Problems with kids
Had a fascinating weekend visiting some friends and their kids this weekend, where I was introduced to the wonder that is Guitar Hero on the PS2.
I have to admit this one had passed me by a little since arriving with a bang of publicity, but when you see a 14-year-old rocking through Heart Shaped Box and Sweet Child of Mine, you can’t help but think this is a step in the right direction.
If you have had your head buried in the sand for the last couple of years, guitar hero’s unique selling point is that you are given a plastic ‘guitar’ controller with five buttons for the chords and a strummer. The notes (buttons) then roll towards you on a belt and you try to play the right buttons at the right time and strum to play the note.
I make it sound complicated (and I managed to make it LOOK complicated too when I had a go) but it really is massively entertaining.
The weekend also gave me another chance to look at how kids behave on computers having never been without them.
Now, without wanting to date myself too accurately, my computer education started very young and on a ZX Spectrum 48k with rubber keys - so I always believe that I am firmly planted in the computer age. I was an early adopter of the internet, online gamed back when it wasn’t a case of just plugging a cable in, and I had a pre-Windows PC.
However, take one look at an 11 -year-old girl building a web page (admittedly a very, very, very glittery one) as well as chatting with her mates on MSN and playing a game all at the same time and you can’t help but feel like a bit of a dinosaur. And what with having a sore shoulder from waving a plastic guitar around for a few hours, I can’t even suggest that the dinosaur is T-Rex.
