of La Grange.

There are also elements that remove the game from the real thing. The fact that 6 strings and 22 or more frets with an infinite combination is reduced to 5 buttons with no open note(when no note is fretted). The strumming is also turned into more of a button being hammered than the actual motion of strumming. There is also no such things as palm-mutes, an integral part of most rock songs. But my main complaint is that the buttons give no feedback. You need to press them relatively firmly and the only thing telling you where your hand is on the 'fretboard' is a little mark on the middle button. On a real guitar, you can feel a definite edge where your fingertips move over the fret's edge. You know what the strings are doing under your fingers. But this is all a result of taking a fundamentally analogous action and turning it into computer inputs.

Now the bright side. I've come to the conclusion that Guitar Hero, besides being a very fun and addictive game, is also a very good stepping stone to learn to play the guitar.

When you endeavour to learn the art of guitar playing, there's a typical development curve: For the first few weeks you feel like you'll never get it right and it's a waste of time. Then when you get the hang of it, you progress very quickly and you can literally feel and hear yourself improve as you play. Guitar Hero helps to overcome the initial stupidity of learning the guitar. You're going through the motions of your first few guitar lessons, but you don't have to listen to the dull twank sound of your efforts. You're rewarded by a throbbing crowd of cartoon moshers. It's then relatively simple to shift over to a real guitar and 'fill in the gaps'.

I had to think twice about writing the next bit, because it could potentially insult many of my guitar playing friends: Guitar Hero can get you over The Wall. After a few years most guitarists hit a wall where just playing guitar isn't enough anymore and you need to start thinking about the technique and theory behind your playing to progress. Many guitarists are happy to stay by this wall, and turn into the sing-along players at the bonfire on the beach. The guitarists that commit to conquer the wall will end up the riffing superstar that you see in Guitar Hero. This is where techniques such as hammer-ons, pull-offs, sweeps, arpeggio and chord structures become important. The hard and expert levels in Guitar Hero do a very good job of helping you onto this path. The main benefit the game provides is the timing between your hands. I struggled for many a lonely evening to get my right hand to pick at the same speed as my fretting hand presses the notes. The game makes it all part of the progression. When you turn away from the game and pick up a real guitar, you can feel that your hand-to-hand coordination has improved.

The game has it's gimmicky elements, such as the battles where you can break a string on your opponent's guitar, or get their bridge stuck requiring them to furiously manoeuvre the whammy bar. There are also elements in the game that seasoned guitarists will appreciate, such as your star power indicated by a row of valves lighting up as you play and the not-so-subtle placing of name brands such as Line 6 and Mackie.

All in all it's a very fun game that can be enjoyed by anyone with a relative ear for music. I expected the game to hurt my guitar playing by getting me used to buttons instead of strings, but it turns out the game actually helps your playing. Now the only thing I need to get over is the dent on my ego when my friends see me standing with a small plastic Gibson X-plorer(pictured right) draped from my shoulders...

Words:
"We both know that the promise of simulated rock stardom will always bewitch the pasty nabbish fantasies that are gaming's core demographic."
-Zero Punctuation

The Price of Quality

My mom always says you shouldn't buy cheap because it'll break, and buying twenty cheap frying pans (or whatever) is more expensive than buying a single, expensive one. But how true is this?

I was watching an episode of The Gadget Show where they compared high-end speakers with incredibly expensive speakers. The end result was pretty even, even though the expensive speakers were more than 30 times the price of the reasonably priced ones. So the question is, exactly how much do you need to spend to get the quality you're looking for?

What I usually do is compare the price with the relative quality of what you're buying, so step one is to find something solid and statistical that you can compare. In the case of cars look at reliability, fuel consumption, get the opinion of other people who own the cars in question on the styling and maintenance. (Don't believe the brochures. They don't lie, but they spin the truth) For something like speakers, look at impudence, response range, volume and sound-to-noise levels. For computer parts such as 3D graphics cards, find a reputable website and get benchmarks. Next, find out what each item in your list will cost. Remember to include setup fees or maintenance plans.

Now set up a little spreadsheet or something and pull a graph. This is the trick part. You'll see that from low-end to mid-range the price will rise slowly but the quality increases dramatically. This is because manufacturers need to make the initial buy-in to produce the item. With cars you don't really have a car unless you've put wheels on it, welded the thing together, gotten it tested, etc. You will then notice at a certain point it levels out, where the price increases steadily as the quality goes up. Then suddenly you'll hit a wall where it becomes very expensive for relatively little gain. This is the cut between mid-range and high-end. When you're looking at cars (once again) the price difference between the normal model and the sport model is often quite a bit, but the performance gain isn't all that major especially if you'll only be commuting with it.

Once you've gotten this graph figured out, you'll have a mental idea of what you're paying for in each iteration. You can then make an educated decision as to what you can afford and if you're getting your money's worth.

I need to mention two things here. Firstly, people tend to decide on a budget and strictly stick to it. I think this is the wrong approach. Many times once I've made up my graph I see that I've either grossly under-budgeted (not realising what things cost) or there's an item just a little more expensive with a quite considerable improvement. Be willing to shift your budget, otherwise you end up buying inferior goods because you're stingy. If you can't afford it right now, but you can wait a month or two and save up, do so. You'll be much happier with your purchase once you make it. Secondly, consider what you're buying for. If you're buying small speakers so you can hear your computer go ding when something happens, you don't need surround sound or a subwoofer. If you're buying speakers for a home entertainment system it's a good idea to look at slightly more expensive speakers, but maybe a better idea to stick to smaller speakers that don't fill your living room.

I find that buying just below the mid-to-high-end cut-off delivers the best results, where products work well but aren't flashy or over the top. On my computer games run reasonably well and I didn't shovel out a fortune for it.

Oh, one last thing. If you're planning on buying something quite expensive like computer parts, something that's in a quickly evolving market, take a look at upcoming products. What you're planning to buy might soon be replaced by a newer model in the same price range with better features. In this case you can either buy the newer model, or you can wait for the shops to drop the price of the current model in order to get rid of it and stock the new. A win-win situation.

Having taken all this into account, I suggest you step back, take a breath, maybe have a cup of something soothing, then buy what feels right. Your subconscious often picks up on little things that you're not thinking of. One of the products might feel cheap in your hands but there's really nothing wrong with it. It's a good buy, but you'll always feel cheated.

One last thing to consider. This item that you're planning to buy... do you actually need it? Or do you just want it? But that's a topic for another day...

Words:
"If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people in the world?"
-Stephen Fry on QI (Quite Interesting)