‘Guitar Hero’ craze offers a chance to rock

Scott Johnson’s pinky finger reaches the note just in time for his index and middle fingers to catch up. They fly across the fret board with the grace of an agile dancer, a searing backdrop for Pat Benatar’s strained vocals: “Hit me with your best shot. Why don’t you hit me with your best shot? Fire away!”

The crowd goes crazy as Johnson finishes his final solo; but they’re not actually cheering for him.

Johnson isn’t Benatar’s lead guitar player. He is an 18-year-old man playing a video game in Best Buy on Reserve Street in Missoula.

Scott’s game? “Guitar Hero,” the interactive guitar-simulation that has been snatched up by eager gamers since video game publisher RedOctane released the original version for PlayStation 2 in November 2005.

Under the neon lights of the big box store, Johnson, a towering, stocky kid who looks like he could be a linebacker stands solid in front of a television screen. His face is expressionless while he plays the newest addition to the “Guitar Hero” trilogy.

He plays “just for fun; it’s a good way to kill time,” Johnson said.

Mega-publisher Activision bought the rights to the original game and published its own version a year after the 2005 release.

“Guitar Hero II” followed a few weeks later and “Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock” debuted in October of last year.

When Activision released “Guitar Hero III,” stores nationwide organized midnight “Guitar Hero” play-ins.

“Guitar Hero” rolled in more than $1 billion in revenue in 2007, becoming the best-selling video game of all time in a single calendar year, according to the NPD Group, a market research company providing news and information on consumer trends.

“It’s one of the hottest-selling games ever,” said Jack Kirkland, store service manager at the Reserve Street Best Buy.

A “Guitar Hero II” bundle for PlayStation 2, which includes the game and a guitar controller, retails for $74.99.

Johnson said he owns “Guitar Hero II” for his Xbox 360 but has to visit Best Buy while he saves up enough cash to purchase the pricier “Guitar Hero III.”

He doesn’t have a real guitar at home, and he’s not interested in ever playing the instrument, he said.

“Guitar’s a lot harder. I can’t coordinate five fingers at once,” he said. He’s only been playing “Guitar Hero” for two months but is already scouting out the Expert level.

Players choose from four levels. The Easy level starts off requiring the use of only three fingers to press the green, red and yellow buttons on the fret board. Medium incorporates a faster pace and the blue button, while Hard and Expert add orange and rip-roaring speed.

The game explodes onto the screen with edgy rock-and-roll characters and venues. Players can create their own band or battle their friends; they can pick to be Slash from Guns N’ Roses and have him play a red Gibson guitar; and they can play hit songs by The Rolling Stones, Pearl Jam and Aerosmith.

A loud “YOU ROCK” explodes across the screen when players hit a good percentage of notes during a song. If a player misses notes, the crowd boos; on a controller hooked up to a Wii, the guitar actually vibrates.

“I think interactive games like this are very popular because, like other kinds of games (especially first-person shooters), they allow players to indulge in fantasy play; in this case, the fantasy of rocking out on stage with their favorite bands,” said Lyn Macgregor, a professor of sociology at the University of Montana.

“The surprise, I think, isn’t that ‘Guitar Hero’ is so popular, but that other kinds of interactive games, especially some games for the Wii, have not been as popular as predicted,” Macgregor said.

It could be because “Guitar Hero” appeals to a segment of the market that already play video games. Whereas some games for the Wii have tried to appeal to folks who aren’t big video game consumers, she said.

The game’s recent surge in popularity sparked interest among a few members of the social networking site Facebook, who started the UM chapter of Guitar Hero Addicts Anonymous, which currently has 14 members. Students can rent “Guitar Hero” controllers for $3 an hour in the UC Game Room. A sign-up sheet is provided on top of a shelf below the TV. 

“I went to Amazon.com and saw the top games,” explained game room adviser Lee Clark about why he chose to purchase “Guitar Hero” for the room. He said he bought the game over winter break and paid $150 for the first guitar controller, which he said stopped working after a few weeks. He then shelled out about $80 for the next controller. He said he has not yet broken even, because students only come in to play a few times a week.

One reason the UC game isn’t heavily trafficked may be that there are other options to play “Guitar Hero” in Missoula.
Best Buy hosts a “Guitar Hero” competition through 96.3 The Blaze, a local rock station. Listeners are prompted to call in at a certain time, and the sixth caller is entered into the play-off. Twenty gamers showed up and competed in “Guitar Hero III” at the last competition.

Access Music, a guitar retailer on Orange Street, donated the grand prize – a $450 authentic electric guitar.

Luis Millán, a professor of classical guitar in the UM school of music, said the game could easily lure folks to the guitar.

“But it would be a shock the first time he/she picks up a real guitar and learns that it is much more complicated than pressing buttons,” he said.

“Guitar Hero” may be an alternative to other interactive video games like “Dance Dance Revolution,” for gamers who are too self-conscious to dance in public, he said.

“Most people have played a mean air guitar at one time in their lives, even if they were too drunk at the time to remember it,” Millán said.

“I have never played it (‘Guitar Hero’),” he said. “But I’d give it a shot.”