For some of us Guitar Hero is a baffling game requiring intense hand-eye coordination and an incomprehensible ability to somehow *predict* what’s coming up next. For others it’s a walk in a park. Due to a wide variance in skills, we have created groups based on ability and familiarity, Easy, Medium and Hard. Don’t worry, we’re going to break down the numbers in a minute.

Every Friday the song is chosen for the upcoming week. Everyone has three attempts at the song to get their highest score. It is fun to see people get so involved, especially when it’s their lunch hour that’s on the line. Week to week each person’s highest score is recorded and those scores will be averaged to determine the rankings within a group. Currently there are eleven people in the Easy Group, seven people in Medium and four participants in the Hard/Expert group.

So far there have been four completed weeks with songs: Talk Dirty To Me, School’s Out, Slow Ride and Miss Murder. The song for Week 5 (this week) is Anarchy in the UK which should prove interesting. Unexpectedly, the average numbers for the Hard/Expert level are much higher than the Easy group, partly because those players are just much much better, partly because there are physically more notes from which to gain points in each song, and also because, since it is more difficult, the notes are worth more when you hit them (I think). As a proud member of the Easy group, I can’t confess to knowing the ins and outs of the game. Now for some numbers and a chance to name and shame. Fun fun.

Shaun is currently leading the Easy group with an average of 68,624 points. Melanie (yours truly) is trailing in second place at 59,782 after a first song debacle. Apart from Shaun, the girls of Web Apps are dominating the Easy group with Naomi, Kerry and Kate in 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th places respectively. With that kind of showing perhaps it’s not that surprising that many of the rest of Easy contestants have ceased anything resembling an effort.

In the Medium group Steve and Jeff are topping the leader board in a very close race for first. Steve is averaging 112,800 at this point and Jeff is right behind him at 111,515, not far away either is Claire at 108, 230. After those three the scores drop off a bit to the 70,000s with Shui, Safder and Chris. Perhaps there will be a little upset to the top scores…more in a minute.

The Hard/Expert group is what everyone wants to hear about. This group is made up of the Web Apps Guitar Hero Elite, Ashley, Rob L, Kris and Craig. At this stage Ashley is pretty much killing everyone, after the fourth song he is averaging over 200,000 (that’s per song, aka what I’d get if I added together my first four songs), next in line is Rob at about 172,000 and finally Kris at 116,800. After a somewhat disastrous start Craig has been having a difficult time finding space in his schedule for Guitar Hero.

Now, for some special mentions. Lauren and Dale, our resident Microsoft Apprentices, have joined the Guitar Hero party. They are latecomers to the tournament so I haven’t included their scores (so far I only have scores for two songs from each of them) but their initial attempts are very promising. As long as nothing goes wrong during “Talk Dirty to Me” (the song that killed me, among others) Dale is in position to take third place and possibly even second place in the Easy group. Lauren in the Medium group is averaging around 90,000 which would place her in 4^th if nothing changes, slap bang in the middle between the 70,000 cluster and the 110,000 cluster. Because the apprentices spend large chunks of their time in training courses, we are letting them catch up on songs they have missed whenever they have time (generally you must complete the song during the week).

All in all Guitar Hero is off to a great start. This is the beginning of Week 5 meaning that we are almost halfway through the first stage of the competition. After 10 weeks of averaging the highest scores, the top few from each group will battle in the semi-finals. Let the games continue!