This Christian take on the music genre's most popular game, Guitar Hero, fails in so many ways.

Game Summary

Popzara Rating

Calling Guitar Praise a Guitar Hero ripoff is not an insult, it's a fact. And while Guitar Praise may be able to cash in on that game's success, it doesn't seem able to match its level of quality. I imagine it meets its basic goal, providing young people and adults with a Christian version of the kinds of music games that are hugely popular, but only barely so. It not only isn't as cool as Guitar Hero or Rock Band, but it also lacks the broad selection of music and features, the on-screen avatars, or the visceral excitement those games offer. While it may provide an alternate choice for parents to buy their kids, and it may keep them away from the worldly rock, punk, country, and other music those games promote, it doesn't provide a truly creative and original alternative that Christians really need. Release Date: 09/25/ 2008 ESRB Rating: Unrated Publisher: Digital Praise

Written by Gary Lucero

Calling Guitar Praise a Guitar Hero ripoff is not an insult, it's a fact. Digital Praise, makers of this music game for the PC and Mac platforms, has clearly aimed at creating a less secularized version of the game that has sold millions on multiple platforms. What Guitar Praise lacks, though, that both Guitar Hero and Rock Band have in spades, is polish, style, and an incredible sense of detail. While Guitar Praise may be able to indeed cash in on those games' success, it doesn't seem able to match their level of quality.

Like it's spiritual inspiration, Guitar Praise gives you a plastic guitar with five colored fret buttons, strum and whammy bars, and a tilt function. In addition, this wireless guitar also offers an on/off switch and volume controls. The receiver plugs into the PC or Mac's USB port and the installation CD works for both Windows (XP/Vista) and Mac (OS X 10.3 or later). The system requirements are pretty minimal and of course that means the game doesn't look very good when compared to the competition.

Once everything is installed and plugged in, you can put the CD away as it doesn't appear to be required during play sessions. Turn on the guitar and the green light on the receiver should stop flashing. Double-click the Guitar Praise icon, which presents you with a loading screen that can take you into the game proper and also gives you access to the company's online support and store, and let's you register the product or perform other related online functions. Note that choosing one of the options other than START appears to cause some sort of problem and I had to close and reopen the program before the game would start.

Once in the game, which is a full-screen application that uses either OpenGL or Direct3D to render its graphics and offers multiple screen resolutions, you can immediately begin performing, or choose from a number of other options. Select Perform to begin the first song, and if you've played either Guitar Hero or Rock Band before, the sight will be quite familiar: The scrolling fret bar shows colored stars that correspond to the colored frets on the plastic guitar. As the stars cross the bottom of the screen, you hold down the matching colored fret button and press the strum bar. While basic game play is identical to the mentioned games, there are a number of issues with the implementation in Guitar Praise.

First off, the sound quality is inconsistent. While the selection of songs, from Christian artists such as Chris Tomlin, WhiteCross, Flyleaf, DC Talk, Family Force 5, and Jennifer Knapp, are generally pretty decent, the sound is odd. The guitar sound seems distant from the rest of the track, and the player's interactions with the music results in a strange hollowness. Holding a fret button and using the whammy bar, for instance, doesn't result in a decent tremolo tone. It begins that way but there's no sustain and even though you are forced to continue to hold the button for the duration of the note, it stops making any sound.

Simple tricks that work in Guitar Hero or Rock Band, like holding down the left most fret button, which is green, for a matching green star, and then keeping your finger on it but also holding the button to its right, which is red, for a matching red star, don't work in Guitar Praise. This means you have to always release all of the fret buttons except those necessary to hit the next star, which makes the game far harder than it should be. In addition, even on easy mode the game seems to drop stars really quickly and this would appear to make the game far harder for younger people than one would expect.

Quality and difficulty issues aside, Guitar Praise lacks the polish of its secular cousins. The game screens are downright ugly, and the main play screen lacks detail and pizazz. While I imagine it meets its basic goal, providing young people and adults with a Christian version of the kinds of music games that are hugely popular, it does it only barely so. It not only isn't as cool as Guitar Hero or Rock Band, but it also lacks the broad selection of music and features, the on-screen avatars, or the visceral excitement those games offer. While it may provide an alternate choice for parents to buy their kids, and it may keep them away from the worldly rock, punk, country, and other music those games promote, it doesn't provide a truly creative and original alternative that Christians really need.

In other words, is cashing in on a popular gaming trend really the way to glorify God and keep kids away from content we deem inappropriate?