Living Room Hero

So it's about a week ago and the 30yoRoomie and I are just finishing up a four hour tour on Rock Band. He was playing lead guitar and I was lead vocals. Our band name appropriately titled "Gin & Juice". And as I'm standing there in my living room, sweating, barely able to speak, and swigging down a beer, two thoughts came to my mind.

1. Jon Bon Jovi has to be a woman
2. I am a Rock God!!!!

Rock Band is now my third dive into the world of rock. The whole thing started over a year ago when Guitar Hero 2 came out for the Xbox 360, and with knowing no one who had ever played the game before, I bought the game because I thought it looked cool. Man, I had no idea. Now just like every other Living Room Hero who first picked up the guitar, I had no idea how to play. The idea of using all four of my fingers on Medium difficulty while still strumming in time seemed just impossible at first. But after making a complete fool of myself for a good long while, I finally got the hang of it and started rocking out like a God.
Then came this past holiday season with the famous Rock Band vs Guitar Hero 3 battle. Just so you know where I stood on that battle, I basically gave everyone I've ever met Guitar Hero 3 for Christmas. I had nothing personal against Rock Band. But it just seemed ridiculous to me to spend $170 on a single video game, regardless of the cool toys that came with it.

And for the next five months, the 30yoGF and 30yoRoomie and I have had a great time rocking out to both Guitar Hero 2 & 3. In fact, the final battle at the end of Guitar Hero 3 against the devil playing "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" is still one of the greatest video game final bosses ever!

So now we are in the Dog Days of Summer, and my friend "The Paperboy" agreed to lend me Rock Band. I've heard great things about this game and so I had to give it a shot. Sadly, he doesn't have the drum set, which I'm still dying to play. But let me tell you, even with just the guitar and the mic, the game is intense.

Here I am thinking that the hardest part of this game is going to be the guitar, but in fact, singing is really, really hard. Now, I'm absolutely no vocalist. I have a hard time carrying a tune in the shower, let alone belt out some of the notes in some of these songs. But damn, if it isn't fun trying. And for those of you out there like me, who can't hit a note with a sledgehammer, the only way to play this game is to give it everything you got. If you sing half-assed, you'll quickly find yourself booed off stage and your guitarist pissed off that he has to save you yet again.

So now I sit here reflecting on all of those three games and my overall thoughts on them. First, the Guitar Hero games are much harder. There are many songs that are shared on both GH3 and Rock Band, such as "Mississippi Queen" and the guitar part on Rock Band is stupid easy compared to GH3. Also, I'm not a huge fan of the way that on the World Tour part of Rock Band, you keep playing the same songs over and over again. I've pretty much had my fill of "Blitzkrieg Bop." But all of that is outweighed by the sheer fun of playing together in a band in Rock Band. I can't even imagine the joy of playing with four buddies in the same room together. Also, talk about a family game night. Dad on the drums, Mom on the bass, and the kids on lead guitar and vocals. That's what I'm talking about.

But looking toward the horizon, not all is roses for the Guitar Hero / Rock Band series. They are quickly going to burn themselves out. If this isn't a fad, I don't know what is. First let's look at the sheer volume of games.
1. Guitar Hero (PS2)
2. Guitar Hero 2 (PS2, Xbox 360)
3. Guitar Hero: Rock the 80s (PS2)
4. Guitar Hero 3 (PS2, PS3, 360, Wii)
5. Guitar Hero: On Tour (DS)
6. Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (PS3, 360, Wii)
7. Guitar Hero: World Tour (PS3, 360, Wii)
8. Rock Band (PS2, PS3, 360, Wii)
9. Rock Band: Rock Revolution (PS3, 360)

On top of that is all of the constant downloadable content, that's available for all games, and you can see that the market could get tired of this real fast. It may quickly get to the point where people will have spent more money on these franchises then they did for their systems. I mean if this keeps up then they will run out of quality songs, won't they?

But in the meantime, I'm going to take my guitar and my mic. I'm going to move the tables in my living room and set up my mini stage. And then I'm going to rock out like I've never rocked out before. Because nothing says badass quite like a 30 year old gamer with a plastic toy covered in stickers playing a cover song from Weezer! Oh Yeah!

Until next time,

- The 30 Year Old Gamer