Many have said that art imitates life, so it would seem that games follow the same trend. The Guitar Hero series has capitalized on this, pulling the fan raging experience of rock stardom out of classic rock bands like taffy and brought the stage diving experience to the gaming masses. Most, though not all, gamers will agree that there is little correlation between your skill in Guitar Hero and actual guitar playing. Some even seem to find it infuriating when gamers enjoy Guitar Hero or similar games, claiming they would better spend their time learning to play the guitar. If you fall into this crowd of the musically inclined, or even if you don’t, Guitar Rising might be the game for you.

Guitar Rising is similar to Guitar Hero and like games in the sense that you hit notes in time with the music to score points, only the notes your hitting come from an actual guitar. The Guitar Rising website hosts a promotional video that shows a gameplay style not unlike Guitar Hero-esque games. The notes scroll from left to right instead of top to bottom, and the only head banging rocker in sight is the person playing the game. The game first appeared at the Austin Independent Game Conference with a playable demo and won the Developer’s Choice Award by popular vote. Guitar Rising is slated for release on the PC and Mac in late 2008. There is not much information on the game at this point, other than that it will contain thirty rock songs from more modern bands. Whether or not users will be able to create their own songs is not known at this time. Even with the slim details the game already seems to have one unofficial fan site, for the UK at least.

One of the possible downsides of Guitar Rising is actually having to get your hands on an electric guitar. Different iterations of a real Gibson SG seem to be priced anywhere from about $90 to $9,000, while the lowest price I found on any electric guitar was around $60. While establish guitarists will not have too much of an issue, as they probably will already have a guitar, most gamers new to the instrument will have to acquire one. Though the price point of the game is unknown at this point it will have to land around $80 (including guitar) to compete with Guitar Hero III. Though the game looks promising, it will be interesting to see if actually playing the guitar is as exciting and as profitable as a simulation of rock stardom.

- http://gotgame.com (written by Adam)