Guitar Rising Member Review for the PC

Last week at the GDC I got a chance to go hands-on with the new GameTank game for PC, Guitar Rising. If you haven’t heard about this game yet, here’s the skinny.

You know how Rock Band makes you feel like a bad-ass by living out the fantasy of being a spandex-clad rock and roller?

Do you know about tablature (“tab” for short)? It’s a form of sheet music which has a line for each string and uses numbers on each line to represent a fret board on a guitar.  It’s a very basic form of music translation that is easy enough for even a beginning player to pick up and read. It loses some of the nuances of real sheet music but it gets the point across.

Rising combines tab with a Guitar Hero like interface that’s controlled with a guitar. That’s right, a real, honest to goodness guitar. You plug in your axe through a ¼ inch port (most likely external) going to a PC and get to thrashing. 

How many times have you said heard someone say, ”in all that time spent playing rhythm games you could just learn to play a real instrument.” Well, it’s time for all those wannabes out there to put their money where their mouths are. You gonna rock like Trent Reznor or Van Halen? It’s up to you now.