Yesterday was the first annual unofficial Voodoopalooza event in Calgary. I should first send a shout out to some of our community members, notably Wendy and Greg aka "the Bastages" – and Ryan, Lee, Rossie, and the rest of the HP team who helped pull this together. Essentially we hosted a small contingent of community members and a number of people from the HP Gaming team for a couple of nights of socializing and gaming.
I wanted to provide a little bit of background before I get into the story about how I got my ass handed to me by a girl. There is a game called Guitar Hero II for the Xbox 360, I recommend that you run out and buy it immediately – it’s also much better with two guitars!
Mark Solomon, lead industrial designer for HP gaming – and Guitar Hero II freak (the guy has Guitar Hero stickers tattooed on his notebook), also joined us at the event. You’ll hear more about Mark’s fantastic work later this year – but for now let’s talk about his l337 sk1llz.
Mark talks a real big game and he wanted to show me up with duelling guitars. We started with Sweet Child of Mine and I ended up almost doubling his score (is that right Mark, was it double – or triple? I don’t recall because I was too busy learning how to play... :) ).
It was at that point that the “girl”, not just any girl mind you but a pro gamer stepped up and offered to play me. First let me say, Kristin is incredibly beautiful and very smart -- but she’s definitely not someone you would expect to play a video game -- let alone guitar hero.
So I was like “um okay, do you want to start off on easy?” -- She gave me the look of death, setup the game so we were equal, and she proceeded to thrash me – essentially tripling my score. While she looked great doing it I cannot imagine the faces I was making while my fingers were turning into spaghetti trying to keep up. I mean she beat me bad – big props to her.
So Mark decided to poke a bit of fun at me with the typical “dude, you got beat by a girl” – yet as any honourable person would do, he continued to challenge me at the game. We worked our way through a number of 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s rock tunes – each of which I won – although there was one point when I was doubling his score and he started to catch up. I turned around and what did I see? Four armed Mark was playing his guitar, except two of his arms looked like Kristen’s. Mark handed the guitar to Kristin to beat me midstream!
Ahh, but it was a tad too late. I still won, right Mark? I just wanted to earn my Guitar Hero stickers for my notebook and I did.
In the end, we played one final game where it was a back and forth battle – he *almost* won, but in a game of two there can only be one loser. That’s right folks, if you work at HP look him up on people finder, his name is Mark Solomon – and he could use consoling right about now.
Just kidding Mark, you know I love you man, it was great fun to have you up in Canada this week.
There were other players as well – Luc had never played it before and picked it up very quickly. Jason from IDG brought one of his guitars for the game and he was amazing to watch. He would play many of the songs on the most difficult level and made it look effortless.
The morale of the story is Guitar Hero II is probably the best party video game I have ever played.
Thanks to everyone for making this event successful!
I wanted to provide a little bit of background before I get into the story about how I got my ass handed to me by a girl. There is a game called Guitar Hero II for the Xbox 360, I recommend that you run out and buy it immediately – it’s also much better with two guitars!
Mark Solomon, lead industrial designer for HP gaming – and Guitar Hero II freak (the guy has Guitar Hero stickers tattooed on his notebook), also joined us at the event. You’ll hear more about Mark’s fantastic work later this year – but for now let’s talk about his l337 sk1llz.
Mark talks a real big game and he wanted to show me up with duelling guitars. We started with Sweet Child of Mine and I ended up almost doubling his score (is that right Mark, was it double – or triple? I don’t recall because I was too busy learning how to play... :) ).
It was at that point that the “girl”, not just any girl mind you but a pro gamer stepped up and offered to play me. First let me say, Kristin is incredibly beautiful and very smart -- but she’s definitely not someone you would expect to play a video game -- let alone guitar hero.
So I was like “um okay, do you want to start off on easy?” -- She gave me the look of death, setup the game so we were equal, and she proceeded to thrash me – essentially tripling my score. While she looked great doing it I cannot imagine the faces I was making while my fingers were turning into spaghetti trying to keep up. I mean she beat me bad – big props to her.
So Mark decided to poke a bit of fun at me with the typical “dude, you got beat by a girl” – yet as any honourable person would do, he continued to challenge me at the game. We worked our way through a number of 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s rock tunes – each of which I won – although there was one point when I was doubling his score and he started to catch up. I turned around and what did I see? Four armed Mark was playing his guitar, except two of his arms looked like Kristen’s. Mark handed the guitar to Kristin to beat me midstream!
Ahh, but it was a tad too late. I still won, right Mark? I just wanted to earn my Guitar Hero stickers for my notebook and I did.
In the end, we played one final game where it was a back and forth battle – he *almost* won, but in a game of two there can only be one loser. That’s right folks, if you work at HP look him up on people finder, his name is Mark Solomon – and he could use consoling right about now.
Just kidding Mark, you know I love you man, it was great fun to have you up in Canada this week.
There were other players as well – Luc had never played it before and picked it up very quickly. Jason from IDG brought one of his guitars for the game and he was amazing to watch. He would play many of the songs on the most difficult level and made it look effortless.
The morale of the story is Guitar Hero II is probably the best party video game I have ever played.
Thanks to everyone for making this event successful!
8 blogger comments:
Voodoopalooza = the shizzle.
Kristin > Rahul
Thanks so much for inviting me up to Voodoopalooza Rahul! And sorry about handing your ass to you in GH2, but it's just not in either of our natures to throw a game. ;)
Hey Rahul -- thank you to everyone at Voodoo/HP for a great event. Looking forward to many more in the future!
And Kristin, I challenge you to a Freebird rematch after you pick up a copy.
-Jason (jayscott.com)
Rahul - if you like those rhythm action games - essentially what Guitar Hero is, you need to come to Japan where Konami's 'Bemani' label produces dozens of rhythm action games, all of which awe awesome, but probably the most popular is the infamous (and impossible at high levels) Pop n'Music.
Rahul, first off thanks for an incredible event at Voodoo. I know that I can speak for the customers in attendance that it indeed exceeded our expectations!
Secondly, you missed 15 hours of non-stop Guitar Hero II at Driftwood's BBQ yesterday. Special thanks to the crappy weather for making us move the party inside from the get go! Missed you dude and almost ready now to take you on. However, no matter how good I get, I think Kristen and Jason would still kick my butt!
To all at Voodoo thanks for a awesome event and one which I plan on attending each year. I th9nk that the Guatr Hero stock will be tacking a sharp rise in a few days as when we all get home most of us will be bying it I know that I will be. I want to give a special thanks to the newly name Mr. Bloody Lip for enteraining us all with his "cool" beer bottle opening skilz, LOL. if you weren't able to make this years Voodoopalooza make sure you make next years it is going to be bigger and better.
Whoo! Whoo! chugga chugga chugga Whoo! Whoo!
Rahul, we are so glad that the event was a success. I definitely had a blast and cannot say how much fun I had meeting everyone and getting to know all of you on a whole other level. Heheh.
Funny thing is we went to Dave's the next day and played Guitar hero for 15 hours straight, I can say my forearms are killing me. We had a roundoff with Ryan, Jason, Greg, and myself and at that point we had been playing ALL day long. I crashed and failed 3 times, before that I was ROCKIN!! Woohoo!
We have all now decided to buy the game so next year we can have four guitars and jam together! That would be a blast! Cannot wait to see you all again next year.
I also want to say thank you so much for moving this along and making this happen. This may start a whole new generation of VoodooPC, keep growing and never stop learning is my motto.
Thanks again,
Wendy
Words can not describe the fun we had over the weekend.Dude, she didn't just kick your butt, she kicked EVERYONE'S Butt!
The whole weekend was an incredible experience and I would not have missed it for the world. Here is to next years event (and you HAVE to bring Kristen back, just to keep everyone in line with GH2)
OH, and post pictures of your GH stickers on the laptop.
Yup, Kristin will pretty much own anyone on the Xbox 360.
Guitar Hero is one of the most addicting games I have played. It's a blast at parties with your friends.
Ian Bell
www.digitaltrends.com
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