Guitar Hero and its ilk have transformed our nation’s garage band-playing youth into PS2-playing zombies. In researching this phenomenon I came across a freeware, open source game for PC, Mac OS X and Linux called Frets on Fire. It’s a complete, 100 percent rip-off of Guitar Hero only you can import your own songs into the game. (A good tutorial for that is here.) You control the action with either a keyboard, USB gamepad, or GH guitars. (The Xbox 360 guitar merely needs drivers to work, while the PS2 controller needs a PS2-USB adapter.) I started working on “Nothin’s Gonna Stand in Our Way” by Spectre General AKA Kick Axe last night and it’s coming along well. Up there is a clip of some dude playing a song I’m sure you’re all familiar with, if not sick of.
Hey, if nothing else, it’s way to kill a half hour here and there. It’s a hell of a lot easier to make custom songs than modding your PS2 like the Kick Axe video shows.