Issue 3, vol. 3 - April 2007

I am a Hero, but I’ve never received a single trophy.

I am a Hero, but I’ve never rescued a cat from a tree.

I am a Hero, but hell no, I don’t wear any spandex.

Each night I sail to heaven atop a silver-plated whammy bar, look God in the eyes and rock so hard his face melts off. I am a head banging, lip biting, riffing, wailing and amp-burning Guitar Hero.

And I’m not the only one. Guitar Hero II, published by Activision, was one of the top selling games this past Christmas season, but was unsurprisingly overshadowed by the mammoth amount of press and attention for the Nintendo Wii and Playstation 3 console launches. OMGWTF you say? NPD data also reveals that Guitar Hero II (PS2) was the second highest selling game in January 2007. This past quarter has been the racket versus the axe – as some gamers were busy practicing their backswing, the league of Guitar Heroes was growing ever more fiercely. They showed up at parties with their righteous chops or turned it up to 11 in their own homes.

Guitar Hero is more than a game – it’s a badge. Not only does that game play on the very ingrained trend of “the cult of Me,” that’s very relevant to young Canadians right now – but the range of difficulty in the game is such that anyone can pick up that plastic Gibson and simply be in Wolfmother’s shoes on Easy, or train like the Karate Kid to master YYZ or Free Bird on Expert. Completing some of the hardest tunes on Expert definitely earns the player instant credibility and legendary Hero status (preferably more so if you do it on Youtube.)

More important to the success of the Guitar Hero franchise is the music, the strongest and most far-reaching pillar of youth culture. Guitar Hero allows players to get involved in the music category at its most basic roots without the physical embarrassment of dancing or singing. And, kicking up the dirt to some of Rock ‘n Roll’s greatest tunes is both socially fun and personally rewarding at the same time. Young Canadians think so too – data from Youthography’s Ping national study show that 20% of young Canadians aged 9 to 29 are interested in playing rhythm-based games, like Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero, an amazing number considering generally how new the genre is to home video game consoles. The Guitar Hero franchise is also not solely a male-landscape, as indicated by an industry report which stated that 30% of Guitar Hero players are female (shucks, even Robots are trying to get in on the trend.)

For those who haven’t taken up the holy axe, the Guitar Hero franchise has broken exclusivity with Playstation and released on the XBOX 360 this past Tuesday. Partnering with XBOX 360 means bonus content (songs, characters, guitars, locals) available for download – a way to further the Guitar Hero experience outside the game disc. As well, there’s way more encores to come for Guitar Hero, and even more for its heroes ,when it gets released onto the Nintendo Wii before the end of the year.