Guitar Hero II PS2: FImp

Finished up the Medium difficulty. Did get booed off of the stage once in the next to last set list, otherwise ran straight through. The Free Bird encore was cute... about five yes/no screens wondering if I really wanted to play it. UFO animation was a little out there, though.

One thing I don't get about the game is why someone would pour so many hours into the game instead of learning to play guitar. I mean, the medium difficulty was enjoyable and didn't require, for me, any practice time, but I get the feeling the more difficult levels will, as would getting five stars in every Medium song. Having played just enough drums, piano, and bass to know what that time wasted would get one on a "real" instrument, I have to question why I'd put in the time. Sure, the rewards for the first few hours are much greater than the first few hours on a traditional instrument, but how long before the returns are much lower than the additional investment?

Past that, however, there were times when playing felt awfully close to how jamming on the guitar should feel, scare quoting the "should" there. It's well done. I'll complain that the graphics are absolutely wasted on anyone, as I doubt they have time to watch. The songs aren't always exactly favorites. Looking forward to Rock Band.

Aside: Did try Frets on Fire, which would seem to have the potential to be the first OSS game worth a rat's behind... okay, beyond say FreeCiv, the Privateer port, Marathon updates, we'll add angband for Matt, a few built off of ids' engines, and perhaps a few others. Still, if done right, FoF would be a really nice addition, potentially the sort of game that would help sell Linux on the consumer desktop. Unf. it takes over 500 megs of memory, which on my poor box with Vista and only a gig means no go. I tried twice. Oh well. Time to hook the tower back up, I guess.