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About The amplifier. (West Linn, Oregon) 1921-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 1, 2008)
2008 11 Entertainment g u ita r Hero has audiences begging for encore _ A dam H olmes ______________ Staff Reporter The pounding beat of music erupts. Screams fill the room. Hearts thump with energy. All of this is the result of one lone musician/ armed only with a guitar. Is this skilled musician a famous rock star from AC/ DC, Van Halen or Guns & Roses? No, this is a teenager whose weapon is a guitar with the only objective being to rock in the video game "Guitar Hero." The basic gameplay of "Guitar Hero" is simple: using a special guitar shaped controller, your goal is to rock on to famous rock and roll songs from the 1960s through today. The controller (which comes in two different guitar models: the Gibson SG and the Gibson X-Plorer) has five different colored buttons at the end of the guitar neck and a strum bar near the bottom of the controller. "I like "Guitar Hero" because it lets me pretend to be a rock star. And no one makes fun of me," Jon Binswanger, junior, said. Sim ilar to the previous music game series "Dance, Dance, Revolution," this game is rhythm-based. After choosing a song to jam along ith, an extended guitar neck and five keys in rows will appear on the screen. The keys are the same colors as the buttons on the controller. "Guitar Hero" made its debut performance in November 2005 with the first game, "Guitar Hero," for the Playstation 2 game console. The game surprised many m people with its innovative gameplay and its use of a guitar shaped controller instead of the standard console .controller. Selling nearly 1.5 million David Stocker, senior, jams to video game "Guitar Hero." Photo by copies in the first year, its com pany Harmonix Music Systems, released "Guitar Hero" II in 2006 for the Playstation 2, and later for the Xbox 360. Since then, two more games have been released, entitled "Guitar Hero": Rocks the 80s and "Guitar Hero IH: Legends of Rock," with Legends of Rock released in October 2007 and available for Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo W ii, PC, and Mac. When the game starts, different colored markers (also known as keys) will travel down the screen as the music progresses. The goal is to hit the button of the same color on the screen, while at the same time hitting the strum bar. This w ill strike a note on the screen. Different combinations of keys w ill appear as the game moves along, that correspond to the notes in the song, making the game more of a challenge. In order to measure how well you rock, there is a "rock meter." If you are simply amazing, you are in the green. If you are so-so, you will be in the middle at yellow. If you are failing miserably, you'll be at red, and if you are not careful, you might hit zero, and the game w ill be over. During some of the popular the songs, different keys w ill appear Malia Chong that are outlined with glowing stars. If the player can successfully score a certain number of these notes, the "Star Power Meter" w ill be filled. By accomplishing this task, the player w ill score double points until the meter runs out. In addition, the controller is equipped with a whammy bar for the more skilled players. By using this device, you can score extra points and give the song a more electric feeling. By the end of the song, it w ill show how many points you earned. The more points you earn, the more your audience w ill love you. "Guitar Hero" is unique because it doesn't follow McCarthy delivers another classic S arah C hicoine co-Editor-in-Chief First of all, I dare not Romanticize my reasoning for reading what is sure to become a contemporary classic. For an AP English project, I had to choose a contemporary novelist. I gave the list of suggested authors to my dad and asked which one was easiest and which I'd enjoy the most. My dad suggested "All the Pretty Horses" by Cormac McCarthy. Well, if Matt Damon liked it enough to make a movie, it had to be good enough for me, right? But in a state of procrastination, I had not yet gotten the novel half a week before we were supposed to be done reading (Sorry, Mr. West!). So I started reading "No Country for Old Men," merely because it was the only McCarthy book I could find. As I started to read, I was pleasantly surprised. With an unknown first person narrator and changing point- of-view, McCarthy is a true contemporary with influences from Modernist writers like William Faulkner. The novel throws the reader into the plot line by graphically describing a gruesome murder within the first few pages. In the words of my doctor, Chigurh, the antagonist and mass murder, is a real bad guy. His murders are countless, ruthless and continuous throughout the novel. After being introduced to Chigurh, the story jumps to introduce protagonist Llewelyn Moss. While hunting, Moss finds a drug deal gone very wrong, a truck full of cocaine, dead bodies, guns and lots of money. Tempted by greed, Moss takes the money and starts the "cat and mouse game" for his life. Set between the borders of Texas and Mexico as most McCarthy novels are, this 1980 western follows Moss and Chigurh. However, a simple game of chase would be far too simple for McCarthy. The novel is told through different points-of-view and is laced with the first person narrative, of a local sheriff, Bell, who is also looking for Moss and Chigurh. The details and different ways McCarthy adds to the storyline are far too many and too complicated to explain. - For this reason, I am unsure how the movie will be able to do justice to such an intricate, yet straightforward story. I am still anticipating seeing how they incorporate the differing view-points within a film context which is already out in theaters. However, since I enjoyed the novels innovative techniques and captivating plotline. the traditional video game dynamics. It is one of the few games that combines a popular interest in rock music, and allows you to play these famous rock songs without actually learning how to play the guitar. Instead, it gives people the look and feeling about what playing the guitar in a real "Rock Band" is like. "If people spent half as much time actually learning how to play the guitar instead of playing that game, they would be skilled musicians," Cameron Frank, junior, said. Some people may notice that this game is sim ilar to a recent game released called "Rock Band." These games are produced by the same company and are also musical based, but "Rock Band" has more of an emphasis on a band as a whole performs, and gives you ti\e option of playing instruments other than the guitar. "Guitar Hero" remains a popular video game among gamers, and its popularity is increasing. Two more "Guitar Hero" additions will soon be released, one for the standard gaming consoles, and a special version for the Nintendo DS. Only time will tell how much longer this game w ill remain cool. Neopets provides safe website M arv Wood along w ith four colors, unless you decide to invest in chang M any tim es, I’ve found my ing them to a fancy color later. self sitting idly at the computer, (Your pets could even look like staring at a screen displaying a pirates if you were so inclined.) M yspace or Facebook profile. 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