Guitar Hero III and the 'ukulele?

Before becoming a 'ukulele nut, I was an avid air guitarist whacking on a plastic Gibson SG and playing a Playstation 2 videogame called Guitar Hero. Guitar Hero has become a smash hit and on Oct. 28th, 2007, Guitar Hero III was released. Since I started playing the 'ukulele, I have hardly touched my video game systems at all, and my PS2 Guitar Hero controllers (I had 3, not counting the new one that came with GHIII, which means I suffered from GHCAS - Guitar Hero Controller Acquisition Syndrome - long before UAS) sat around gathering dust. I still thought the Guitar Hero games were great games, but I was much too busy trying to learn to play the 'ukulele. Even so, I always knew that I would buy Guitar Hero III as soon as it came out, especially since it is available for the Nintendo Wii.

I got the game on October 28th and started playing it that night. Before I had played the 'ukulele, I always wondered if a video game such as this could be fun for someone who played the guitar. After all, when you can play the real thing, would a small toy guitar be much fun? While I do not know how to play the real guitar, I now have several months of 'ukulele playing under my belt and I figured I would have some idea about this question I had. It turns out that Guitar Hero III is still a pretty fun game for me. It's not close to the fun derived from playing my ukes, but fun nontheless. Some of the songs in the game were from my junior high years, and stuff like Poison's "Talk Dirty To Me" was surprisingly fun to play. And the new Gibson Les Paul controller rocked as well. It is really well made, feels substantial, and offers good control of the game. Heck, it was almost like getting another 'ukulele! Can't beat that right?

Maybe my love of the 'ukulele was originated from playing this game. I mean, the controller is just a smidge bigger than my Pono Cedar top tenor. If they ever made "Ukulele Hero", they could include a life-sized 'ukulele controller! And you could play songs by Jake Shimabukuro and James Hill! How cool would that be??? Ok, maybe not. One thing I know is that before Guitar Hero, I really would play the air guitar to rock songs that I like. Guitar Hero kind of fulfilled the desire to "rock out" while playing something tangible, and the 'ukulele represents fulfilling that desire with a real musical instrument.

So in my strange world, the progression went from: Air guitar -> Guitar Hero controller -> 'Ukelele. Sounds good to me.