Kenneth Ellis

Guitar Hero is doing great! Wonderful job, Activision! I couldn’t have done it better myself, and I’ve tried. Kudos.

Wait, you are out to destroy your IP, right? Because that’s what you’re doing. I just want to make sure before I throw kudos around willy-nilly.

The Guitar Hero franchise is heading for a quick demise, and Activision is either completely blind to this fact, or can’t wait for it to careen off that cliff and experience the explosion first hand. The only other option is that they think we are stupid baby birds willing to choke down any lump of vomit that they decide to regurgitate.

Yeah, I said regurgitate!

If you think GH: Smash Hits was anything but a mishmash of leftover code from long-rotting GH titles expunged from the bowels of the Activision vault  then you are fooling yourself, my boy!

Lets get down to brass tacks. I love guitar hero. Love it. I love it so much it’s my job! Literally, I pay the rent with Guitar Hero. Rhythm games are “da bomb” in my eyes. But too much of a good thing is always bad. I mean, I like cake. Who doesn’t? But I wouldn’t like it if my neighbor down the street found out I liked cake and decided to bring me one everyday and expected me to eat the whole thing. I’d kill them for making me hate cake.

Well that’s what Activision is: An over-eager middle-aged widow with no kids who lives across the street and deals with her loneliness by constantly brings you cakes you did not ask for, and most certainly don’t want, in the hopes of receiving unending gratitude. Gratitude in this case, is, of course, money.

Don’t  believe the crappy cake metaphor? Lets take a look at aaall the GH titles. Ever:

Guitar Hero
Guitar Hero 2
Guitar Hero: Rocks the 80’s
Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock
Guitar Hero: On Tour
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith
Guitar Hero: World Tour
Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades
Guitar Hero Metallica
Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits
Guitar Hero: Smash Hits
Guitar Hero 5
Guitar Hero: Van Halen
DJ Hero
Band Hero: NDS Lite
Band Hero

Why yes, I do agree with you that is a lot of games in the last 4 years. But, “Oh,”  you say, “That’s not so bad. They spread them out over the years!”

Oh, you ignorant fool.

Half, yes, H-A-L-F of that list came out this year. Eight mother-fucking GH games came out just this year alone. Can you say “Over-saturation”? I don’t know what Activision is thinking. Even I, the man with a theatre degree from a college that doesn’t even exist anymore, can tell that if you put that many games out it forces even hard-core fans to choose and cherry pick the ones they want to buy. A casual gamer would probably buy one at best!

If nothing is done to stem the tide, I fear Guitar Hero and, by extension, rhythm games in general will be the next Virtual Boy in less than 2 years.