One of the dorkiest things that I do is watch Fox news at weird hours. If I wake up early and have a lot of time on my hands I'll watch Fox and friends. If I'm home during the middle of the day and nothing else is on I'll watch Your World w/Neil Cavuto even though I don't really have too much vested interest in running my own business or knowing how the stock market is doing that day. If it's late in afternoon the I might watch Studio B with Shepard Smith so I can catch up on the day's events. Another show I watch rather regularly is the O'Reilly factor. I don't know how dorky all that is, but if we remain relative to what other college students are doing during these times then people might think that I carry pens in every color of the rainbow, in my front pocket.
Having said all of that, I think I may have gotten just a little dorkier. For the past 5 days I have played a game on the playstation 2 that has me questioning my worth on this lovely earth. It's a game that supercedes anything dance dance revolution could have put out. It's called Guitar Hero.
If you haven't played it then I shall explain the best that I can. Instead of a controller, you have this plastic guitar. Instead of strings, there are five different colored buttons. You strum the little triangle in the middle. Examine the following:
I don't know if it has gotten to the point where it has sounded dorky yet, but just in case it hasn't I will go on. The object of the game is to hit the different notes as they flash across the screen. All of this is played to the tune of some great bands, including but not limited to Incubus, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Queens of the Stone Age, Franz Ferdinand, Queen, Black Sabbath, and they even added some girly bands like Joan Jett and the Blackbirds ("I Love Rock and Roll"). S you strum along, hitting the notes, the song sounds golden. If you don't hit the notes then all there is to be heard is the singer. After a lot of missed notes, the dead silence manifests itself into boooo's from the audience and a nervousness that you might not be able to recover from.
The game is a lot like Dance Dance Revolution in the way you play it, except for the fact that you don't have to go to an arcade, spend 20 dollars trying to master a spin move that looks nothing close to anything anybody would do on a real dance floor, and you don't leave the game with a t-shirt drenched with sweat. Wait, so it's really not like playing DDR.
I have to admit, I thought it would be sort of gay at first. My bro was the one that told me about it. He had played it at a friends house. For the first two minutes he told me that it was fun, I stared him in his eyes, switching from one eye to the other, hoping that the Josh I grew up with hadn't found acceptance in homosexuality. "It sounds gay I know, but it's really fun," he said. "You can play it up at Best Buy if you don't believe me."
So, a little later in the day we made a trip to Best Buy, I wanted to see what all this ruckus was about. As soon as we walked in, I saw someone holding the guitar, I knew that it had to be this game. To my surprise, it was a black dude. And it was a cool looking black guy too, one I'd be afraid to guard on the basketball court. Right away it caught me off guard. I've never seen any black guys play Dance Dance Revolution before so I figured this game had to be somewhat fun. DDR usually attracted the fat kid with acne, the skinny teenager with a nylon button down shirt, the kind with flames on the sides and the black wife beater underneath, or the tall guy with the tucked in shirt, minus the belt. I knew this meant something.
Me and my brother walked around the store for a little while, probably staring at things we couldn't afford. Forty five minutes later we went back to the front. The same guy was standing there, playing a different song. In fact, I imagine that he played 10 different songs before that one. Needless to say, he was that guy. The guy that abuses demo's, who takes a free sample and comes back for fourths, the guy who finds something interesting and never leaves, yeah him. Well that guy had obviously made up his mind, but wasn't telling anybody, that he wasn't going anywhere until he was escorted out for demo abuse. I wasn't about to wait.
My brother ended up buying the game, we brought it home and we took turns making the animated crowd go wild, over songs that I couldn't really play that well. For the next five hours I had no life. Misery loves company so a couple of friends came over. I don't know if I invited them over to establish whether or not I really was a nerd or to see if the game was addicting as I thought it was. I was hoping for the latter. And the latter rang true. It was addicting after all.
In the few days that we have had it, I have accomplished over 50 songs on both the easy and medium levels. Now I've moved my way up to the hard level and am developing psychological problems due to the inability to move my fingers at the speeds required. I have to schedule counseling sessions, after I'm done playing, for the emotional trauma of not being able to hit the orange and yellow notes simutaneously. I start to hate the crowds, for booing me off stage and not letting me complete the song that I completely butchered. And it's just a matter of time before I throw the guitar out the door for my inability to play the solo part in the Ozzy's song "Bark at the Moon".
I've come a long ways in the post air guitar world, but not far enough. My best advice, don't start playing this game, you're guaranteed to get addicted to it. And your even more guaranteed to think of the combos that you missed while you're laying down and attempting to go to sleep. But for now, I must admit, I am a guitar hero. And I challenge you.
The game is a lot like Dance Dance Revolution in the way you play it, except for the fact that you don't have to go to an arcade, spend 20 dollars trying to master a spin move that looks nothing close to anything anybody would do on a real dance floor, and you don't leave the game with a t-shirt drenched with sweat. Wait, so it's really not like playing DDR.
I have to admit, I thought it would be sort of gay at first. My bro was the one that told me about it. He had played it at a friends house. For the first two minutes he told me that it was fun, I stared him in his eyes, switching from one eye to the other, hoping that the Josh I grew up with hadn't found acceptance in homosexuality. "It sounds gay I know, but it's really fun," he said. "You can play it up at Best Buy if you don't believe me."
So, a little later in the day we made a trip to Best Buy, I wanted to see what all this ruckus was about. As soon as we walked in, I saw someone holding the guitar, I knew that it had to be this game. To my surprise, it was a black dude. And it was a cool looking black guy too, one I'd be afraid to guard on the basketball court. Right away it caught me off guard. I've never seen any black guys play Dance Dance Revolution before so I figured this game had to be somewhat fun. DDR usually attracted the fat kid with acne, the skinny teenager with a nylon button down shirt, the kind with flames on the sides and the black wife beater underneath, or the tall guy with the tucked in shirt, minus the belt. I knew this meant something.
Me and my brother walked around the store for a little while, probably staring at things we couldn't afford. Forty five minutes later we went back to the front. The same guy was standing there, playing a different song. In fact, I imagine that he played 10 different songs before that one. Needless to say, he was that guy. The guy that abuses demo's, who takes a free sample and comes back for fourths, the guy who finds something interesting and never leaves, yeah him. Well that guy had obviously made up his mind, but wasn't telling anybody, that he wasn't going anywhere until he was escorted out for demo abuse. I wasn't about to wait.
My brother ended up buying the game, we brought it home and we took turns making the animated crowd go wild, over songs that I couldn't really play that well. For the next five hours I had no life. Misery loves company so a couple of friends came over. I don't know if I invited them over to establish whether or not I really was a nerd or to see if the game was addicting as I thought it was. I was hoping for the latter. And the latter rang true. It was addicting after all.
In the few days that we have had it, I have accomplished over 50 songs on both the easy and medium levels. Now I've moved my way up to the hard level and am developing psychological problems due to the inability to move my fingers at the speeds required. I have to schedule counseling sessions, after I'm done playing, for the emotional trauma of not being able to hit the orange and yellow notes simutaneously. I start to hate the crowds, for booing me off stage and not letting me complete the song that I completely butchered. And it's just a matter of time before I throw the guitar out the door for my inability to play the solo part in the Ozzy's song "Bark at the Moon".
I've come a long ways in the post air guitar world, but not far enough. My best advice, don't start playing this game, you're guaranteed to get addicted to it. And your even more guaranteed to think of the combos that you missed while you're laying down and attempting to go to sleep. But for now, I must admit, I am a guitar hero. And I challenge you.
