Video Game Analysis Highlights: Guitar Hero

I wanted to post some highlights from my video game analysis for this week’s class. I’m going to talk about Guitar Hero, primarily because I’m familiar with it and I know a lot of teens (and college kids) spend a lot of time playing it. First, watch the video I made below (excuse the copyright infringement for using more than a snippet of “Message in a Bottle” – the microphone for our little digital camera is terrible):



Now a few additional notes that weren’t in the video. Guitar Hero 3 allows players with Wii or Playstation 3 to play against each other online as well as in person. My favorite part about this game is that it’s a great “party game.” You can play with a big group of people – some might watch, while others will just talk and enjoy the music in the background. We’ve done Guitar Hero for a YA program at our library, and it was just as successful as the DDR programs we’ve done. (I even did DDR for 1st-3rd graders last summer, and it went over well – I’m sure Guitar Hero could work, too.)

The beauty of Guitar Hero is that you can pick up any of the games and play them without having played the others. There isn’t a continuous storyline or learned elements in one that are necessary for another. (Which also makes it fun and easy to do for a library program.)

This is one of the few video games I will play. You have a lot of options to play a variety of songs (especially if you get 1, 2, 3, and the 80s version), and you can choose your character, outfit, and guitar. If you play on easy, it’s pretty hard to “die” once you get the hang of it (you can lose the game if you play too many incorrect notes and the Rock Meter goes into the red zone).

I could say more, but this is already over 250 words, and I should really be packing for the LEEP weekend.