Guitar!
Smule
Free on Apple iOS
I’m sure the comparison’s been made, but if you like yourself some Guitar Hero, Guitar! may just strum your chords.
The app purports to teach people how to play guitar but how stroking your iPhone helps you learn to grow calluses on your fingertips is anyone’s guess. The good news is, the app is a lot of fun.
You start with some money and an acoustic guitar and play through various (awful) songs (such as Jason Mraz’s I Won’t Give Up) by stroking or tapping one side of your iPhone when visual cues such as bars or dots approach a given line.
You can unlock harder modes which include changing chords by holding down the indicated colour, and every completed song earns you money, which allows you to buy other, less ear-bleeding songs or even other instruments, such as an electric guitar. However, be warned: so far it’s taken me about four renditions of Mraz’s abomination before I could afford to unlock Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen – oh, the agony!
The app also combines the melodic (or not-so-tuneful, depending on how good you are and how panicky you get) strumming of guitars with singers from the Sing! app users, who are very good, so don’t worry about renditions from some of your more horrible nights out.
I’m holding out for the Rock guitar but it costs a bajillion (or 1000) credits and each completed song (at my skill level) earns you just under 100, so it’s going to be a while.
You do have to play a song to the end to get your credits, which can get annoying but there is a pause button if you’re on the Tube frantically trying to finish strumming before your station.
The app is also nice looking with actually pretty good graphics in the song screen. Game play is simple and it’s free – what more could you want, apart from maybe a couple of Rage Against the Machine tracks and a head bangin’ meter?