Adam Brewer stands before a roaring crowd. His fingers fly frantically over the frets of his guitar while his other hand picks away the notes. Axe held high, he grinds out his solo and the crowd cheers. In the zone he doesn’t miss a single screeching note. He closes his eyes and busts out the last few power chords, throwing the neck of the guitar behind his backs as he finishes. He lifts both hands in the air and says, “I am a god!”
Brewer is no god, but he is a hero of sorts. He is a Guitar Hero, and he just 5-starred Psycho Billy Freakout on the Expert mode of Guitar Hero 2.
From the days of arcades there have emerged video games that try to get the player more involved in a deeper level of gaming, usually done through atypical kinds of controls. From racing games that put you behind the wheel to shooters that put the gun in your hand, beyond-the-controller type games have been around for quite some time.
The Guitar Hero series puts a guitar-shaped controller in the players’ hand and has them follow “notes” on the screen that sync with rock classics such as “Iron Man” and “Free Bird.”
“The only games I usually play are sports games, like Madden and Fight Night,” Brewer, a senior in turfgrass management, said. “But a friend of mine bought it and I thought it was fun. I would have never picked it up otherwise. It’s just cool to feel like you’re playing the songs. Miss a note and the song stops. Hit one wrong and it squeaks.”
Crystal Archbell, a senior in business management and self-proclaimed anti-gamer, has a lot of fun playing Guitar Hero.
“It’s not a normal video game,” she said. “There are classic songs and you can battle other people to them. Plus, it’s not boring to watch or play like other games.”
One of the first arcade-style games that made its way on U.S. consoles was Duck Hunt. Along with Super Mario Bros., Duck Hunt came packaged with the first NES consoles. The game allowed for a generation of new gamers to shoot at ducks, clay pigeons, and unsuccessfully at the dog who laughed at their misses.
Console video games have come a long way, bringing with them a new wave of interactive type games. But, are these games just a novelty or are we seeing a new standard emerge for gaming?
Dance Dance Revolution came to the U.S. in 2001 along with a wave of dancing addicted fandom. While the concept of using a foot-controlled pad controller was not new, DDR added a massive soundtrack and crazy dance moves that kept players sweating at home and in the arcades. The sight of a “skilled” DDR player doing handstands and back flips all over the place is hard to forget to say the least.
Eric Storey, an alumnus, reluctantly confessed the fun he had with DDR while at State.
“It was a lot of fun, you know, to pre-game and play,” Storey said. “It got wild when the drunken people started falling all over the place trying to keep up. I wasn’t that bad but there is no way in hell I would have ever done it in public.”
While these accessory-required interactive games for normal consoles like the PS3 and Xbox 360 are plenty of fun to pick up when you’re tired of the standard analog stick controller, the Nintendo Wii is a console that centers itself on the idea of interactivity.
Nintendo fought a losing battle when its Game Cube was thrashed by Sony’s PS2 and Microsoft’s Xbox — but with the next generation of consoles, Nintendo had a trick up its sleeve: the Wii.
To compete with competitors’ big graphics, Nintendo focused on game play and interactivity using the Wiimote, a wireless BlueTooth enabled controller that allows control of the game using movements of the hand. By twisting and thrashing their hands about, players can swing swords, golf clubs, and even scalpels with an eerie accuracy.
“It’s a whole lot of fun,” Zach Brideson, senior in physics, said. “In Zelda, you swing your hand to swing the sword.”
Brian Wall, alumni in computer science, remembered one fun night after buying his Wii.
“There was a group of us getting ready to go out and we decided to play a mini-game in Rayman,” he said. “The game involves juicing carrots with your left hand by repeatedly moving it up and down, and then aiming the flying juice with your right. You have to fill the mouths of emerging crazed bunnies and hold them off for as long as possible. The longer we played the more we got into it. We started screaming at each other ‘Get the f’ing bunny, get it!’ Our arms were cramping but it was a blast. No one got much farther than two minutes.”
Although the Wii has been a huge success, it remains to be seen if interactive type games are the wave of the future or just mindless fun to occupy our time in between the big-gun graphics titles.
“I think it’s all based on what you’re going for,” Brideson said. “The Wii is going for fun game play. I don’t think it adds the interactivity it claims to. It’s essentially the same thing as using an analog stick. I think there will always be both the interactive innovators and the performance people. These games are definitely a gimmick, but it’s a good one.”
Aron Magner, an alumnus, thinks that both interaction and graphical power will be needed in the future.
“I think the popularity of the Wii so far shows that there is a demand for this type of device, but only time will tell if its just a novelty or not.” he said. “Even the PS3 has a controller that senses motion. I personally think it’s just a natural progression.”
