Awesome Guitar Hero

We played so much Guitar Hero back in the day that we had blisters on our fingers. Bernz of the hardcore band Made for Midnight still loves to play the classic music matching game, but instead of music, he syncs up his playing with sounds like a dial-up modem connecting to America Online, the world’s most annoying car alarm, and this lady.

Veteran video game journalist Blake Hester catalogs the rise and fall of Guitar Hero and the music game genre as a whole. The Oral History of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and the Music Game Boom is a 352-page hardcover featuring interviews with some of the designers, developers, and founders of Harmonix.

We never could play Guitar Hero on Hard or Expert levels. Engineer Nick O’Hara has no such problems, thanks to the robot he built. Jon Bot Jovi uses AI and computer vision tech to detect the notes and timing, then triggers solenoids to push the guitar’s fret buttons and strum bar to perform even the most challenging tracks.

(PG-13: Language) Created as an April Fools joke back in 2011, the Clone Hero track Soulless 6 was designed to be impossibly difficult. It took 10 years, but someone has finally beaten the track with a 100% Full Combo score. Don’t blink, or you might miss CarnyJared’s fingers as they go flying across the frets of his video game guitar.

Guitar Hero Live features a cheesy live-action crowd and bandmates that react to how well you’re playing. It also has a karaoke-like mode where you’ll play along with music videos. Its new controller has six (2×3) fret buttons.

Chris Marion mapped five fire poofers to the keys of a Guitar Hero controller. The result is just like the game, except instead of colored notes, huge pillars of fire rise up in sync with the music.

Make Rock Band and Guitar Hero sessions more realistic with Omega’s GM-1 System, which hooks up to a real drum set via a MIDI or accessory cable; it also includes 2-3 cymbal triggers.

If you haven’t put up your lights yet, don’t bother: Christmas Light Hero is an audio/visual double whammy-bar of garage lighting hooked up to a playable game of Guitar Hero.