I’m about to type out a sentence I never thought I’d be writing on this blog. I still smile while thinking about what I’m about to say. On Saturday I did something I never thought I could possibly manage. I beat the Guitar Hero 2 expert career. For the longest time I was stuck on Freya, which is a little over halfway through the career. I actually gave up trying to beat it, but after spending a lot of time on Rock Band I decided to go back to it a few months ago, and beat it first time. I pretty quickly found myself on the final tier of songs after battling past songs like Psychobilly Freakout. I beat the first two songs of the last tier easily enough, but the next 3, Misirlou, Institutionalized, and Hangar 18 all kicked my ass pretty convincingly, so I decided to be happy to be further than ever, and left it at that.
Fast forward to last Friday, and on a whim I decided to have another go at GH2. Misirlou beat me twice fairly quickly, but on the third attempt I got past the section that had beaten me, and I flew through the rest of the song. Institutionalized took me 2 attempts, which left on up against Hangar 18. My good friend Daz had been stuck on it for nearly as long as I was stuck on Freya, and I’d tried it several times before, failing at 85% each time. This time however, my fingers had a mind of their own, and somehow managed to get me through the song on my very first attempt. Buoyed by this, I had two attempts at Free Bird, both of which ended in failure about 75% in. It was late and I was tired, so I left it for the night, went upstairs and relaxed on the PC for a short while.
While on the PC, I had a look for a YouTube video of people beating Free Bird on expert, and from what I could see, I was failing at the hardest part of the song (Just after Solo I for those of you who know it). I realised that if I could make it past that part, the relatively easy star power sections that followed should ensure an easy passage to the finish. I went to bed determined to beat it the next day.
And beat the song I did. Armed with the knowledge of exactly what I needed to do, I got to my dreaded Solo I knowing that one good section would see me through the song. I just about scraped through the section, went through the rest of the song with nary a problem, and somehow managed to finish with a 4 star rating. I shouted so loud in victory I scared my cats! They forgave me though thankfully.
Out of all the things I’ve done in gaming over the years, this is probably one of the things I’m most proud of. I’ve been an expert or so level player for a couple of years now, but had never managed to break through my own invisible ceiling and take it to the next level of actually beating an expert career. Through perserverance, practise and patience I managed to do something I never thought possible. Now all I need to do is beat Guitar Hero 3, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, Guitar Hero: Metallica and Rock Band all on the expert career modes and I’ll be happy 
Unlikely, but hey, I beat one target I never thought I would, might as well keep aiming high.
In other gaming-related news, I’ve abandoned my aim to have a relatively small 20-game collection. After getting rid of loads of old games, ram and music cds, I ended up with lots of credit for Computer Exchange and ended up getting 10 new games in a week. Most are older ones, some of which I’ve owned before, but all are good and all with help me when I’m bored and wondering what to play. I wonder if I can hit 50 games at some point?
