I Suck at Video Games

The other day I got in my friend’s car, and she was playing a Dr. Demento CD. I had never heard her play Dr. Demento before, and the song was Fish Heads by Barnes & Barnes. I hadn’t heard this song in over 15 years. I sang every word. Who could forget the classic line “roly poly fish heads are never seen drinking cappucino in Italian restaurants with oriental women … yeah?

Then she switched to the Garden State soundtrack (hated the movie, loved the soundtrack), and a Shins song came on that I have heard dozens of times, many within the last couple of years. I didn’t know a single word.

Memory is a weird thing, and I have always prided myself on having a very good one. So this concept is new to me. I know all the words of songs that I haven’t heard in years, but new songs I listen to all the time just happen around me.

I like Death Cab For Cutie. I have every one of their albums. I listen to The Photo Album at least once a week at work, and have for the last year or so. My favorite song on the album is Why You’d Want to Live Here. I know it starts “I’m in Los Angeles today,” and the rest of the lyrics muddle together in my head (something about a gas station attendant and bad weather) until he sings “I can’t see why you’d want to live here.” The music and the beat are entrenched in my mind; I can’t for the life of me remember the words.

This must be why older people like classical music more than younger people. They don’t have to learn words! I go to a Death Cab For Cutie show, and people must look at me like I must be some “he only knows the singles” fan because I don’t do any singing along. If I go to a performance of Shostakovich, no one could accuse me of the same. What singles?

This is a selective thing for me because I know every word of my soon-to-be 2006 Single of the Year, Pull Shapes by The Pipettes. Or at least I think I do. Then again, that is the most played song on my iPod. Then again, Why You’d Want to Live Here is second. There’s a line about billboards in there, I’m sure.

I promised some Guitar Hero content in here, and this is it.

Play the game for about 20-30 minutes straight. Then stare at any one object in your room. It moves. Like in some freaky getting bigger and smaller at the same time way. It could very well be the scariest thing ever, and even though I have passed every song I have tried (Sweet Child ‘o Mine had me in the yellow for a while), the game has officially started creeping me out! Maybe I should sit farther away from the television? Has anyone else experienced this?

The content of the game is amazing, by the way. The song list, even though I know it, keeps taking me by surprise. When I get called to do an encore, and the encore is Carry On Wayward Son or War Pigs, I get excited like I’m watching the show myself!

I’ve also started playing a game called Okami about a wolf on a Zelda-like quest, who unfortunately is teamed up with a Zelda-like combination of Navi and Tingle, combining the worst of each. I am hoping as I get deeper into the game that this little helper of mine is killed, and I have to avenge its death. Then, when I get to the big boss who killed this annoyance, I can thank them instead of eating them. Otherwise, the game has been truly artistic so far, with superb design and clever gameplay.

Stupidly, I forgot to remove this game from my Gamefly queue after I got a copy, so it just showed up in the mail today. What a waste. Turns out I also suck at renting video games.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 21st, 2006 at 12:26 am and is filed under Rhythm Games, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.