I can honestly say that Power Gig from Seven45 Studios raises the bar for the music game. If you’ve played Rock Band or Guitar Hero, than you know how you must push a button and flick a “strum bar” in order to match patterns on the screen. Power Gig replaces all the buttons with actual guitar strings.

The Power Gig SixString Guitar is still marked with the colored frets on the neck, so all you are really doing is holding down a string instead of pushing a button. I believe that I was on the easy level, and I only hit one fret during the song. I found even that difficult to get used to, and part of playing the song includes strumming while holding down no string frets, something that other guitar music games don’t have. I wonder if more difficult levels include actual guitar chords. Find out about the drums after the jump.

Power Gig also has a microphone and drums. The drums are not designed with the realism of the guitar and are quite unusual. The drumsticks are electrical, and powered by batteries. The player does not strike anything physical with them, but simply waves the stick above a sensor. By the way, the sticks have to be held a certain way (there is a specially marked place for the thumb) or they will not work.

In summary, I will say that Power Gig is a more advanced version of the music game genre, but it could easily be more advanced. You could be playing real instruments, for example.

Related Posts:

• Power Gig: Rising of the SixString gives the six string its gaming glory
• Gadget Thumbnails for 16-Jun-2010
• Seven45 Studios unveil SixString guitar controller
• Gadget Thumbnails for 09-Mar-2010
• Powermat's Newest Variations on display at CITA 2010

It is developed by Seven45 Studios, a sister company of First Act, leading musical instrument maker responsible for making the entry-level guitars, basses, and other instruments found at such retailers as target and Wal-Mart.

The guitars that Power Gig comes with are reported to look like the guitars used by younger jammers, and they can be hooked up to any guitar amp. I believe that these games are set up to work for the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3, and my source tells me that there is some sort of “dampening block” that holds the strings in place, and the guitar’s fingerboard controls the game.

So, will this Power Gig make Guitar Hero and Rock Band players want to play a real guitar. I would have to say that it does remove the middleman.

Also, does it really make sense that our retail stores have shelves full of plastic instruments but nothing of the real thing? By the way, when Power Gig: Rise of the SixString arrives this fall, but will also include a microphone and drums. I wonder if those will be the real thing too.

Source