PLOT & CHARACTERS

Guitar Hero's plot is told pretty much entirely through cool images and cutscenes rather than dialogue. A coverband practices in their garage one day, and is running the world of mainstream rock music the next, battling everyone from Tom Morello to the devil himself. Songs range from Paint it Black by The Rolling Stones to Bulls on Parade by RAGE.



There are 8 character in total to play as, and each represents a different genre. There's Johnny Napalm (Punk, Crossover Thrash), Judy Nails (Riot Grrl, Emo), Axel Steel (Thrash Metal, Hard Rock), Izzy Sparks (Glam Rock, Glam Metal), Casey Lynch (Grunge, Hard Rock), Lars Umlaut (Black Metal, Viking Metal), Xavier Stone (Psychadelic Rock), and the newest edition, Midori (J-Pop).

Johnny Napalm was always my favorite, but I'm sure if you've seen pictures of me and the images I consider "aesthetic", you probably already called it.

GAMEPLAY & CONTROLS

You would think it was a pretty big risk for Activision to go out on a game so granular that it needed it's own controller, but it was quite the opposite. This was still around the same era as Dance Dance Revolution sweeping the nation, so it just ended up being another innovative masterpiece.



It's pretty forward, you get a controller that looks like one of these. It comes with it's own set of stickers and a guitar strap and everything so you can make your statement while jamming out. When you boot up a song, there are colored domes that pop up on the screen and roll down the highway. When each one pops up under the tab that matches its color, you press the colored tab on the guitar controller while you strum your strum bar. On the side of the highway is a rock meter, which hits green when you're doing well and slides towards yellow and red when you're doing shitty. Occassionally there are notes shaped like stars, and hitting those loads the bulbs on top of the rock meter which will garner you "star power". Lifting your guitar when all the bulbs are lit will turn all your notes blue and get you extra points when you hit them.



Above is a lad named Danny Johnson. Back in the day, Danny was considered a legend for his ability to beat well known Power Metal anthem and the hardest song on the game, Through the Fire and the Flames, on the game's hardest setting. This footage is here because it fucking rocks and also shows the above instructions in action.

TRACKLIST & LEADERBOARDS

The tracklist is pretty eclectic, presumably because they wanted to be the game to be as accessible, marketable, and up to date as possible. Granted, most people don't even really like rock music anymore, but these were hits to kill for in 2007.



The ads for Five Gum on the tracklist are a really nice relic, as is whatever level of the game has you shredding on the trailer of a Pontiac brand semi-truck, considering the beauty that was once Pontiac muscle cars are a non existent distributor in this day and age. Ahhh, sweet nostalgia.

My highest score in the game is on One by Metallica, 194,262 out of 383,000 on a Medium setting. I consider it a feat worth bragging about, especially since that guitar solo is bitch and a half to run through. Maybe I'll upload a video of me playing one of these days...

FAN IMAGERY

Megan Fox playing the Wii edition in 2009. Who are these people she's playing with? And more importantly, how do I get her to play with me?

A small collection of rock gods I found floating around various parts of the internet. Need a WATN interview with all of them.



Yours truly, looking cool as ever if I may say so myself.