Power play
A Cambridge company scores a major hit with Guitar Hero, which lets you be a rock god
Everybody wants to be a rock star. Good thing it takes years of relentless effort or everyone in America would be launching a summer concert tour right about now.
But for most of us, that primal hunger for rock 'n' roll glory isn't quite strong enough to justify all those tedious guitar lessons. Never mind. Now you can live the dream, even if you can't play a note. All you need is a copy of Guitar Hero, a challenging and exhilarating game that transforms even the most tone-deaf player into Eddie Van Halen. Unveiled with little fanfare last year, Guitar Hero has become a major success for its creators at Harmonix Music Systems in Cambridge.
``The feeling of making music is an amazing feeling," said Harmonix chief technical officer Eran Egozy, a classically trained clarinet player with a master's in computer science from MIT. ``We wanted to capture that." It took the designers long enough -- about a decade, in fact, with a few inglorious flops along the way.
But this time they've succeeded beyond their dreams. Despite a small advertising budget, Guitar Hero, available only for the
The first Guitar Hero would have sold much better, except for a shortage that made the game as hard to come by during the holidays as
``They haven't been able to make the plastic guitars fast enough," said Harmonix chief executive Alex Rigopulos, a musician and graduate of MIT's Media Lab. And of course you can't be a rock god without the ability to hurl six-string thunderbolts.
The pseudo-guitar is the secret of Guitar Hero's success. Harmonix had already created a couple of PlayStation 2 music games, Frequency and Amplitude , that used a standard game controller. These games won splendid reviews but languished on the shelves. Then Red Octane, a California firm that makes dance pads used in games such as Konami's ``Dance Dance Revolution," suggested a game that would include a guitar-shaped controller. Red Octane would supply the guitars; Harmonix would develop the software. The Harmonix team loved the idea and put together the Guitar Hero software in nine months. Much of that time was spent negotiating the rights to include classic songs such as ``I Love Rock N' Roll" by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, ``Iron Man" by Black Sabbath, and ``Godzilla" by Blue Oyster Cult.
With help from Harmonix vice president Greg LoPiccolo, former bassist for the Boston-based band Tribe, Harmonix rerecorded these songs and dozens more. Each sounds indistinguishable from the original. But these new versions have a separate lead guitar track -- performed by the person playing the game.
Can't play guitar? Not a problem. Your Red Octane-supplied guitar has no strings anyway. Instead, the neck contains six large buttons, while the body of the instrument has a large rocker switch. You play by pushing one of the buttons and strumming the switch.
The playing technique uses a gimmick pioneered by ``Dance Dance Revolution." In that game, the player stands on a dance pad with electrical switches built in. Lighted arrows that stream across the TV screen tell the person when to step left or right, forward or back. In Guitar Hero, an on-screen guide shows which of the neck buttons to press. Just push it and strum the guitar's body switch. If you time it right, the lead guitar track rings out. You've just played a lick.
If you can keep up with the scrolling commands on-screen, your fingers dance over the buttons, and a rock masterpiece howls forth from your speakers. You hear roars of approval from adoring fans. On-screen, your animated bandmates go wild, spasming and lurching about the stage, enraptured by your sheer musical excellence.
Of course, if you can't keep up, discordant plunking is all you hear. Your humiliated bandmates grow irritable; the crowd boos. All that's missing are the flying beer bottles. Your dreams of stardom are over, at least until you restart the game and try again. With the music (or lack of it), the cheers and jeers, and the body language of the band, Guitar Hero creates an irresistible illusion of rock glory.
It's more than a game; it's an infection. Few people can watch someone playing Guitar Hero without feeling the urge to try it out. Even John Tam, executive producer at Red Octane, was surprised when he showed off the game at an industry event last year. ``We knew it was going to be good," said Tam, ``but we didn't know it was going to turn people into fanboys while we were watching."
Now it's time for an encore. Guitar Hero II will offer tougher playing challenges and the ability for two guitarists to cooperate in a song, with one playing bass or rhythm while the other plays lead. There will also be a practice mode that lets the player work on just the hard parts of a song instead of having to go through the entire tune. And there will be lots more ear-shredding music -- 55 tunes in all.
Don't bother e-mailing Harmonix and begging it to include AC/DC's ``Back in Black" or Aerosmith's ``Walk This Way." The company has a comprehensive list of headbanger classics it will happily include, if the bands and record labels will license the music.
``We've gotten a really blockbuster catalog of artists," said Red Octane's Tam. Although he won't reveal much about the playlist, it will include music from Black Label Society, the band led by Ozzy Osbourne's lead guitarist Zakk Wylde . Tam said that Wylde was so impressed by the original game that he let the makers use his song ``Fired Up" free of charge.
Other independent rock bands will also provide tracks for the game. After all, landing a song on Guitar Hero II could be their next big step toward rock 'n' roll supremacy. If not, they can always fire up the PlayStation and make believe.
