Games that rock
Forget mosh pits and megadomes, the biggest rock blow-out comes courtesy of your console
Who is the world’s greatest rock guitarist: Slash? Santana? Jimmy Page, whose broken little finger can delay a concert for which 20 million people sought tickets? None of the above. It’s David Briers, 27, who won the Play N Trade Guitar Hero II competition in June. And he’s looking over his shoulder: Guitar Hero III is just out, and already the ranking leader at www.scorehero.com is one Smokyprogg, with a combined Expert Level score across 70 songs of 24,267,592 points on an Xbox 360.
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HIT OR MISS? VERDICT OF THE WANNABE ROCK GODS
Guitar Hero III (Xbox 360/PS3/PS2, from £29.99 without guitar, £49.99 with guitar)
Sam Wells, 12: “Extremely good for everyone, even beginners. And you have two-player cooperative mode, guitar battles with famous guitarists like Slash. Just brilliant.”
Theo Wells, 14: “It’s sick.” [Dad-note: “sick” is the highest term of approbation in the current teen lexicon.]
SingStar Next Gen (with 2 microphones, £49.99, PS3)
Sam: “The next best to Guitar Hero. The only problem is it doesn’t give points for style, just notes. For example, singing a Motörhead song, an opera singer would do just as well.” Theo: “I don’t really like singing,”
Dancing Stage Universe (plus Dancemat, XBox 360, £44.99), or Dancing Stage Supernova (PS2, £24.99)
Sam: “It’s good, and I really like that there’s a separate mat for you to dance on, but you have to get pretty good before it gets really fun, whereas Guitar Hero is interesting on all the different levels.”
Theo: “That’s not dancing. It’s just jerking your feet onto the right squares.”
Boogie (Wii, £49.99; PS2, £39.99)
Sam: “This is pants. All you do is move the Wii wand to make the character on screen dance; you’re not dancing yourself.”
Theo: “And the singing parts are like SingStar, but not as good.”
Parappa the Rapper (PSP, £19.99)
Sam: “The graphics are very unusual, and there’s a lot of humour, but in the end it’s just mashing buttons to the beat.”
Theo: “I like that it’s on the PSP (PlayStation Portable). You might play it when you’re on a journey.”