Let Me Tell You, ‘Guitar Hero’ Had No Right Being That Difficult

I was never really good at video games. For context, in high school, all my friends would obsess over Grand Theft Auto, Halo, and Call Of Duty 2: Modern Warfare and here I was begging them to play Singstar: Pop Hits. Let’s just say, shooting games were not my forté.

Thus, an obvious middle ground was the game Guitar Hero. Released in 2005, Guitar Hero was so popular with audiences, it became culture. It was everywhere. It was literally inescapable. At a time when the gaming industry was playing around with different technologies (with Buzz, SingStar and EyeToy), Guitar Hero felt like the perfect balance of traditional gaming but with a twist. 

Not only this, but Guitar Hero had a great mix of songs from different genres and different eras, so it felt like there was something for everyone. It was the game that brought everyone together (aka me, the guy who was into power ballads and my friends who were into literally everything else).

In theory, Guitar Hero was the perfect game. The only issue? Oh, just one little thing: it was so fucking hard! 

Guitar Hero Had No Right Being That Difficult

Sure, everyone was invited to play Guitar Hero, but unless you played the guitar already (or perhaps any musical instrument), this game was so, so, so hard. 

To refresh your memory, Guitar Hero challenged the player to strum the plastic guitar whilst pressing down on the coloured buttons on the neck of the guitar, to mimic the colours that came up on screen.

Don’t even get me started…

Firstly, doing two things at once is a difficult task. How did the game expect me to strum with one hand and press buttons with my other hand at the same time? When I say that this act alone took me approximately three hours to learn, I’m not joking. 

Secondly, on Guitar Hero, the player has to press five different buttons when playing on modes higher than medium. And the last time I checked, I had one thumb (to hold the damn guitar) and only four other fingers to press buttons. How was I meant to get to the 5th one? I could barely use my pinky finger, which left me with only three coordinated fingers!

And finally, you never know what buttons you’ll be pressing on the game. Now, I know that sounds so stupid, but hear me out. I feel like there were always two options when playing Guitar Hero: you could be playing the guitar section of the song or you could be playing whatever the dominant melody is in the song. And because I never knew, I was always so fidgety at the start, causing my final score to be a lot lower than it should’ve been!

So all-in-all, Guitar Hero thank you for being the comfortable middle ground for me and my friends. But also, fuck you, for being so hard.

While we’re on the subject of games, do you remember Suite Life Of Zack And Cody: Tipton Trouble?