Confessions Of A Guitar Hero Junkie | By Casey Landman

posted by Matt on October 29th, 2007 in Music

This weekend marked the highly anticipate release of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. It seems like everyone we know went out and purchased the game. Some even going to the lengths of waiting outside a store until midnight to be one of the first people to grab the game off the shelves.

Being that it was such a huge deal we wanted to get more insight as to why people love the game so much. It just so happens that Jon’s wife, Casey happens to be a Guitar Hero junkie so she broke it all down for us.

Just when I thought my weekend couldn’t be any better (it started with Bon Jovi in Newark – how do you top that?) we got wind on Saturday morning there were some stores that would open at midnight Sunday to sell the new Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock game. I was psyched! I didn’t think I was going to be able to get it until Tuesday. I went right to the local GameStop and paid in full at noon so that in just 12 hours I would be able to walk in, pick up the game and kiss my Sunday goodbye.

I first saw the game back in 2005 at the Digital Life Conference and Convention at the Javitz Center here in NYC. It looked cool – Dance Dance Revolution without having to jump around on a mat – and we watched as people tried their luck with Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock and Roll”. It reminded me of the game that caused me to go to the mall and not think twice about dropping 200 bucks on the first PlayStation system – Parappa the Rappa (push buttons to make dog in hat rap about karate with an onion? Genius!), but it wasn’t until early 2006 when I got to actually strap that plastic guitar on and play “More than a feeling” for the first time at a friend’s house. I was hooked. We went out the very next day and bought it for ourselves and I soon started spending every free second I had at home playing.

Now, I play guitar for real. I have played in real bands. I have performed real shows in real venues, but something about how I could make all the songs sound like, well, songs, just by hitting the right colored keys and strumming at the right time gave me such a rush. I would get so into it. I couldn’t believe how satisfying the feeling was. I would play songs over and over trying to get a higher score than before, or getting 100% notes hit. Songs I never even really liked before suddenly became obsessions. I made playlists on iTunes of “songs from guitar hero”. I would be out in public and hear a song from the game and play “air guitar hero” with my left hand pressing “air” buttons.

I was most excited for this version of the game to finally come out – for one, it had the best line up of songs so far. Every time they would release more titles I would get more and more excited. Cherub Rock!!! One!!! RAINING BLOOD!!!! This one was going to be the best. And now I get to play online with the XBOX (a recent addition to our household).

We went back to GameStop at 11:45 and waited for the doors to open. It wasn’t a Halo-like crowd, maybe 20 people total. They opened the doors and we all waited patiently to get our hands on the game. When they handed over the box I got so giddy…I couldn’t wait to get it home and rip it open to start playing!

I played on Medium until about 2 am Sunday morning – working my way through the first three levels of the game (not once failing a song) and went to bed. I woke up at 8 am and went right back down and started playing again. For kicks, I went to the XBOX Live section and tried to play someone online. My first opponent had me play “The Metal” on Expert. I lost terribly but was psyched to be able to play against or with other people whenever I wanted. I checked out the high score list (the game had been out 8 hours at this point I remind you) and there were already scores of over 500,000 points per song on expert level, which confirmed for me that no matter how obsessed I am with the game, there are people who are even MORE obsessed! I continued working my way through the game for about 3 hours Sunday morning and another 2 Sunday night and I had beaten Medium Level. My finger joints are stiff, my legs and neck are tired from standing in my crazy wide guitar hero stance while staring at the TV, and I can’t wait to go back and do it all again on Hard.