3/10/2009 - D-Pad Hero

Except for the "controller" and the CD-quality music, there's nothing about Guitar Hero's gameplay that prevents it from being a game that could be played on retro systems like the NES. It's just a rhythm-based game that tests how well you can follow the button presses and strumming directions on the screen. This fact is not lost on modders who can make custom games that can run on NES emulators and potentially on the console itself. And thus the game "D-Pad Hero" was born, and it actually looks hard:



I mean, it seems difficult to me to separate the directional nature of the left-B button and the right-A button from the directions you have to press on the D-Pad. Even trying to follow the motions in my head is giving me a headache.

3/3/2009 - Through the Fire and Flames 100%

I'm not sure what happened to Conrad the Great's video of him passing the Guitar Hero 3 song Through the Fire and Flames, but as "Great" as Conrad is, he wasn't perfect with the song. It's hard to imagine, though, that anyone could perform it perfectly. But you know that if anyone could, that they would put it on YouTube. Indeed, the aptly named "GuitarHeroPhenom" has done the unthinkable and conquered the song with a 100% result. And to prove his achievement, he records himself playing so he can present a picture-in-picture performance to the world:

1/20/2009 - Theremin Hero

Rock Band and Guitar Hero World Tour have the element of karaoke in it where you can sing along to the song and be judged on your timing and pitch. So, is it possible to cheat in the vocal gameplay? I guess if you were to play the recorded song back to the microphone, you could. But what's the fun in that? Take an instrument that produces a human-like voice sound like the theremin, pipe that to the microphone and you get "Theremin Hero":

12/18/2008 - SlashBot: The Guitar Hero Robot

How hard is a Guitar Hero song on Expert? Not even a robot can get 100%:



Seriously though, that is one cool invention. It already tops the Wii bowling robot I blogged about a while ago. I'm not sure if the robot actually "sees" the screen and the notes that it's supposed to be playing or if it's pre-programmed somehow. I would assume it is the former, otherwise it wouldn't be worth it as a game-playing robot if was just programmed with the song already in memory.

10/26/2008 - The Definition of "Choke"

The term "hardcore gaming" can be applied to pretty much any game out there. For the challenging old school games like Mega Man, Castlevania, and Ninja Gaiden, people had to replay levels over and over again just to beat those games. Others would replay those levels ten times over just to memorize every part of them so they know where enemies spawn, where the traps are, and what the best way to avoid them. Why? So that they can do speedruns of the games and compete against others. Even games like Guitar Hero have a hardcore gamer element to them. You'd think that for songs that have hundreds of notes that missing a few or getting over 95% of them right would be enough for most. Well, it is for most people, but not for the hardcore. You'll see what happens when one of those hardcore gamers gets 654 out of 657 notes in one of the most demanding solos of the game:

12/25/2007 - Christmas, Guitars, and NI DAQ

Alright, I said that I wasn't going to have another blog entry until next year, but since I found this Christmas-themed gem of a video, I just had to share it today. Guitar Hero-mania is sweeping the nation (I should know...after just attending a local GH3 competition) and what would be the most appropriate way of incorporating Christmas into it? Christmas music modded into the game? Nah! A mall Santa playing the game? That would be interesting to see, but this is so much cooler:



Now THAT'S the ticket! You know, in addition to being technical geniuses, some nerds are the most creative people you'll ever meet, and this is the proof. I've seen Christmas lights synchronized to music before, but this really brings it to a new level. And missed notes lighting up the trashcan? Brilliant. This almost makes me wish I was working in a cubicle.

11/25/2007 - Guitar Hero 3 Through the Fire and Flames XPERT!

Alright, I've dumped on Guitar Hero before because I thought that playing the game isn't an exact analogue to playing on an actual guitar. I still feel that a game like this should be a learning facility for playing an instrument, but this video at least gives me an appreciation for the good Guitar Hero players out there. Apparently, this is the hardest song/level in the game and after watching it, I just cannot comprehend how anybody besides the original guitarist of the song would be able to keep up with the pace. I mean, it just looks physically impossible to match, note for note, the pattern displayed on the screen to the strumming of the controller/guitar. The player here is called "Conrad the Great", and I must say that he deserves that nickname.



On a side note, I'm not really into hard rock songs, but this one actually grew on me. So much so that "Through the Fire and Flames" will be the first song I'll rock to on my new iPod Touch!