Be A Star, No Fret
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday June 17, 2006
Eliot Fish grabs his PS2 'guitar' and dazzles friends with some hot licks.
Guitar Hero, PS2, $129.95, PG, *****Guitar Hero thrusts you into the spotlight - and the grungy leather trousers - of an axe-wielding, fret-shredding lead guitarist. Have you got the furious fingerwork required to send the crowds wild?This very enjoyable and innovative music game comes packed with a unique controller - a mini Gibson SG replica made of plastic.With five coloured buttons placed at the end of the neck, a strum bar that can be "picked", whammy bar and tone control knobs that replace the Start and Select buttons, you'll be pulling guitar faces before you even plug the guitar controller into the PS2.Guitar Hero expands on the rhythm game concept of interacting with scrolling coloured icons on the TV screen in time with music. The difference here is that when you press the buttons correctly in tempo, it will sound as if you're playing the guitar. It's the perfect fantasy game for air guitarists, who will surely drop their tennis racquets in favour of it.You start with single finger presses for crunching power "chords" and progress to picking individual notes in delightfully over-the-top solos. The co-ordination required is challenging, which makes Guitar Hero thrilling to play and hilarious to watch. If you start fluffing notes, not only will the guitar sound go "plunk", but the on-screen audience begins to boo and you risk a premature end to your career.One way to rescue a bad situation is to pull off rock moves. The controller is fitted with a tilt sensor, so holding the guitar aloft rewards you with big points. Who knows, you could be rocking out huge arenas as a fully fledged superstar - or, at least, impressing friends at a party.The soundtrack is perfectly suited, with more than 30 classic hits including Smoke on the Water, Ace of Spades and Hendrix's Spanish Castle Magic. Turn your TV up to 11 and grab what is undoubtedly one of the games of the year.Endgame: The perfect fantasy for air guitarists - Guitar Hero rocks.Brain Training, Nintendo DS, $49.95, G, ****1/2Best known for frivolous family fun, Nintendo now wants to profit from games that are designed to keep our minds sharp and to combat senility.Brain Training presents players with a series of fast-paced maths and language challenges created by prominent Japanese neurologist and author Professor Ryuta Kawashima. The game can also calculate your "brain age" based on the accuracy and speed of your responses.It might seem a radical departure from blasting aliens and saving the princess, but striving for high scores is one of the gaming world's most important aims. Once you start passing the console around to friends and family, competition will be furious.Most handheld games target youngsters but Brain Training's potential audience is far wider. Using the DS touch panel and microphone to (almost faultlessly) recognise your writing and spoken words, the package is so intuitive that anyone can play.The dozen tasks include simple memory trials, quick arithmetic, extracts from literary classics to read aloud, puzzles, syllable and item counting tests, plus drawing challenges.The training games are designed to take just 10 minutes to complete. Users are discouraged from longer play sessions, instead rewarded for returning each day to slowly build their skills. Results for each task are charted on graphs and steady improvement proves most satisfying.The Doc is always on hand to give advice and encouragement. Despite being portrayed as a disembodied head, he is surprisingly charismatic, although his comments become repetitive. Those wanting to play longer will appreciate the Sudoku puzzles with excellent use of the touch screen for number entry and note-taking. Whether it is truly educational and actually improves your mental abilities is debatable, but it is still very entertaining.Endgame: A simple idea brilliantly executed. Perfect for newcomers to gaming. Jason Hill
© 2006 Sydney Morning Herald