leopold and loeb

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Guitar Hero


OK, OK. I hear you. i promised to keep this thing updated and i have failed, BUT i do want to remind all you nags out there that i am in college, and therefore i can still pretend that i have a life and there are more important things in it than posting.


Truth be told the only time i really post anything is when im at work during school breaks.


Which brings me to todays topic: video games. i have always been of the school of thought that thinks that video games are bad. they have themes of reckless violence, they encourage sitting and not moving for hours on end (why am i against this? thats one of my favorite hobbies...) and they discourage human interaction. which is why i was so surprised that i am slowly getting addicted to my brother's new game "Guitar Hero". have you played this thing?! it's awesome! you play the guitar the same way that you "dance" with dance dance revolution. and the thing is, it isnt so hard that you cant figure it out. most video games look pretty mindless to me, and theyre really difficult, so since i dont play them i get killed in 2.5 seconds, frustating me and putting me off video games. but Guitar Hero is MUUUUCH simpler on easy play. all you do is strum, but there is an accompaning sense of accomplishment. you can pick a pretty bitchin character to be, and while you rock on your guitar controller, they rock on the screen. With accompaning cheers and light shows, you get a wonderful sense of self worth, FROM A VIDEO GAME.


of course this is not to say that i lack self worth, or am incapable of finding avenues towards it in other media, but i wont lie; it surprised me that it came from a video game. i guess ive been prejudiced towards video games as only violent graphics wherein all the gamer does is kill big monsters with even bigger guns. and ive always sucked at dance dance revolution because of my boobs (and ive been prejudiced against that one ever since i played it in brandon's basement, tripped on my own feet, and fell most un-ladylike onto the floor), so a game that requires both skill and not getting up, sans monsters, well. where could we go wrong?


it does seem to me though, that there are far more male "gamers" than women. does this mean that women are purposefully not the demographic for video games? or does it mean only that women are not as interested in the games as men? a blogger from shiny shiny makes her feelings known: "But the problem isn’t just that it’s no longer a guilty pleasure: it’s that now I’m a proper grown up, I can’t just shut the curtains on the sunshine, arm myself with junk food and spend a week of my life fighting gods and monsters."


Ok, so her problem is more figuring out how to be an "adult" and a kid at the same time, which is a problem for all of us. which is another thing on my mind. but it'll have to wait.