Best. Game. Ever.

Last week Liz and I were introduced to the supreme awesomeness that is Guitar Hero.

Most people have never heard of this game, but I'm sure gonna do my best to spread the love as much as possible. The best frame of reference is something like Dance Dance Revolution. Here's the twist: instead of a pad to dance on you get a plastic replica of a Gibson SG guitar (75% of real-life size) to shred on, and instead of electronic stuff you get rock classics. The game has 4 difficulty settings: Easy, Medium, Hard and Expert.

Here's the full track list (courtesy of Wikipedia), broken up by the set list for each concert you have to play (at first you only need to "pass" on 4 of the 5 songs, but at later levels you need to nail all of them):

1. Opening Licks

· I Love Rock & Roll - Joan Jett & The Blackhearts
· I Wanna Be Sedated - The Ramones
· Thunder Kiss 65 - White Zombie
· Smoke On The Water - Deep Purple
· Infected - Bad Religion

2. Axe-Grinders

· Iron Man - Black Sabbath
· More Than a Feeling - Boston
· You Got Another Thing Comin' - Judas Priest
· Take Me Out - Franz Ferdinand
· Sharp Dressed Man - ZZ Top

3. Thrash And Burn

· Killer Queen - Queen
· Hey You - The Exies
· Stellar - Incubus
· Heart Full of Black - Burning Brides
· Symphony Of Destruction - Megadeth

4.Return of the Shred

· Ziggy Stardust - David Bowie
· Fat Lip - Sum 41
· Cochise - Audioslave
· Take It Off - The Donnas
· Unsung - Helmet

5.Fret-Burners

· Spanish Castle Magic - Jimi Hendrix
· Higher Ground - Red Hot Chili Peppers
· No One Knows - Queens of the Stone Age
· Ace Of Spades - Motörhead
· Crossroads - Cream

6.Face-Melters (become unlocked when you beat the first five stages on the Medium setting)

· Godzilla - Blue Öyster Cult
· Texas Flood - Stevie Ray Vaughan
· Frankenstein - The Edgar Winter Group
· Cowboys From Hell - Pantera
· Bark at the Moon - Ozzy Osbourne

There are also close to 20 extra tracks that you can unlock by spending the money you earn playing live shows, but I don't think Liz and I are going to bother for now, since they're all by relatively unknown bands (plus we'd rather unlock new guitars and guitar skins, :-)!).

Obviously it's impossible to include everything that one feels should've been in the game, but we're pretty sure there'll be an expansion/sequel at some point, since this game got so many good reviews and won so many awards. Some artists we were surprised to not see included in some capacity: Guns 'n Roses, AC/DC, Van Halen and Led Zeppelin.

With the songs included in the game there's really a good progression from the simple ("I Wanna Be Sedated") to the complicated ("Killer Queen") to the hard ("Crossroads") to the incredibly tough ("Cowboys From Hell", "Bark at the Moon"). Liz and I have both completed the game in Easy and Medium modes, and are working at Hard mode. She's at the first show, and I'm close to completing the third one (I managed to pass "Killer Queen" and "Hey You" this morning before heading out to work, leaving just "Heart Full of Black" in my way!).

The difference in difficulty between the modes is also very noticeable. To see just how complicated Expert mode is, check out this video of someone (who is clearly a Guitar Hero god) playing "Cowboys From Hell", which is one of the toughest songs in the game.

Anyway, keep your fingers crossed for us (lord knows our fingers are crossed from trying to hit all those notes).

Luis

UPDATE (2/23/2006): last night I was on a tear and I somehow beat 4 of the 5 songs on the last tier of the Hard difficulty, one right after another! After trying to finish "Cowboys From Hell" a few times (all in vain), I finally nailed it (and by "nailed it" I mean "I got through the song, finishing deep in the red"). After that "Godzilla", "Texas Flood" and "Frankenstein" all felt my wrath (first Cowboys, then the world!). "Bark at the Moon" remains the last hurdle between The Death Metal Ninjas and the Expert difficulty, mwahahahahaha!

YET ANOTHER UPDATE (2/27/2006): this weekend I finally beat "Bark at the Moon" on Hard, hahaha! I then proceeded to clear the first 4 tiers of songs on Expert Mode, which really psyched me up. I'm now left with the hardest stuff in the game, obviously, with tracks like "Crossroads", "Cowboys From Hell" and "Bark at the Moon". If I don't clear a single other song, though, I'll still be pretty happy with myself, :-).