But I was thinking the same thing: what if, instead of becoming a pro at "guitar hero", that kid had invested the time to learn playing an actual guitar?
Then again, there are millions of guitarists, but only a few pro guitar hero players...
It's much, much easer to become a pro Guitar Hero player than a pro guitar player. The same amount of time invested in real probably wouldn't have gotten him that far.
Funny, the first thing that popped into my head after seeing the GH clip was that it was probably someone who already knew how to play the guitar. I would think that a good guitar player, for whom fretwork would be second nature, would find Guitar Hero to be a breeze even at the hardest levels. They don't have to worry about working individual strings, so speed becomes less of an issue.
On the other hand, whoever it was playing that Japanese flying/shooting game is a monster. Being able to operate using a completely different train of thought for each hand and operate really is fundamentally difficult. Most of the other things are just routines that can be practiced ad nauseam until muscle memory kicks in and they get it right.
GH has less to do with playing guitar than pure rhythm -- I can't play guitar but I can play the drums and I'm great at Guitar Hero. I've seen people that play guitar pick up Guitar Hero faster than people with no musical background but anyone with some rhythm can do pretty well in guitar hero. There are various stories on the internet of professional rock guitarists that are unable to play solos they recorded in Guitar Hero.
The other important skill is reading the notes as they fly down the screen -- I was good at this because I played Harmonix's pre-Guitar Hero games with nearly identical gameplay, Frequency and Amplitude. I was good at sight reading real written rhythms also.
If you liked the video, check out this movie on Donkey Kong world records, called "The King of Kong":
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0923752/
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