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Axe’d

Today was a day of guitar woes.

It started off as a pretty chill day.  After going to Piedmont Park for a friend’s birthday party, I went back home, worked on my Final Destination 4 set visit article and then kicked back with a little Rock Band, playing the guitar on solo.  Even though it’s a wired controller and not made by Red Octane (who made the controllers for the Guitar Hero games), I’ve warmed to EA’s Fender Statrocaster.  I tried to ignore the conventional wisdom that they’re more fragile than a newborn baby and you’ll have to return it to EA for a new one sooner rather than later.  I was just enjoying kicking back and strumming out some tunes.

So of course, today it started fucking out on me.  I was playing “Go With the Flow” and going through some fast notes and the game no longer registered the strumming of the guitar.  And that’s all there is to it.

But look!  There’s a silver lining!  While I’m waiting for my Stratocaster to return, I can go pick up Guitar Hero III which as a wireless guitar and which I wanted to pick up anyway!  And that guitar works with Rock Band!  Oh boy!

Oh no.  I picked up GHIII and the wireless guitar, which I remember loving when I used a friend’s over at his house, is now too small and the buttons are too far apart.  My Stratocaster has spoiled me.  But those are minor complaints.  The big complaint is the tilt sensitivity.   In GHIII, it’s a hair-trigger.  The guitar picks up that the Earth is rotating and thus activates Star Power, completely removing any strategy and timing in building up Star Power to deploy during a solo.  But in Rock Band, I have to spaz out on the thing in order to make the game kick into Overdrive.  Either way, it hurts the gameplay and it hurts my soul.

Tomorrow, GHIII goes back to Best Buy.  Aside from the defective guitar, the game, were it called anything other than “Guitar Hero” would be bashed and dismissed as an imitator of the superior previous games.  Song selection is such an important piece of these games.  The first song in the first two sets I’m even excited to play is “Bulls on Parade”.  Somehow, “Talk Dirty to Me” and “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” do absolutely nothing for me.  I’m not saying Rock Band has the market cornered on great songs, but at least the majority are worth playing.  It also has frequent download content, unlike Activision, who still haven’t figured out this whole durn online sales business.

Playing both games, it’s clear that the true sequel to Guitar Hero II isn’t Guitar Hero III but Rock Band.  And if they hadn’t made it so easily breakable, it would also have the superior guitar.

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