I saw many comments on the announcement for dance hero that said things like, "Why do people play guitar Hero when they could do something more useful, like buy a real guitar?" I hate it when people say things like this. People who have never picked up a guitar controller and played the game. The same people play other video games, I would assume, seeing as they are members of this site. Why pretend to steal cars when you can do it yourself? Why play racing games when you can go race people at a go-kart track or something? Why play any video game that gives you a dramatic depiction of yourself doing something under pretend circumstances? It couldn't be because that is fun to do, right?

Why do you feel great about yourself when you get a chainsaw kill in Gears of War or Dead Rising? This may be a ridiculous comparison, but I think it is a good point. Why play The Sims when you can live your own life? Because The Sims in fun. Why should you play Guitar Hero? For the same reason. It is a fun, music-playing simulation. And it actually teaches you skills to play the instruments in real life. Singing in the game has increased my vocal range as I struggle to sing Geddy Lee vocals, drumming has given my a sense of rhythm I never had before, and the guitar parts actually caused me to go out and buy a guitar.

I much prefer the discipline of playing chords in real life to the ease of playing chords on a five-button controller. Maybe that music creator in World Tour will be cool after all, I can put songs I've actually played with my friends into the game, and record guitar versions of songs from old movies like The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. What puzzles me the most about these people who make hate-posts is that they even exist. They are like fanboys. They operate out of hate instead of blind, stupid devotion to something they should not care about so much, but they still feel strongly enough that they must share their opinion on forums and take time out of their own respective days.

What is the most startling is that I used to be one of those people when Guitar Hero first came out on PS2. My mind changed when I went to a friend's house at the end of that week to play the game. The bottom line is, these games are great, and they just keep getting better.

Also a shoutout to Alex Navarro, who works at Harmonix now. He replied to a customer service question I sent in about my 20 free songs for Rock Band 2 last week.