One of my fantasies is to play guitar for a thrash metal band.

Alas, I never learned how to play guitar, and even if I were to learn, it would be a long time before I could pull off the things my favorite guitarists can perform.

RedOctane, now a division of Activision, came to my rescue in 2005 with Guitar Hero. With this game in my PlayStation 2 and the included toy guitar controller connected to a controller port I could pretend to play the guitar portions of some of my favorite songs. And when I "performed" a song well I was a legend in my own mind.

Not one of my fantasies involves wearing makeup; perming or doing something else crazy to my hair or wearing uncomfortable, ridiculous-looking clothing. Music should speak for itself. If appearance is part of your appeal you could be compensating for your lack of talent as a musician.

This was almost a problem in Guitar Hero. All but one of the performers as whom you could play (Axel Steel) looked like he or she was more interested in appearance than music. Crazy hair and outfits everywhere. (Hey RedOctane, glam metal and British punk are dead.)

Axel Steel in Guitar Hero I: "I just wanna rock."

Fortunately there was Axel Steel, a guy wearing jeans, a t-shirt, jean jacket and no makeup on his face and no product in his long brown hair, so this almost a problem was not a problem. I would have preferred to play as someone less heavy-set and not wearing a jacket, but Axel Steel was good enough.

But in Guitar Hero II, Axel Steel has gone glam. No longer content just being an incredible guitarist, Steel, by default, calls attention to himself by wearing a jean jacket with spikes on the shoulder pads. (And the other characters, returning and new alike, look more ridiculous than the non-Axel Steel characters in the original game.)

Axel Steel in Guitar Hero II: "Hey, look at me!"

Gameplay-wise, this does not matter. The characters in the Guitar Hero series are avatars. The games play the same regardless of which you choose.

So why am I complaining about the lack of non-glam characters in Guitar Hero II when it doesn't matter? The Guitar Hero series is about fantasies. My fantasies do not involve looking ridiculous, and being forced to play as a character who looks ridiculous distracts me from my guitarist fantasy.

So, Activision, I want, from the beginning, to see some normal-looking characters in Guitar Hero III. (And while I'm at it, I want to be able to "play" "Crush" by Anthrax and "Song without Sin" by Living Colour.)

And Electronic Arts and MTV Networks, this also applies to you. If Rock Band is to have on-screen characters represent players, some of those characters need to look and dress like regular people.