Features// Girl Gamer Does Rock Band

The Saturday was just for three of us. One band – one cause – a rock mission. We’d learnt our favourite parts to play and designed our characters with such love and devotion that every time they came on screen my heart jumped a bit. They’re more us than us now. I also started getting very protective – every time a new bassist would be computer generated for us I’d start bitching about them, and my on-screen character in our press shots would have a similar expression of disgust on her face too.

In terms of gameplay, it’s got it just right. Rhythm and Action games just don’t get any better than this! Easy enough to give a completely talentless n00b a decent start, but hard enough to keep challenging us after days and make us all want to get to the next level. The songs are well chosen, though apparently the English version is going to be different and there are some minor qualms like choosing Cherub Rock over Zero or Today but, with all the downloadable content we’re promised, that shouldn’t be an issue for long.

I could lose my life to this game. Like Oblivion, I had the same inkling that I would not be the same person again afterwards. I am, somehow, more rock. So are they. The band set up with me, my bloke and his best mate, are now a part of my world – a part of my daytime flights of fancy and my dreams at night. When we all walked into the petrol station on the journey home I happened to glance over and realised that we had all started swaggering nonchalantly in unison, half sneers on our lips, gorgeously rumpled clothes, music exuding from every pore. If my memory serves me right (and it rarely does) there were even a group of Japanese girls who started screaming, throwing us teddy bears and taking photos.

That character seems more like me than the woman who walks into work on a Monday morning, book and lunchbox. Where’s my cava? My cigarette? My mic, drumsticks and guitar? It’s all I can think about, lost as I am without them.

When I sang Sabotage I felt my life and hopes changing, like shifting sands beneath my feet. When my bloke sang Maps I thought my heart would break.

I have never dreamt of stardom, knowing, rightly, that I have no musical talent and no desire to be famous, but this game convinces me otherwise. It gives me hopes and confidence beyond what I really have the right to possess. It is, therefore, a humbling experience looking back on it. For now I’ll be playing SingStar and GH at the same time, probably to different songs, in the feeble hope of improving my abilities before the 360 version comes out.

Pre-order maintained.