If I had to face Jesus in a guitar battle, I bet I'd lose

Here's something I bet you don't know: I'm a rock star - actually, a guitar god!

I've gone head-to-head with Rage Against The Machine's Tom Morello and sent him packing. I've had a guitar battle with Guns N' Roses' (and currently Velvet Revolver's) Slash, and sent him away with his tail between his legs while hundreds of people go wild, celebrating my rockin' victory, wishing for an autograph, a lock of my hair or even my baby (wait...scratch that last one).

Then I notice the clock and realize I'm going to be late for work if I don't get a move on, so I turn off my Nintendo Wii, swear under my breath and scoot out the door.

In case you haven't caught on by now, I'm talking about Guitar Hero, the biggest video game craze since every gamer went out and bought an XBox specifically for Halo 3 tournaments.

This thing's big now and quickly growing. It's already sprouted a competitor, the very-fun-to-play Rock Band (which brings bass, drums and vocals into the mix), along with world-wide tournaments and even ramblings of a movie in the works (too bad the ramblings sound like it'd be an utter crap Brett Ratner flick).

There is one problem, though. While the music used for the game is some of rock's super hits, what about other forms of music? Do you really want a cherry pie to constantly put a smile on your face 10 miles wide? Are there really fun and games when they welcome us to the jungle?? What if we have a fever and the only prescription is more cowbell??? (wait...scratch that last one).

Heck, what if you like, say....Christian music?

Well, gee golly, are you in luck!!!

Harmonix, the same company responsible for both Guitar Hero and Rock Band, is currently developing and releasing on Sept. 25th, 2008 a Guitar Hero knock-off called Guitar Praise. Instead of the usual heavily-tattooed, hard-livin' hair band primadonnas seen before, Guitar Praise is going to be full of songs by today's most popular Christian bands, including (but not limited to) Caedmon's Call, dc Talk, Toby Mac, Skillet, Hawk Nelson, Jesse Daniels, Newsboys, Petra, Spoken, Whitecross and a bunch of others.

Now, there's bound to be a lot of suits in the gaming and music industries who'll no doubt put their heads together, guffawing and declaring how uncool playing Christian music really is. There's no market for this sort of game, they'll say. Today's youth culture aren't about worship, right?

They have no clue. The Christian demographic amongst young people is enormous in this country and the market is virtually untapped in the video game community. That's not to say that every kid, tween and teen who worships wants to mash 'A' repeatedly to throw the stone at Goliath or put in a cheat code to get more loaves of bread to feed the 5,000, but this is a pretty slick way to bring their beliefs (and wallets) to the forefront (and, yes, the money factor shouldn't necessarily come first for a Christian video game but, let's face it, someone's making money off this thing).

It's not without it's flaws, though. The game is only available for PC or Mac (no Playstation, XBox or Wii version - yet) and comes with a hefty price of $99.95 (though that includes the game and guitar controller and is comparable to the Guitar Hero games). However, with a lack of Christian-based games outside of the Veggie Tales realm, I'm willing to bet this'll do well.

So go ahead - tell your local priest or pastor to sit back and relax one Sunday morning and make the congregation testify yourself by rockin' the pulpit!!!

- Jason

Comments

[anon e. mouse]

Just a thought, but it seems to me that Christian music is more of a lyric-centric genre than a melodic one. I could be wrong, but I'm not sure there's many Eddie Van Halen-type guitar runs to make much of a game.

[Dave]

There's a few Christian bands out there with some heavy chops like Underoath. They are in this month's Guitar World.

I've enjoyed the bit of guitar hero that I've played, but for some of the money that people shell out for the game, they could get actual equipment and play to their favorite CD's and learn to play.

[Dave]

Do you think this will spawn a whole new line of Christian games? You could even get the Rod, Todd, and Ned Flanders seal of approval. Imagine a "Good Samaritan" game just like they play on the Simpsons.