I finished 69% of Through the Fire and Flames on Expert yesterday, playing on Guitar Hero: Smash Hits. (It’s a little bit different in Smash Hits, because there are certain parts you can use the slide bar for, which means you don’t have to strum. Makes those parts just a tad easier.)

I’ll try again when I haven’t been playing for an hour and my wrist doesn’t hurt. I CAN DO THIS!

And then I’ll go back and try to do it in GH3 to see if there’s any difference.

I’m frightening myself with all this, by the way.

Edit: I made it to 78% now!

I had the pleasure of playing a couple of songs at one of the Guitar Hero IV: World Tour booths at the Penny Arcade Expo in August, and I immediately felt comfortable with the game, even familiar. The guitar play felt right, looked right, and just all around was right.

For some context, I bought Rock Band three or four months ago, and while it was fun, it always felt kind of wrong to me. The rectangular notes don’t really work for me, and the hammer-ons required such deft timing that my well-trained fingers were inexplicably missing them.

For additional context, I’ve beaten the full game of Guitar Hero 3 on Expert. I’ve beaten every Guitar Hero 3 song on Expert (outside of DLC and Through the Fire and the Flames, which honestly doesn’t count). Heck, I have earned five stars on Expert all but four of those songs. I am good at rhythm games. And that’s why missing hammer-on sections in Rock Band was so weird for me. I was playing them right, at least in Guitar Hero terms. But in Rock Band terms, it just wasn’t happening.

Now farbeit from me to criticize Rock Band because I found it too difficult. But I think a bit more forgiveness in the timing of some of the notes would’ve contributed a lot to making me enjoy it as much as I’ve enjoyed Guitar Hero in the past.

Anyways, the long and short of all this is that today I finally picked up a full-band copy of Guitar Hero IV: World Tour for the XBox 360. It’s been a long time coming.

And it just feels right.

I’ll have more to share when I’ve gotten further into the game and encountered some real difficulty.

When some people fail to secure a preorder for Guitar Hero 4, they sigh to themselves and wait a few months.

Other people hack into someone’s Nintendo DS and threaten them into submission.

Rock Band 2 was released recently, as Harmonix made the first open move in the Battle of the Rhythm Games. With Guitar Hero 4 looming over the mid-October horizon, the stage is set for a full-scale battle between the well-established Guitar Hero franchise and its still-young Rock Band competitor.

All of the past months of hype and press releases have come down to this.

So how will things play out? Will one game crush the other? Will they split the profits evenly? Will anyone be driven out of business? Will any hippos be involved!? (I hope so.)

My predictions are simple:

Both games are going to do well. The past few years have proven that the world’s appetite for button-mashing on plastic rock instruments is far from satiated. (I know I can’t get enough!) Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero 4 are both going to see record profits and will inevitably spawn further sequels.

However, I believe there will be a clear victor in this round, and that will be Guitar Hero 4. Why? Because Guitar Hero’s massive instrument improvements have ambushed Harmonix and struck them with a Critical Hit (which does double damage!). The Music Studio portion of Guitar Hero 4 is going to be a major selling point that will help to ship a lot of units and will vastly increase the game’s staying power, but the instruments are going to be the primary money-making difference.

My reasoning is this: when people look at RB2 and GH4 and ask themselves, “Which one do I want to buy?” they will be probably be split pretty evenly either way. Rock Band has a bit of a branding advantage, having been the first to do the full-band experience, so it is fresher in the minds of the new, semi-informed purchaser. But the fully-informed purchaser, who is aware that all of the instruments are cross-compatible, will, overwhelmingly, choose to purchase the full Guitar Hero 4 package, while purchasing only the disc for Rock Band 2. This is my plan; it is my room-mate’s plan; quite frankly, it makes a whole lot of sense.

So while the games may ship fairly equal numbers of discs, I see Guitar Hero 4 coming out as the noticeable financial winner. Here’s to hoping Harmonix takes the hint and does some meaningful upgrades for Rock Band 3, instead of just adding some polish and less-than-notable upgrades.