A simple question. A friend wants to buy GHIII for “his kid” and asked me, if he was old enough to play it (I think he’s 5).
My six year old has gret trouble just holding the guitar and misses 9 out of 10 notes… but she hasn’t really tried a lot, because while she likes to watch daddy play, it’s not her kind of music or her kind of game.
Could a five year old who’s into it play GHIII?
My kids can all play the game well. They are ages 6, 7 and 9 but the six year old was playing GH earlier this year when he was still five. He plays on easy, sometimes medium, and the middle one has already progressed to medium while the oldest is working on hard.
If the kid really wants to play the game, he’ll figure it out. That’s pretty much my experience with any game that the boys find entertaining.
Also, boys are usually different from girls in this regard in my experience.
My 6 year old is struggling as well. My twins started playing when they were 8 and managed up to Medium then.
I’d say 5 is a tad young. Hard for them to follow the rhythm, place their fingers on the guitar and strum. No doubt some will manage, but your friend should be enough and admit he’s buying it for himself. ;)
Wendelius
My cousin, around the age of about 9, failed I Love Rock & Roll on Easy about 40 times in a row. He was deliriously happy when he succeeded. Whether they can cope or not varies massively from kid to kid, I suspect.
That said, yeah: if a kid wants to, they’ll keep trying. I was playing Carrier Command when I was around 5, for crying out loud.
Of my three boys, the 9 and 7 year old can play on easy just fine. The 4 year old isn’t there yet.
However, succeeding is not really the goal when you’re that age, playing is the thing, and passing is gravy.
It’s worth a try. Though make it GHII
To be fair, my cousin was trying to play every single fret with one finger. Telling him that was going to make songs a lot more difficult (and in many cases impossible) just made him more adamant that it was definitely the right way to do it.
As for GH2: make it GH2 on 360, then. The difficulty curve on the PS2 is more of a difficulty rollercoaster. GH1 has by far the best difficulty curve, but it’s a less fun to play once you’re used to the later games in the series, sadly. Honestly, I Love Rock & Roll should be in every GH game, simply because it’s the absolute best way to start getting used to a new difficulty.
Why GHII over III?
I found III to be harder (faster) on medium than II, but at the same time much more forgiving of missed notes - and I like the music better (but hate boss battles like everybody else).
Really? I found it much trickier than, say, “Mother” from GHII. …though admittedly I hadn’t played any other Guitar Hero successfully when I started on the first one.
My four year old likes to play the “mommy song” in GH1 (“I Love Rock & Roll” - it’s the song my wife would play). I’d enter the cheat so she couldn’t fail, then she’d play hit the green gem again & again, occaisonally hitting one.
For GH2, she’d play the “mommy and daddy song”, which is “Surrender” (“Mommy’s all right, Daddy’s all right”).
I wouldn’t have bought GH just for her, though. She’s not good enough to play easy without failing. And she plays the same song over and over and over and over…
Its significantly more expensive, but Rock Band would probably be better suited for a young kid. The Rock Band guitar has two sets of frets, and the spacing on the lower set is much smaller, perfect for kids or people with small hands.
The lower(higher?) set on the stratocaster only works for solos
(parts of the song with the blue background) and works differently than normal frets do. In solos you push them without strumming for each note.
You can use those buttons for the entire song, but you have to strum at non-solo parts.
oh, my bad.
My 7 and 8 year old can both play it decently enough to have fun with it. Granted, the game itself is for me though - they just get to play as well. If I had no interest in the game, it would have been a non-purchase just for them (they don’t play it enough to justify the cost). My younger one actually has a MUCH better sense of rhythm, but doesn’t like to play as much. Sigh :)