Jared Caraway, striking his best rockstar power stance, plays a hardcore round of Guitar Hero. (Cole Hill)
The “Guitar Hero” video games for Playstation 2 have been steadily gaining followers since their US releases, which occurred about a year apart, in the last quarters of 2005 and 2006 . Ever since my roommate dragged home the hulking box containing the game and a smaller-than-life, guitar-shaped controller, complete with five giddily colorful buttons and a strum bar, I’ve been completely unable to look back. It’s absorbed my nights, occupied my days, and devoured my pristine 2.1 GPA. (If I calculate correctly, I should still be well above half a point; I’ll keep you posted).
My friends, our days of boredom are gone. Guitar Hero is a pure injection of fun.
Red Octane (the company behind the game series) deserves kudos for pulling together a diverse collection of songs in terms of genre, tempo, and era.
You get stoner metal with Black Sabbath, you get grunge pioneers Nirvana (love ’em or hate ’em), you get Heart, and you even get contemporary with Wolfmother. Appropriately enough, the second game ends with the Holy Grail of the rock world: “Free Bird.” It’s a tongue-in-cheek, though still quite genuine, tribute to the popular song, which includes a guitar solo that’s self-evident in its greatness. The song is epic; indeed, this game seems to provide the only way to perform it and sound good beside a karaoke bar and half a bottle of whiskey.
All of the games’s main songs, for reasons both legal and practical, had to be rerecorded. To pull off the mad licks and flat-out guitar wizardry, a chosen one was summoned. For those of you who play, Marcus Henderson is one to fear and worship. He stepped in and nailed unthinkable solos in both games (tracking 20 of 30 songs for the first), and now everybody’s addicted. If you’re not, chances are pretty good that you know somebody who is. So when you’re enjoying a fierce round of “Bark at the Moon,” remember that you’re following in Marcus’s fret taps with every note you hammer on.
As I played valiantly one night to an imaginary audience of girls wearing massive amounts of eyeliner (it was an Every Time I Die song), I started thinking. I thought up a pilgrimage, I planned it, and I executed it. I was to travel and I was going to absorb the unnatural energies rising from the otherworldly infused body of Marcus Henderson into my own being, thus granting me the Guitar Hero crown, which I’d naturally use to conquer the world, build an empire, etc. (Keep dreaming, you dreamers.)
But when I got there, his armed guards stopped me at the gates of his ominous castle. A lightning bolt crackled in the background, and a black cat crossed my path several times. I used my knowledge of obscure karate movies to quickly gain access (turns out they were impressed by my trivia). Marcus sat at the end of a long, dark hall illuminated only by torchlight. The walls were built of large, hand-chiseled stones, and something smelled like moss.
“Who goes there?” he roared, spewing intense fire and, if I recall correctly, even a bit of brimstone.
“Yo, I’m here to, uh, interview you. Could I possibly get your, you know, your autograph first? You’re sort of famous, right?”
“Well, yeah,” he replied humbly, talking in a much lower tone. “I guess so.”
I guess so? I questioned his credentials. “I question your credentials!”
He extended a long, bony finger with a huge Godfather-esque ring and pressed a button. Lynyrd Skynrd appeared out of nowhere as he proceeded to play through an extended “Free Bird” jam session. At one point he levitated. His eyes burned with the fury of an iron furnace. I quickly understood what I was up against.
Check back on next Thursday for part two of “A Guitar Hero’s Journey”, which features an epic interview covering everything from masked henchmen to the late guitar legend, Dimebag Darrell. It’s pure rock that will always fill you up, never let you down. Make it a JC interview.
