Songs As Games

There's one thing that has always bothered me about the myriad of guitar-based music games that have come out in the last few years. They aren't just musical compilations, but video games. Imagine that the songs therein are levels, like in Super Mario Bros. or some similar game; you have the beginning of the level, the end of the level, and a bunch of tricky obstacles you have to navigate your way through to get from the former to the latter. Many songs in these games have a big difficult solo in them; the level's boss, if you will. The thing is, most of these solos take place in the middle of the song. Once you pass the solo, there's still a minute or two of relatively easy parts to endure.

What if you were playing Super Mario Bros., grab the axe on that bridge Bowser stands on, making him fall into the pool of lava, but you still had several Goombas and rotating fire thingies to pass before you got to the princess - that's not exactly good pacing or level design. Now, I'm not saying the songs should be rearranged so the solo is at the very end, I just thought, from a gaming viewpoint, it's kinda weird.