Most of us love the ridiculously addictive game series that strings (no pun intended) two great, familiar words together to make one very original title: Guitar Hero. But Charlie Daniels ain’t happy about Guitar Hero 3’s “perversion” of his song “Devil Went Down to Georgia.” But let’s face it—he has a point.
GH3’s version of the song is dark, and with everything going on in the background, it’s a lot darker than Guitar Hero 2 was, that’s for sure. It’s a little scary, especially to epileptics.
But Daniels is old—like, seventy-one years old old. And like most seventy-one-year-olds, they’re not really in favor of the newest fads, music, or the general concept of piercings (not to mention piercings in strange places). So can you really blame his view on what our poor, disturbed youth is being exposed to?:
Actually the game really has a dark side complete with grotesque monsters on stage with the band, strange, eerie lighting effects and all manner of weird things popping up on the stage.
… At this time I don’t know if I have any legal recourse, probably not, but I wanted you folks to know that I vehemently disagree with what has been done to a piece of my work. And would like to pass along a little advice to parents of young children.
This game looks innocent enough but if you have a child who is playing it, take the time to sit with him or her while they’re playing along and take a serious look at the images on the screen.
You may be surprised at the world they’re being exposed to.
All right, let’s set something straight, Daniels. Compared to numerous other games kids find interesting these days (coughGrandTheftAutocough), Guitar Hero is, like, rated B for Bambi. There are a lot worse, violent, and/or “perverse” games they could be playing. And, hey, at least a GH addiction doesn’t come with any harmful side effects (well, perhaps it’s not that great for their eyes, but that’s why they need their Flintstones). They might actually be doing drugs in their spare time if they weren’t so glued to that controller. Plus, what was considered “perverse” back in your day, Daniels, is more acceptable now. Yeah, maybe they’re being scarred by today’s violence and cruelty. But by Guitar Hero? I doubt it.
Guitar Hero is one of the best things to hit gaming in years. It actually inspires NES-esque gaming: You remember way back in the day when you actually played with your friends or with your family for a little thing called fun? When you laughed your ass off because maybe you both sucked, or you just kept “dying” for stupidly random reasons, but nobody cared, or at least no one there did? Sure, you can “duel” other people in Guitar Hero, so you can’t deny that it’s a competition, which is definitely a more modern aspect of gaming—and I admit, my sister and I can get a bit cut-throat sometimes when it comes to wiping each other’s scores off the board—but you’re just having good, clean fun doing it. As far as I know, people aren’t beating each other to death with their guitar controllers when they lose. And there’s no way to “imitate” Guitar Hero in real life as means of violence, like some seriously messed up people do with mature games. The worst thing that could happen is some moron would ask where the colored fret buttons and whammy bar were when confronted with an actual guitar.
Maybe you just prefer fiddles. Would it make you happy if they changed their game name to Fiddle Hero as an olive branch?
Charlie Daniels, Fiddle Hero
In all simplicity, Guitar Hero—like the Wii and other interactive games like DDR, for example—brings people together, it doesn’t push them apart. People get together to play (or compete) side-by-side, even when the option of playing some Asian girl on the other side of the world exists. I might not be a child anymore, but I don’t think too many parents are going to freak out about the visuals, either. My dad just started getting into Guitar Hero, and my mom (who actually asks what’s wrong with movies like Bambi or why I can’t stick to nice, rated-E or Ratchet and Clank type games all the time) really doesn’t mind it, either. This is a different time. There are different standards. And in all honesty, if no one seems to have any grand problems with it (especially parents), is it really so bad? It’s all in good fun—or, at least, that’s the way I like to think it’s meant to be played.
April 7th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
I cussed a lot during that battle. Maybe he’s upset he had the hardest battle, so everyone was mad at him?