People made fun of Guitar Hero because it made people who had no musical talent pretend that they did. Before that was Dance Dance Revolution, which didn't really involve any dance skills, but some of the more hardcore players drew in a captive audience regardless.

Now with Rock Band, a combination of vocals, guitar, and drums, you can have your very own band without much musical talent at all and people will definitely be mesmerized. However, you can't be completely tone deaf if you want to sing, and the drums is actually kind of hard. We played Rock Band throughout the entire Thanksgiving weekend and the only person who nailed the drum portion was actually a drummer... in a real band.

Rock Band is a way for people to bond and have fun together. With my brother on drums, my husband and sister on guitar and bass and me on vocals, it actually felt like we were working together. We had to, because each member has to pull their own weight to get through the song.

The downside is that the Rock Band guitar was poorly made. If you thought the Guitar Hero guitars were bad, the buttons became unresponsive after a few hours of play. We have already put in an order for a replacement guitar.

The hefty price tag is another issue, but with some friends you'll definitely get your money's worth. We hosted Thanksgiving and had over 30+ people over and it was something that people actually sat around and waited to have a turn. (We had other game stations set up, like Wii, poker, board games etc.)

So if you haven't had a chance to try it yet... run out to Best Buy, I'm sure they have it set up. :)

I've been drowning in so much school work I haven't even had a chance to touch a console in awhile. I played maybe 10 minutes of Halo 3 last night and that was it. But on a video game related note, I am doing an independent study with a professor on video games.

I will be looking for research subjects, male and female to answer some questions via e-mail. I would have liked to do it in person, but it is easier online with people's schedules. So if you are interested, please get in touch, I'm looking for anyone over 18 who considers themselves either a hardcore or casual gamer. I'll have a list of questions to answer and I may end up following up for more detail.

The purpose of my study to look at gender differences when it comes to games, and to take a look at habits and other random details. This is just an independent study for credit, I'm not writing a thesis, so yes I know that this isn't the most exciting or original idea out there, but it's more of an exercise of doing a research study than to actually come across some kind of new revelation. Maybe if I get grant money :p

So if you're interested, just drop me an e-mail soapy(at)gamersinfo.net