Geee-Taaar Heee-Roooooo!!

I finally got Guitar Hero this past Tuesday. It was a long time coming.

There was a considerable stretch where I couldn't afford the bundle on my own. I tried to get my brother on board by showing him the GH segment on Reviews on the Run, on the day of the Royal Rumble in January. He didn't bite. He said if I wanted to play a guitar, I could use the one collecting dust in my room. Nonsense! True nonsense, but nonsense all the same!

My craving for music games needed to be satiated, and in a cheap way. I found a previous Harmonix offering in Frequency by chance at Toys "R" Us in February. I had a lot of fun with it, until I got stuck trying to push some goofy amount of shoulder buttons at 175bpm. (Damn you, Roni Size & Reprazent.) I also picked up the kooky Um Jammer Lammy around the same time on eBay. While ridiculously amusing ("Never use Joe Chin's chains for them, no!"), it hasn't been played a great deal since February. I again tried to get Josh into the idea of the rhythm game genre, but he wouldn't even try Frequency. Grumble.

Fast forward through a few months of futilely waiting for a Canadian price drop, and scouring eBay for a decent deal, but inevitably being cut out by high demand, and shipping prices.

Tuesday evening, I'm still awake after getting up at 1AM, and I decide I've had enough waiting. After several minutes of gabbing with my brother's friend who works there, and his spending quite awhile on the phone trying to get my antique gift card worth all of $14.94 to work, I emerge from EB a geeky guitar god (in the non-blasphemous sense). After Big Brother was done, I dug into the giant box, and proceeded to play my long-awaited prize for a solid 3 hours. Until 1AM on Wednesday. I went to bed a sore, weary-eyed, but satisfied dude.

Unfortunately, this tale doesn't have the happiest of endings. Don't get me wrong, I love the game. But my left arm, wrist and fingers aren't so ecstatic about the concept. Especially when the game wants me to finger my way through the crazy solos of Bark at the Moon, the extended, long-noted, pinky-using chords of Decontrol, or the repeated hand re-positioning of pretty much every song on Hard.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the game in the long-term. I'll have to find some stretching to do, or a comfortable position to grip the controller. Or, perish the thought, I'll have to limit my play time. Wish me luck, fellow rockers.