Friday, August 8, 2008

Guitar Zero

So I bought Aerosmith Guitar Hero for PlayStation 2. I haven't been on a video game shopping spree in about 20 years, so I wondered if technology would have passed me by.

I quickly conquered the 6-step quick start instructions with pictures for assembling the guitar-shaped controller. Confidence on the rise.

Turning on the game, I paced myself by choosing "easy" level and jumped right into a song. You succeed in the game by hitting as many correct notes as possible, with the crowd noise indicating how well you're doing.

Ten seconds later, I was booed off the stage, hitting 21% of the notes. Fortunately, you can reset.

Booed off the stage. 21%. Reset.

Booed off the stage. 21%.

Dumbfounded, I fumbled my way to a tutorial section, where a God-like voice came to my aid. As I waited for the instruction, I thought 'What kind of goofy glitches does this game have, such that a real-life guitar player can't hit a quarter of the notes?'. The answer came:

Play with two hands.

Yep, I'd pretty much been trying to play guitar without strumming the strings. Little problem there. Evidently a lot more than technology had passed me by.

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