06 Jan

damn you, guitar hero

my wrists are in pain. I’ve a lump of calloused flesh on my right thumb. my fingers are hyper-sensitive. and yet I want to do it again.

I’ve beaten Easy and Moderate and am half-way through Hard.

most of the songs in Hard are …hard… it’s kind of annoying that you have to pass every single song in the playlist to win, where in the Moderate and Easy levels, you had to pass maybe 3/4 of them. if I was playing live on stage, I think I would have a choice of what to play or not…

an annoyance in the game is that I (like a lot of players, I imagine) can actually play guitar. I keep trying to play notes that are not actually mapped on the tab, and you can’t show a bit of flair or improvise with the timing, which I like to do when playing an actual guitar.

given all that, I’ve managed to reach The Knights Of Cydonia. that is one bugger of a song. as attested by another player, the most punishing part of the song is the Amending Chorus and the Galloping Triplets – two sections of finger-destroying repetition. it’s not even that they’re particularly hard – it’s just that they sap the energy from your hands and make you swear off listening to Muse for fear of flashbacks.

a pretty cool part of the song comes near the beginning, where you get to do some incredibly fast picking. I’m not sure that Muse in reality play this song so difficultly. if so, though, Matthew Bellamy, if I had a hat, it would currently be off.

some people say that the key to getting through that section is not even to try – store up some star power and use it when you get there so the audience won’t hear all the mistakes you make. I think I’ll just keep trying. when I get to Expert level I’m sure it will be even harder…

3 thoughts on “damn you, guitar hero

  1. I don’t play guitar – I’d like to, but I’ve never gotten around to picking one up, so I’m fortunate enough to not have that mental block there. I think that’s actually an advantage in playing GH, because I don’t have to “unlearn” anything.

    As far as getting through Knights of Cydonia, the advice you list at the bottom is what I’d recommend, too. Save your star power, and fire it up when your rock meter dips into the red for the first time. That should get out of the Amending Chorus and Galloping Triplets, and you should be home free for the rest of the song. You won’t get any better than three stars that way, but at least you’ll be able to move on.

  2. dude haven’t you seen the south park episode, Guitar Queer-o? if not watch it now on southparkzone.com! bloody great! i tried the game in GAME once but cuz i play the real thing i gave up pretty soon after! lol

  3. I’ve seen the episode, and it ruled. You should get a copy of the game for yourself – it’s really addictive.

    On that note, I’m still on the same song – I had to take a two week break because the incredibly fast picking managed to ruin my right wrist.

    I can get through the triplets section consistently now and still have some kudos left with the audience, but as Larry said, the section after it is exhausting. The triplets are repetitive and easy to follow when you have the rhythm, but the section after that is all over the place. not as fast, but harder to follow. I’ll have to train on that as well…

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