MOLI VIEW™

I have seen the future of rock 'n' roll and it is Guitar Hero.

Maybe that's an exaggeration. But Guitar Hero, the video game that lets users play along with songs on a guitar-shaped controller, could certainly represent the future of games. In its first week out, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock made more than $100 million in North America, Activision just reported in an earnings call. Those are impressive numbers for a video game — they're about a third of first-week sales for the hit Halo 3, which probably set a record — and they wouldn't be bad for most movies.

And while the Halo titles appeal mostly to dedicated gamers, Guitar Hero is expanding the audience for games. It's almost deceptively simple: As a song plays, colored circles descend on screen; players have to tap or hold one of four buttons on the guitar controller's neck, while hitting a lever where the strings would be. Unlike most hit games, it's entirely intuitive. I've played before, but my game-averse girlfriend just picked up the controller, started playing, and enjoyed it.

Perhaps just as important, Guitar Hero looks fun. To the uninitiated, most other games don't seem like much; unless you've played before, it's hard to make heads or tails of what someone's doing, so you aren't tempted to join in. Guitar Hero seems like too much fun not to: People stand there, listening to music, and probably laughing their asses off.

In a few weeks, Guitar Hero will face competition from Rock Band, which is owned by MTV and distributed by Electronic Arts. (Rock Band is made by Harmonix, which made the first Guitar Hero games.) It does Guitar Hero one better by including a drum-set controller and a microphone that measures a singer's pitch. (Both Rock Band and Guitar Hero let a second player with a guitar controller play bass.) And Rock Band uses more songs from the original groups, rather than re-creations from studio bands.

Previous Page  1  2  Next Page