I’ve been pretty obsessed with computer games ever since I got my first ZX Spectrum in 1983. I’ve also been a guitar nutjob since I got my first guitar in 1988. So naturally you’d think anywhere that the two fields cross would be a veritable nexus of joy for one such as myself.
I squeak, of course, of the Guitar Hero series of games available for the console of your choice for a few years now. However, I completely avoided them citing a total lack of interest because, primarily, I play the real guitar – why do I need a guitar game?
Well that belligerent resistance melted away like butter under a blowtorch this Christmas when I opened the largest box under the tree to find the latest instalment “Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock” (complete with wireless Kramer Striker guitar!) and I plugged the fucker in.
Wow, what fun. I can’t quite decide if being a real guitar player makes it easier or harder. Slash (for he is a level boss and unlockable character in the game) was interviewed for the game and he claims it makes it harder, and on one level I definitely agree with him. Your guitar playing brain expects things that aren’t always there and makes you second-guess the game a bit too much making you play notes that aren’t there and lose points. On the other hand, songs I know very well like “Welcome To The Jungle” and “Paranoid” are much easier to get to grips with than songs I have never heard before like the Sonic Youth tune (which is bollocks, by the way – never did like them).
It’s a great game, though. A new feature in this instalment is Guitar Battles, where you have to play against a famous guitarist and try to make them lose their cool and fail the song before you do. Once you complete the last of these, you have won the game on the current skill level. (I have at this time finished it on Easy and Medium, though Hard is causing me some bother, and Expert is frankly terrifying.) At this point the credits roll, and you get to play a bonus song – “Through The Fire And Flames” by Dragonforce – and once you do it on Medium, you unlock that song so you can play it when you like.
This was my first introduction to Dragonforce‘s music, having long ago dismissed them as ridiculous speed-metallers that I had no interest in. Aside: Long ago in the mists of time (Easter 2002, as it happens) I was at a jam event populated by Ibanez enthusiasts, one of whom was Herman Li, one of the guitarists in Dragonforce. He was fucking awesome.
Anyhow, I found myself loving the song more than I expected to (regardless of my lacklustre Guitar Hero performance of it – it’s crazy difficult on any skill level) so I grabbed their latest album from which the track comes, entitled “Inhuman Rampage”.
Bugger me if it’s not my favourite album of the past few months. Whoa yes, sir. Can’t stop listening to it. It’s utterly ridiculous and layered with wall-to-wall metal clichés, but fucking hell it’s good fun. The musicianship is without question jawdropping, but it’s the sense of humour with which Herman and Sam approach the guitar sounds and solos they use that really makes it for me. You’d have to listen to the album to really get what I mean.
Do so. You might like it.
–c.
Saw them live last year…bloody excellent!