Techotic Gadgets

This is so cool, unfortunately I’m too lazy even to attemp it. Michael figured that the only way he could beat his son Alex,16, was to build a computer that could watch the game being played, process some information, and play the notes on the guitar.

“I knew the only way I was going to beat my son Alex at Guitar Hero was to cheat”

-Michael ( January 1, 2008)

After seeing a demonstration of Guitar Hero at my sisters house, my son and I went online and purchased the game and two guitars for our Wii. You see, my son is 16 and I’m, well, older. Any opportunity to hang out together is welcomed. The first few hours were a lot of fun. We both had our sessions set to ‘easy’ and traded top position on the leader board back and forth. Of course, as the week went by, I watched as my son’s scores improve as mine languished. That was 12 weeks ago. Now he plays on the expert level and I’m stuck at medium. He had his initials at the top of the players list on every song.

What’s a Dad to do?
After hours of hacking away at that plastic guitar I topped out at medium. Moving on to hard and adding that 5th key when I only have 4 fingers is just beyond my ever slowing ability to do that ‘eye/hand’ thing. It just wasn’t working. I realized that to get my name at the top of the players list, practice alone was not going to get me there. I was going to have to cheat.

He created a circuit that takes in composite video, performs signal processing, and then correctly “hits” buttons on the guitar hero controller based upon what’s on the screen. On Michael’s website, he posted the AGH1000’s schematics, source codes, pictures, diagrams and a how to guide, plus some videos of the AGH1000 in action filmed using a cam. This has to be the best hack for Guitar Hero around, if you can be bothered to try it out yourself.

[via bunnie]