Monday 14 January, 2008

SECOND GAMEPLAY: So after playing for another hour, I became even more frustrated. We decided to play the Battle option. You can choose different difficulties for each player, and once a player gets a streak of correct notes, that player receives different powers that makes the other player do badly. If both players make it past the battle, the sudden death round occurs, and whoever messes up first loses. That part of Guitar Hero can get extremely competitive.

I got extremely frustrated because I kept losing every battle, even when I decided to play on an easier level. Because I was frustrated from the battle it carried over to me just playing regular songs, where I didn't do as well. I realized that I liked just playing the song normally rather than with an intense, competitive battle atmosphere. It was still fun, but the battle portion can make the game a little less enjoyable.


DESIGN: The principal controller of Guitar Hero is a guitar with five bright-colored buttons, with a "strum" button in the middle. On the screen a vertical guitar neck is shown with the different buttons. The Easy and Medium levels do not include the orange button, but the Hard and Expert levels require that button. The extremely cool thing is that even though it is a video game, the guitar is very realistic and you feel as if you are using an actual guitar.

This game has become extremely popular because the songs in the game are all new songs being released right now. This means that the majority of teenagers will want to get this game more than others, because the music in the game appeals directly to the typical video game demographic. Another appealing aspect to this game is that in order to completely beat the game, you must beat the last bonus song on Expert, and everyone who plays the game strives to get to that point. The bright colors shown on the screen along with the strong element of pop culture makes this game extremely attractive to gamers.

This is fine, what we want. Your thoughts on battle mode and why you became frustrated are a good beginning meditation on the nature of competition in game design and why it might make a game less fun; that may be something you wish to think further on. The analysis on this was good, and having played Guitar Hero I can understand why it tended to take over the gameplay, there's really not much to describe in rhythm games, is there?

This was well done, please keep it up.

Amy Leek (grader)