7 ms·

I get that this is just a game but I seriously think if you’re going to spend so much time playing a fake instrument, you might as well learn to play the real t

• code_duck 5y ago
  Guitar playing doesn't have visual reinforcement. It would be interesting if it did.
  • grujicd 5y ago
    You don't know about Rocksmith? Basically, it comes with a guitar to USB cable, you plug in the real thing and play something very similar to Guitar Hero.
    • xdfgh1112 5y ago
      It's not as fun and it takes longer to get good. That's why rhythm games are popular.
      • grujicd 5y ago
        You're probably right since I never played Guitar Hero. Rocksmith would definitelly be harder since you have to produce clean tones for game to recognize. Correct fretting and picking... But you'll have some real guitar skills when you turn off the game. As a not-so-skilled guitar player, I found Rocksmith to greatly improve my rhythm and to teach me a valuable lesson of "show must go on". When you play alone and make a mistake it's natural to stop and redo that last part. But that's not how you can play with others and not the way you can play Rocksmith. So it teaches you to keep playing whatever happens. Aparth from these aspects, which are important, I didn't learn much more from Rocksmith. Yes, it does have some musical lessons but my general feeling is that it leads you to follow patterns that scroll down, and not to think about notes/chords/scales involved.
    • code_duck 5y ago
      I have never heard of that, so thanks.
  • Foxboron 5y ago
    I personally vividly hallucinate tabs, chords, shapes and scales while playing. Sometimes with it overlaying on the fretboard. Arguably this depends on how you learn and memorize, but I don't think you can discount the visual element of playing instruments. We do have the dots in the fretboard after all.
    • hoseja 5y ago
      You needed to learn to hallucinate them. Imagine them in AR from the get-go.
    • code_duck 5y ago
      When I hear music, I think about actual fret board and instrument playing because I have never played any sort of music video game for any significant portion of time.
    • code_duck 5y ago
      Sorry, I think I gave an odd response the other day. What I meant to say is that I looked at the guitar a whole lot when I was starting, but then I spent years playing without looking at the fretboard, often while laying in bed. At first I -had- to look at the fretboard and strings to play properly. Still, it's not as lush feedback as a video game.
• ClemFandango 5y ago
  I play guitar/bass, and I’ve played in bands and by myself, but this represents an entirely different and interesting skillset. Rhythm games are a skill in their own right, the visual element of what they’re simulating is somewhat inconsequential - the guitar controller could just be a stick or even a regular controller and the gameplay is roughly the same. Maybe the drum controller for rock band(?) is a close analogy, but it misses the point so to speak
  • chaps 5y ago
    Interestingly, you could buy a midi adapter and hook up something like a roland electronic kit. Kind of a learning tool.. just that it wasn't good at teaching good habits.
  • bananamerica 5y ago
    I actually prefer Guitar Hero with a PlayStation controller.
    • LocalH 5y ago
      If the 360/PS3 controllers didn't absolutely blow for the purpose, I'd suggest checking out Rock Band 2 Deluxe and the "pad is guitar" modifier we added, which restores GH2-style gamepad play for guitar (and for shiggles we added another that does "pad is drum", although button mappings are kinda funky).
      • bananamerica 5y ago
        I was actually thinking of the PS2 controller, where I used to play Guitar Hero back in the day. That's cool. Uh... Who's "we"?
        • LocalH 5y ago
          Yea, I knew that. I was mentioning that it's possible to play RB2 in the same fashion. "We" are a small team of people who make mods to older Harmonix games. RB2 Deluxe is a free patch for modded 360/PS3 that adds a lot of quality-of-life features to the game. https://rb2-deluxe.neocities.org/ https://rb2-deluxe.neocities.org/
• jerrre 5y ago
  You might as well, but if one is more fun to you than the other, there is nothing inherently better with a "real" instrument.
• entropie 5y ago
  > you might as well learn to play the real thing You could argue the same with almost every other game thats a copy of real life actions. Racing, Soccer, Martial Arts games... the list is long and does not even end with FPS games. There was lots of arguing the early days of "killer games" if they actually make people violent. No they don't. Competitive FPS games were and are about skills and being better, faster and able to outplay your opponent. My GFs sisters family was all about classical music education and her sister is already known international for playing her instrument. She also plays guitar hero (and competitive FPS shooter). Its just an entirely different skillset. Guitar hero needs absolutely no education in any music stuff, therefore the entry level is much much lower. You cannot really compare it. Guitar hero is like mastering any other video game like tetris or pong. Mastering a music instrument is another level of education. At least yet. Sooner or later it will comparable maybe. When children start to play a video game with the age of like 4 and keep doing it basically their entire life 6+ hours a day - that's the amount of time a professional classical musician invests in their profession.
  • yodsanklai 5y ago
    > Guitar hero is like mastering any other video game like tetris or pong Still, there's an important rhythm element to it. I'd assume musicians or people who have a good sense of rhythm are at an advantage.
    • entropie 5y ago
      > there's an important rhythm element to it. Well. You could say timing =~ rhythm. So yes and no. I'am pretty sure - correct me if iam wrong - that guitar hero pros watch the screen and don't listen to the music. Makes it also easier to adapt to (way) higher speeds than 100%.
      • LocalH 5y ago
        Some people play that way, yes. I personally play where I sync myself to the actual music as best as possible. So I have to hear both the music and my controller sounds. I don't know if I'd consider myself a pro player (although I'm a prominent GH2/Rock Band modder) but I'm much better than the average player, when you take into account all players and not just GH community members.
• djmips 5y ago
  This is strange thinking. just because it's got the word 'guitar' in the title you think they should pick up the real thing. Well it's got nothing to do with a guitar other than the fantasy. They are playing a rhythm game. Why not ask them to play the piano or sing opera. Do you tell people who are good at driving games to go learn to be a race car driver?
  • Moru 5y ago
    The difference between a racing game and learn to be a race car driver is actually not that big compared to guitar hero and a real guitar. I would say a drum set might be more fitting to the guitar hero player. The modern racing games actually teach you some skills that a real rally driver needs.
  • reincarnate0x14 5y ago
    > Do you tell people who are good at driving games to go learn to be a race car driver? In many cases the more simulation-focused games are used by people who really like racing cars, or flying planes, or driving tractors, or whatever, but can't do it as much or in the expensive equipment they'd physically prefer. There is a lot of variance in games as to the fidelity of what they're representing. Most shooters won't teach you anything about real firearms or bows and arrows and most racing games have little to do with real cars, but there are flight sims that have physics and controls directly modeled on real equipment. There have been real piano training games. I'd imagine any instrument could be with modern audio sampling and analysis if people wanted to pay for it.
• asiachick 5y ago
  Rhythm games are generally fun immediately. Real instruments are fun maybe after investing several hundred hours of practice. I don't know if they've fixed it but I did try version 1 of Rocksmith, a game that's supposed to teach you actual guitar. Unfortunately, the first song was playable by a noob. The 2nd song was impossible for a noob. And that was the end of that. Maybe they've fix it, or maybe I suck, or maybe some people plow on anyway.
  • grujicd 5y ago
    I didn't play Rocksmith for years, but I think it had some "level" setting for most songs. You'd get fewer notes and simpler chords on the easiest level. That said, I didn't start with Rocmith as an absolute beginner. It did improve my rhythm, correctness and speed, which is great, but didn't improve my musical knowledge about notes, chords or scales. I see it as a good stepping stone, but eventually you have to move on.
• bananamerica 5y ago
  One video I saw states that, at the higher levels, Guitar Hero can be harder than playing a real guitar.
  • LocalH 5y ago
    It absolutely can be. It can even be harder at lower levels, if someone has strong muscle memory for guitar. The engines are much less rigid than one might think - GH is one of the few rhythm games were per-gem accuracy is not a consideration whatsoever. Some fan engines will track your accuracy per gem, or at least report it to the player, but the core gameplay mechanics don't take that into account at all (gems score the same whether you hit them early, late, or perfect, as long as they're still within the hit window). In fact, that creates a phenomenon known as "squeezing" where you abuse the window to hit a gem as late as possible, activating star power immediately before, and then hitting a gem as early as possible right before the star power empties. This allows one to get an extra gem under the additional 2x multiplier that active star power provides. Almost all of the #1 scores on Scorehero use this to a high degree, making the actual star power "path" (basically, the positions in the chart where activation of star power gives you the most optimal score) highly important.
• wodenokoto 5y ago
  There's a South Park episode that takes the idea that Guitar Hero players are more skilled and renowned than actual guitar players. There's a scene where one of the kids plays an acoustic set of guitar hero, and people listen deeply and applaud him tapping on an unplugged guitar hero controller.
• wirthjason 5y ago
  I used to think e-sports and games were not real things compared to their counterpart but I’ve come to feel that they are just as real. The different is subtle but let me try and explain. He is playing “real guitar hero” not fake guitar hero or simulated guitar hero. Playing the guitar and playing guitar hero are not the same despite containing similar looking elements. In one case the target is to produce music, in the other it’s to produce points or a high score. He doesn’t care about producing music, he cares about producing a high score. Likewise, the musician’s aim isn’t to be better at scoring points, it’s to be better at producing music. To use another game, one could say “why play Madden when you could play ‘real’ football?” Madden IS real. Is it football, no. It’s a game. But that’s OK. Football is a game, Madden is a game, but they are different games. The aim of playing Madden isn’t to become the next great linebacker for the Chicago Bears, it’s to be better at playing Madden. Chess is an example outside of video games. It’s said that chew is a simulation of war. But people don’t play chess to become better generals and generals don’t play chess to become better at winning wars. They are each their own thing.
  • wirthjason 5y ago
    I’d like to add that I think e-sports will come to overtaking physical sports in my lifetime. I really enjoy watching sports (pretty much every sport, although I’m a partial to college football) and played sports as a kid but it’s much harder to do as I get older for the obvious physical reasons and the fact that adults don’t have the coordinated free time and schedules of children. Video games are a much more accessible medium. I see my 8 year old nephew play video games and watch streamers. He can then play the same game for himself. As much as I loved watching Michael Jordan as a kid I could never, and will never, be able to dunk a basketball. There barriers to entry for video games is much lower, almost anyone can do it, such that it’s practically zero. It’s much more relatable and as he gets older I think he’ll choose to watch people compete in the things he grew up with and relates to. Given the shear number of people to game it’s not unimaginable to see how e-sports could surpass professional sports one day.
• LocalH 5y ago
  2006 called, it wants that joke back. I play Guitar Hero for the flow state it can induce for me. It's one hell of a way to enjoy a remarkably wide range of music.
• acomjean 5y ago
  There is a guitar hero like game for guitar and bass. It even has some basic video lessons. My partner and I played. You needed the 1/4 inch plug to usb for your instrument.(I think they’re cable) It’s actually pretty fun. Though I haven’t played in a few years. You could buy new songs once you finished the initial ones. They’re at various difficulties and you get more notes as you level up. “Rocksmith” Now on steam apparently https://store.steampowered.com/app/221680/Rocksmith_2014_Edition__Remastered/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/221680/Rocksmith_2014_Edi... For drumming /finger drumming/keyboard there is https://melodics.com/ https://melodics.com/ Which is pricy / less game like but I did it for a year.
• Forgeties79 5y ago
  I get that Halo is just a game but I seriously think if you’re going to spend so much time shooting a fake gun on a fake planet at fake aliens, you might as well learn to do the real thing. Sarcasm aside, most people can’t just pick up a guitar, find a full band, book a gig, etc. That’s one of the main reasons we even have video games. To “do” stuff we can’t do in our lives. I love Stardew Valley. Should I sell my possessions, leave my family, and go start a new life in a small town as a farmer/dungeon diver/beer brewer?