It’s no secret that I’m no fan of Guitar Hero: I slated the suspect ‘simulator’ in my piece on gaming peripherals a few months back, much to the disagreement of several GH groupies and another resident MyGaming writer, Azimuth. Yesterday, though, I decided to give the game another go to see if I couldn’t be swayed into changing my mind.
One hour and some appalling scores later, I still hated it.
This of course is just a subjective opinion (as tautological as that is), though it’s one I feel I’m more than qualified to have after being a gamer for well over twenty years and an (actual) guitarist for half as long. Seriously, even the word ‘simulator’ is a tenuous title for a game that’s essentially Whack-a-Mole with a rotating soundtrack.
My new angle of derision for GH’s pseudo-shredders though comes from a recent interview with Bill Wyman from The Rolling Stones and Nick Mason from Pink Floyd, where the rock legends openly bashed the game (and its cousin, Rock Band) for a totally different reason.
Said Wyman, “It encourages kids not to learn, that’s the trouble. It makes less and less people dedicated to really get down and learn an instrument.” He added, “I think it’s a pity.”
Elaborating on this, Mason remarked, “It irritates me having watched my kids do it – if they spent as much time practising the guitar as learning how to press the buttons they’d be damn good by now.”
Now, we can question these statements based on the observations that i) neither one of them was a particularly talented muso, ii) they could just be after media attention, and iii) years of drug abuse has probably caused early-onset senility. However, we should probably still consider these as valid statements for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, no one can argue with the fact that time spent clicking away on a plastic controller is time that isn’t being spent wearing down one’s fingertips on a proper guitar fretboard. In fact, it’s an appropriate microcosm for the old cliché of gamers becoming socially inept weirdoes because of years spent in musty basements trying to clock Legend of Zelda for the umpteenth time instead of getting laid, getting drunk and getting sunshine like the ‘normal’ kids.
Second, let’s consider the retort of Alex Rigopulas of GH developer Harmonix: “Most people try to learn an instrument at some point in their lives, and almost all of them quit after a few months or a year or two. This, I think, is because the earliest years of learning an instrument are the least gratifying.
“When people play Rock Band, however, they very quickly get a glimpse of the rewards that lie on the other side of the wall.”
Really? Can you honestly see someone working for months to pwn ‘Through the Fire and Flames’ on Expert and then happily move onto the “least gratifying” stage of learning the guitar?
Third, I’ve heard from more than one GH devotee that playing these types of games builds up dexterity and actually makes learning to jam a real axe a lot easier. I think such a statement could be equated to having sex with Jenna Jameson’s Love Doll: sure, she looks like Jenna, sounds like Jenna, and is made of almost as much plastic as Jenna, but practicing your Turkish Wheelbarrow on an inanimate porn-star clone does not exactly make you Ron Jeremy, does it?
Besides, let’s not confuse dexterity with muscle memory and mindless repetition. True, these do play a part in learning guitar skills, but daft statements like, “This is preparing me for the real thing” sound remarkably like one of those “Click here to master the guitar in 30 days!” banner ads, which, ironically enough, popped up surprisingly often on several sites I researched Guitar Hero on.
To play devil’s advocate though, I suppose we can’t rule out those who strap on that shoddy plastic controller for a little bit of escapism, or to make a proudly make of fool of themselves in front of their mates in the way that only karaoke can top, but I still feel somewhat protective over my music whenever I hear someone talk about their chops on Guitar Hero as if they’re actually worth something in the real world. I also don’t want to seem like a cantankerous old muso like Mason or Wyman whose contempt smacks of their defunct music careers.
Either way, I’m sticking to my guns on this one. And to call in some closing-comment fire support, I’ll quote the wise words of guitar god Tom Morello (on having his likeness appearing in Guitar Hero):
“Every day on the street I have people coming up me and going, ‘Dude, I kicked your ass at Guitar Hero!’
I’m like, ‘Yes, it’s a video game. You should get out more.’”
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