My dad told me the computer was versatile, but...

In the early days of home computing, we picked some losers before some winners. We were the only family I knew of who had a Coleco Adam, and before that we had a Timex Sinclair.

But in our pre-PC days, we managed to settle on first the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A and then ultimately, our trusty Commodore 128, on which we played about a billion Commodore 64 games over and over.

So when I saw this video this morning, it tugged a little at my heartstrings. Some enterprising souls have created an ersatz Guitar Hero game that runs on the C-64. It's called Shredz64.

While I'm tempted to break out my old C-128 to try it out, I really don't have the room or an adapter for my guitar controller anyway. But check out this demo, in which the SID version of a popular 80s tune is played.

Walk this way...

Taking the night off and playing Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. W00t!

My band name is FVB, which stands for Future Villain Band. Before you tell me what a craptacular name for a band that is, watch this:



Badass.

Happiness is a warm Guitar Hero controller

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith comes out soon, and I just read that there's a small chance that there may be a Beatles-themed game in the future. I'll believe it when I see it, but they're looking into it.

Now this intrigues me as a lifelong Beatles fan, but it got me wondering which songs they'd want to use.

"Love Me Do" is catchy, but it's not really Guitar Hero fodder, you know? So I decided to tax my poor little brain and come up with some suggestions.

While My Guitar Gently Weeps

Helter Skelter

And Your Bird Can Sing

Taxman

I Feel Fine

Day Tripper

Birthday

Don't Let Me Down

For You Blue

Something

Free As a Bird

Happiness is a Warm Gun

Here Comes the Sun

I Saw Her Standing There

I Want You (She's So Heavy)

I've Got a Feeling

Norwegian Wood

Paperback Writer

Rain

She's a Woman

Think For Yourself

Michelle

I Call Your Name

Getting Better

The End

That's about 25 Beatles songs, but to fill it out, you could include either bands that inspired them, like Buddy Holly and the Crickets, or bands that covered Beatles tunes (damn near everyone).

I'm sure I'm missing one or two songs that would fit in this kind of game better, but this is a good start. Feel free to add anything I missed in the comments.

I'd almost certainly buy this, though I can't imagine they'd actually be able to use the actual Beatles recordings, so it would be a bunch of cover versions like in the early days of Guitar Hero, but I think I would kick some serious ass at this game, having listened to Beatles songs my entire life.

The song lineup might change a little if this used the full band peripherals that this fall's installment is supposed to use, but I wouldn't imagine drastic changes unless they introduced a piano peripheral, which I tend to doubt.

But I'd be willing to bet that no matter what, "Revolution No. 9" won't make the cut.

Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle!

Oh dear God.

OK, now I love playing Guitar Hero, and I have a Nintendo DS, but sweet monkey danish, this makes baby Jesus cry.

Here, for your viewing pleasure, is a video promoting Guitar Hero for the DS. I keep telling myself that this is intentionally asstastic, but I'm really not sure.

I feel like kicking myself in the ass just for sharing it with you, but you really have to see it.

Make sure you watch it all the way to the end. If you don't actually feel measurably dumber after watching it, you are a better person than I.

More DIY videos at 5min.com

This was passed along to me by my pal Karyne, who saw it at Neatorama. I'm still talking to her nonetheless. I'm magnanimous like that.

Or dumb. I haven't decided yet.

Just like starting over

So I finally decided to restring my guitar so I play like a lefty playing a left-handed guitar, as opposed to how I've been doing it, which is to just take a regular guitar and play it upside down.

This, by the way, is a good way to get freakish stares at Guitar Center.

When I was first learning on my brother's guitar, I almost gave up until I realized that I played air guitar like a lefty but was trying to play real guitar like a righty. I flipped it over, and started learning from there.

There are a few drawbacks. For starters, I popped about 44.8 billion high E strings trying to rock out with a Nirvana song because those took the brunt of my ham-handed strumming.

I learned to rein it in (I'm cheap if nothing else), but I'm for crap at actual leadwork because frets and strings that are easy to reach for most players are on the other end for me. Kurt Cobain was a lefty, but I don't know if he restrung his guitar (and I'm too lazy to look it up).

So now I have to take all the chords I've been playing for 15 years and flip them over in my head to play them the right way. It's a pain in the ass so far, but in a way, it's sorta like playing Guitar Hero all the way through on Easy, and then starting over on medium.

Wish me luck.

I rawk.

Had a chance to finally finish off Rock Band just now. On Medium, because I'm old, and I suck. It was pretty fun. I rented it from Gamefly, so I pretty much just did the guitar part, since I don't have the drums and I can't sing worth a crap.





Now I just need to finish the last bit of the first Guitar Hero, then I can tackle the 80s edition.

If these keep being as successful as they are, they're eventually going to run out of ideas, and I'll be posting a picture of me beating Guitar Hero: Porno Movie Soundtrack Classics.

Chicka-chicka-bow-bowwwwwww....

It's not what you think...

It's not often you'll find me posting a picture of a girl playing with herself at work, but here you go:



OK, it's my pal Karyne rocking out with her Guitar Hero shirt, but that's probably as racy as it gets here.

Guitar Hero side-effects

I've played a bunch of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, and I've noticed a few things.

1) That weird vertigoey feeling you get when you've been playing for a while (say, a week or two, straight) and you look away from the screen. Everything seems to be moving away from you--almost like going into a wormhole or something.

2) Self-consciousness about rocking too hard. Sure, you want to do well, but at what point do you cross the line from keeping up with the notes to Pete Townshend windmills at the end of your song?

3) That brief feeling of apprehension you get when you hear a song from the game out in the real world. For just a second, your hands tense up, trying to make sure your fingers are in the right place.

Or maybe it's just me.