What defines being an expert at something? Is being extremely good enough or should it warrant something special? Like your friends asking you to come over to help them beat or progress in their game? I'm gonna go with the latter definition in this post.
There were a lot of games in my youth I would consider myself to be good at. I wasn't really better than my friends in any of those games except for one.
I'm also gonna have to push the boundaries on retro gaming in this post, but I guess it works out as the story starts out on the PlayStation 2 and concludes on the Xbox 360.
Source: Wikipedia
Something unique
Guitar Hero really was something unique. I remember my mom telling me they had bought this guitar game for my brother but they, her and my stepfather, ended up playing it all the time instead. I was really curious as to what this game was when I went to visit them that summer.
When I arrived to find out that the controller was an actual guitar I was blown away. I was stricken from the get go. We spent the whole night playing. Taking turns at the guitar to progress through the campaign. The first strums to I Love Rock 'N Roll by Joan Jett & The Blackhearts are something I'll never forget.
I started out slow by playing on easy but had to switch it up to medium already on the first night. It didn't take long to move it up to hard, although it took some time for me to progress to expert but I got there eventually.
For those who don't know Guitar Hero has four difficulties. Easy is, obviously, the easiest one. This difficulty utilized three of the five buttons on the guitar and you play less notes. With medium you'll be using four out of five buttons and there will be more notes. Starting out at hard you'll be using all five buttons but not all of the notes of each song will be played. Come expert you're using all five buttons still but you also have to play every note on each song. This is tough as you progress through the setlists and start getting to some of those tougher songs.
For the next year or two I would always looking forward to visiting my mom so I could play more Guitar Hero. I was of course super excited to find out they had bought the new one, Guitar Hero 2, as well. That meant they now had two guitars so we could play against each other. Battling was crazy fun.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
My very own Guitar Hero game
It wasn't until later on when I bought my Xbox 360 that I got my own Guitar Hero game. At that point I started out with Guitar Hero 3 which was a masterpiece of a sequel. The guitar that came with it had a new design and it just felt so much better to play with. It was way more responsive.
This is when it took off for me. Now I could play every day even when not visiting my mom, and believe me I did. All other games became sidelined for a long time. I finally started mastering expert better and better. Finally managing to play through Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd was huge. I still had to keep trying for a couple of months to beat Through the Fire and Flames by Dragonforce though but eventually I did it. That was the ultimate feeling.
Source: Altpress
Stepping it up a notch
When Guitar Hero World Tour was announced I was beyond myself with excitement. Not only guitar anymore but drums as well!? This was huge. There was no way in hell I would have the money to buy this package so I had to wish for it for christmas. You can think I was excited when I one day went in to my dads room to find a present there just about the size of the game. The wait was painful.
When finally acquiring the game I was all about the drums. They were something else. It took some time but I eventually managed to work my way up to expert on the drums as well. I remember Beat It by Michael Jackson being the first song I ever managed to play 100% on expert on the drums.
Source: New Atlas
Enter Metallica
In 2009 they released a whole edition of Guitar Hero featuring Metallica. Anyone who read my evolution of musical taste post will know how much I loved Metallica. This was amazing. I had to buy this at day one, and I did.
When I started playing this it felt like my life was complete. I was completely immersed. I knew all of the songs by heart already and already knew most of them on "real" guitar. Mastering the songs in yet another format was amazing.
This edition also introduced a new difficulty called "expert +" exclusively for the drums. This basically added support for double pedals which was needed for a couple of songs.
Source: Nettavisen
What made me an expert
Well I was one of the few people in my social circle who managed to play, and play good, on the expert difficulty. What made me really feel like an expert at this game was when people started inviting me home to their place to beat this and that song on Guitar Hero for them. Be it on the drums or the guitar. I just have to be honest and say that there was no one among my friends who were better than me at Guitar Hero and that's why I consider myself an expert at it.
Sadly I can't say the same these days. My younger brother has my kit connected to his TV in his room. I tried to play both the guitar and the drums there after a hiatus of several years. I roughly managed to play some songs on hard difficulty but I didn't stand a chance at playing expert any longer. Maybe with some practice.
Source: Gamespot
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