How to Party Like a Fake Rock Star

On its Web site, Digitallife claims to be “the ultimate consumer technology, gaming & entertainment event of the year.” It’s true that the convention, which took place September 27th through the 30th, featured plenty of bizarre consumer technology, up to and including animatronic Elvis heads—though I’m not quite sure how many consumers exist for that sort of thing. And sure, there were more than enough entertainment exhibits to go around: Microsoft had a huge booth dedicated solely to HD-DVD, while Hewlett Packard had so many computers running that its booth resembled an office supply store.

But if you came to Digitallife looking for gaming, you were bound to be disappointed. That’s not to say there weren’t any video games to be found, but now that video game trade shows like the infamous Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) are becoming more and more exclusive—this year’s was invitation only—it would be nice if gaming were given more of a spotlight at shows like this one that are intended for consumers. Despite the way the show was advertised, gaming seemed like a total afterthought.
That being said about Digitallife as a whole, it can’t be forgotten that one of its most widely anticipated aspects was, indeed, a video game. And not just any video game—Digitallife had a large booth dedicated to the upcoming Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, which isn’t going to be released for another month.

It’s unfortunate that Digitallife only gave one video game the kind of attention lavished on Guitar Hero III, but if they had to choose one, they definitely made the right choice. Guitar Hero III looks like it’s going to be, for lack of a better word, awesome.

The demo included 10 or so songs which could be played at any difficulty—Easy, Medium, Hard, and Expert, as usual—but only on single player mode. It was clear after playing a few songs on both Hard and Expert that the difficulty has been ramped up considerably since Guitar Hero II, which is good news for those of us who have been devoting more time to our virtual shredding careers than to our classes. The Easy level, as always, remains simple enough for even a Guitar Hero virgin to pick up and play with minimal embarrassment.

It’s also clear that much more thought has been put into the patterns of notes themselves. Nailing a solo in a song on Expert feels a lot more satisfying than it did in the second installment of the series—everything looks more streamlined and polished.
And this isn’t limited to the action on the screen. The guitar controller itself has been given a re-design by Gibson, to resemble the famous Gibson Les Paul design. Though only the Xbox 360 Guitar Hero II guitars were used to play the demo at Digitallife itself, the new guitar peripherals were available for preview at a press event the day before the convention’s opening.

The Les Paul controllers look sleeker than ever, and weigh a great deal more than both the old Playstation 2 and Xbox 360 guitars. But if you’ve spent upwards of a hundred hours strumming away on one of the older designs—and yes, some of us have done just that—you’re going to have a lot to get used to. The new fret buttons are much more integrated into the neck of the guitar, so it’s necessary to push the buttons harder in order to get a response from the game. This is extremely frustrating at first, and one can only hope that it’s possible to become accustomed to it.

The fact that both the fret buttons and the strum bar are quieter—the old ones were notorious for their sometimes ridiculously loud clicking noises—definitely makes Guitar Hero III a smoother ride, but it also makes it harder to tell when you’re hitting the notes if you’re used to getting feedback in the form of “click, click, click.”

In the end, though, the music is where Guitar Hero III is really going to rock the socks off its predecessors. The demo alone featured several songs sung by their actual artists, including Pearl Jam, Tenacious D, and German punk rock band Die Toten Hosen, among others. In fact, most of Guitar Hero III’s songs will be performed by their original artists, which means no more suffering through the likes of Guitar Hero II’s abysmal cover of Nirvana’s “Heart-Shaped Box.”

Even the graphics seem to care about the songs more than usual—for the first time, the lip-synching of the on-screen vocalist appears to match the lyrics of the song currently being played.

But despite Guitar Hero III’s greatness, it isn’t the only game that’s being released in the next few months, and it’s certainly not the only one worth looking forward to. Unfortunately, only Namco’s elaborate display of arcade games for mobile phones and iPods—complete with overpriced merchandise and mascots of Pacman, Ms. Pacman, and Popeye—featured games that had not yet been released.

Digitallife featured an “arcade” section where one could play Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 games, but only ones that had already been released. The same was true for the PC games displayed on many of the show’s computers.

Hopefully, in the future, Digitallife will pay more attention to the ever-growing video game industry, because if the crowds that surrounded Guitar Hero III are any indicator, there’s a great deal of interest in upcoming releases. After all, if people wanted to play games that had already been released, wouldn’t they just buy or rent them? The whole point of conventions is to show the consumer something new, and in this regard, Digitallife just didn’t deliver.