Now, of course I've heard people say that this is wrong; that video games cheapen or damage the experience of learning real music with their plastic peripherals and oversimplification of beats, rhythm and notes. But it seems like even more music games seem to be popping up in response to this criticism – all of which claiming that they are different, that they really are about the music and not about mimicking and button mashing.

Think about it: we've got Timbaland's Beaterator which includes lessons on real music theory in the tutorial, DJ Hero which introduces the concept of an artist who uses other people's music to make an original song and elaborate music studio components in Rock Band and Guitar Hero that put the power of composition directly in your button-mashing fingers. And let us not forget Wii Music and all its lofty educational ambitions.

To tone deaf choir reject like myself, the music game scene isn't just over saturated – it's downright intimidating. Am I supposed to be entertained, educated or indoctrinated? I can hardly decide.

All of this came up today while talking with Carlo Delallana (designer) and Matt Leunig (associate producer) about their game, Jam Sessions 2 – a guitar simulator. I was playing Good Reporter and trying to find out how the game would treat me as a gamer and also as a would-be musician (despite my evident failure in middle school).

I asked about the scoring system and Delallana said the game wouldn't punish me or make the song sound bad for messing up a note. I started to ask about competitive multiplayer and both Leunig and Delallana emphasized that their game was more about making music than trying to be better than the next guy. Finally, I told them about Beaterator's music theory lessons and asked for their take, and Delallana dropped this bomb: "There's a danger in teaching [music] because there's no one way to learn music."

That may be why Jam Sessions 2 is so careful not to punish gamers for messing things up – and why it doesn't really tell you what to do when you get to the music studio to start recording and editing your own tracks. It also may be why I gravitate to it over Beaterator or Rock Band because I don't really know that I want a music game to teach me or judge me on something I feel like I suck at. But is that reaction even worse than me assuming I know how to play the guitar having beaten Killer Queen on Hard?

It comes down to what music games are supposed to be for. If Delallana is right and there's no one way to learn music, then maybe it doesn't matter whether or not DJ Hero has a better track list than Scratch: The Ultimate DJ. But on the other hand, if the game isn't supposed to teach me music – if it's really just an interactive fantasy where I can pretend to be a rock star – maybe all music games are only as good as their set lists.

Either way you look at it, though, there is eventually going to be a music game for everybody if the market for these games keeps expanding like it is. Whether you're a choir reject like me or a Ukulele Hero hold-out, there just might be some comfort in that.

This November, Activision's Vicarious Visions studio will release its fourth music game for the Nintendo DS. Band Hero DS follows a trio of shrunken Guitar Hero games that were playable on Nintendo's handheld with a bundled guitar grip that plugged into the Nintendo DS' Game Boy Advance slot. The add-on simulated the feel of a guitar fret.

The portable Guitar Heroes were hits with kids but have suffered mockery by many reader of sites like this one, who have surmised that the games on the DS are only good for hand cramps and embarrassment.

"No matter what your game is, you're always going to have a subset of people who won't want to play it for philosophical reasons," David Nathanielsz, the game's executive producer at Vicarious Visions told Kotaku in a phone interview earlier this week. "That's unfortunate for us because there is a large group of people who see pictures of Guitar Hero DS or Band Hero DS and say, 'That looks dumb' or whatever. 'I never want to play it.'"

But play it and you just might be converted "I don't think we'll get everyone," he said. "But if we can get the message out there for people to try it…"

What if people could get over their apprehensions? What would they find?

Vicarious Visions' new game, Band Hero DS lets four people use their systems to play in a virtual band together. Its drum and guitar peripherals work only with the middle version of the DS, the DS Lite. Players can attach the guitar grip to play lead guitar or bass, wrap a sleeve of rubberized silicone around the system — the "drum grip" — and tap on mini drum pads to play drums or sing into the DS mic for vocals. And gamers can configure their band with any combination of those instruments, allowing for an all-vocals band or one with two drummers.

Imagine a quartet of players jamming together. The DS of each of the four gamers, linked over local wireless, emits the music of the game's more than 30 master tracks. Unlike Daigasso Band Brothers, the Nintendo-published multiplayer music game released in Japan in 2004, each system won't just play the sounds of the instrument its gameplay is tied to. Each one plays all of the music.

Being on a fourth iteration of a design helps. The developers of the portable Heroes repeatedly tweak their systems for detecting the strumming — and now also the drumming — efforts of their players. Some players, Nathanielsz said, lift their stylus after each strum. Some never lose contact with the screen. The game has to recognize that variety. Vicarious Visions has cleared elements from the touch screen and tweaked the programming again to improve strumming responsiveness.

For drumming, the game will recognize taps on its drum pads, not, as some may have anticipated, on the DS touch screen. A touch screen interface was considered, Nathanielsz said, but the DS' inability to recognize more than one tap on its touch screen at a time introduced the risk of the system failing to recognize two rapidly successive taps, particularly if the player was inputting them with two styli or fingers on the left and right sides of the screen. Going with something more button-based literally felt better for Vicarious Visions. "When we sat down and started prototyping drum play we wanted to replicate the rhythmic, kinesthetic experience of drumming," Nathanielsz said. "What we quickly realized is the movement of your thumbs in a horizontal and vertical direction was really compelling and fun." The gameplay that way should have the quickness and a bit of the physicality of drumming in real life.

The new game also includes WarioWare-sized, music-themed mini-game challenges that can be thrown at players in a competitive mode to throw them off or can be given to a struggling player in co-op mode to earn a boost. All songs are unlocked at the beginning of the game, but an expanded single player batch of 200 Achievements-style "Awards" spread across four instrument-based progressions has been included to help add longevity.

The game does not support the DS' Wi-Fi functionality and Nathanielsz said there are no plans to support downloadable content (as expected given the DS Lite's lack of storage capacity).

Why isn't this game called Guitar Hero 5 DS? Activision is splitting its rock-based Hero games this fall with both a Guitar Hero sequel and the new Band Hero console and portable game. The latter has a broader and more pop-inclusive soundtrack. Tracks include artists ranging from Queen to Pink to No Doubt.

To the skeptics, note Vicarious Visions' philosophy with these games. "We're not trying to replicate 100% the experience of Guitar Hero on the DS," Nathanielsz said. "The console games might be trying to make you feel like a guitarist... we're trying to abstract that one step. How can we make a great music game based on playing in a band?"

Having long lost touch with what exactly is considered to be metal these days, I am not sure whether to be excited, amused, or terrified.

'Supergroup' Metal Band To Be Formed As Part Of REIGN PRODUCTIONS Launch [Blabbermouth.net]

At least the list reads well, perfect for wasting time at work, and who knows? Maybe you'll find a few gems in here you've never heard of before. There was a Frankie Goes To Hollywood video game?

The 50 Best Rock & Roll Video Games [Rolling Stone]

I'm presuming that very few of you reading this are young females between the ages of six and 12 who love to karaoke to Leona Lewis' Bleeding Love, or dance to the best of Fergie and Good Charlotte. The songlist is intimidatingly marquee, though, and one of the major takeaways from having the game demoed for me was just how far games have forged in getting the music biz to recognize their power in helping label artists stay relevant to a new audience.

And while Boogie SuperStar might not be a game specifically for you or for me, I think that's pretty important - equally cool was the motion recognition tech.

It'll come bundled with a microphone for pretty standard-looking pitch and note duration-based karaoke, but for the dancing portion, you hold the Wii remote and Nunchuk and do whatever moves you're prompted to do. Simple stuff, like twirling or arm-rolling, but the guy who was demonstrating for me (yeah, a guy) seemed to be able to move really naturally and have the game still clearly understand which moves he was doing.

The fun part was that the on-screen avatar (characters are fully customizable, by the way) did whatever moves the guy was doing even when they were wrong - in other words, rather than lead the player, the on-screen character follows him, always attuned to the player's movements. That was pretty neat.

It looked like the kind of thing my eight year-old girl cousin would love to have at her next birthday party. There are cartoony narrative cutscenes following your chosen glamor girl's rise to stardom, suitably imbued with 'tween girl signposts of coolness and drama, so the game knows its audience well, even when that audience isn't me.

Girl games have a tendency to make us cringe a bit, but I suppose I'd rather have my cousin rocking out with this game than something with Bratz in it. Shudder.

Big label artists obviously agree, with Metallica, Aerosmith and Coldplay on their way down the pipeline hoping to introduce new fans to their tunes through the magic of mashing brightly-colored buttons on plastic instruments.

Jacobs Media also pointed out there's an internet radio station, RadioIO, with a channel that plays nothing but rhythm game music. No one's gonna taaaake me aliiiiiiiiive.

Have music games influenced your taste in music, or your buying habits? And while we're at it, what's your favorite track from Guitar Hero or Rock Band?

Video Gamers Tuning to Guitar Heroes Online for Music to Play, Practice and Purchase
Become a “guitar hero” in a “rock band” with This New Internet Music Channel

TAMPA, Fla.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Last month, radio consultant Jacobs Media’s Tech Survey IV: Rock-Based Video Games found that music-based video games are having a significant, positive impact on music discovery and sales. Nearly one-third of players surveyed said they’ve purchased songs featured in the popular video music games Guitar Hero (Activision) and Rock Band (Harmonix/MTV Games).

More new versions have been announced for release soon (Guitar Hero on Tour on 6/22, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith on 6/29, Rock Band for Wii on 6/29, and Guitar Hero 4 in Fall 2008, with Guitar Hero: Metallica and Rock Band 2 reported to be in the works), and Chris Martin of rock band Coldplay recently announced that his band has added a new song to Guitar Hero, for the first time.

Clearly, music-based video game players are becoming game changers when it comes to rock music – and are one reason why Internet radio pioneer RadioIO launched Guitar Heroes (www.radioio.com/channels/guitar-heroes) earlier this year. Guitar Heroes is the first streaming music channel that plays nothing but the guitar-driven rock music found in today’s hot music video games. Now any player, at any time, anywhere can log on and hear tracks especially selected for “guitar heroes” in “rock bands.”

The idea for Guitar Heroes was suggested by a RadioIO listener, who wanted to hear more songs that she and her son could use to improve their Guitar Hero-playing skills together. “Sure, we take requests for entire music channels, not just songs,” laughed RadioIO founder Mike Roe. “But because gamers and Internet radio listeners are two groups that are always ahead of the curve when it comes to Internet usage and music entertainment, it made perfect sense for RadioIO to put the two together by creating Guitar Heroes.”

The job of developing and managing Guitar Heroes fell to longtime RadioIO music director Robert Goodman. “I realized it would be cool to create a channel that plays all the tracks from both series of games, all unlockable content as well as all downloadable content,” he explained.

From his home base in Orange Park, Florida, Goodman crafts sets of songs that are played along to by many of the more than 220,000 music fans who tune in to Guitar Heroes every month. The channel features rock tracks including "Sabotage" (Beastie Boys), "Barracuda" (Heart), "Are You Gonna Go My Way" (Lenny Kravitz), "Cult of Personality" (Living Colour), "Even Flow" (Pearl Jam), "Kool Thing" (Sonic Youth), "Rock and Roll All Nite" (Kiss), "Rock of Ages" (Def Leppard), "Welcome to the Jungle" (Guns N' Roses) and "One" (Metallica). And Goodman does take and play song requests, as do all RadioIO music directors.

Guitar Heroes is one of 60 proprietary music channels streaming at www.RadioIO.com. Launched as a single music stream in 1999 by music lover Roe in his home, RadioIO (“radio EYE-OH”, for “Internet only”), the world’s first publicly-traded Internet radio operation, has grown into one of the Internet’s most resilient music brands. RadioIO is featured on directories including iTunes, WindowsMedia.com and Real.com, and enjoys more than 30 integral partnerships with Palm, Philips, Sonos, Escient and Slim Devices, among others. Wireless access is available via RadioIO’s IO2go service, or any SmartPhone. To experience and learn more about RadioIO, go to www.radioIO.com.

About RadioIO:

RadioIO is a wholly-owned subsidiary of IOWorld Media, Inc. (Pink Sheets:IWDM), which is headquartered in Tampa, Florida, and is dedicated to identifying, testing and marketing innovative consumer media alternatives. IOWorld Media currently owns www.RadioIO.com, an advertiser-supported, multi-channel Internet radio station, and searchPlay, LLC. SearchPlay™ technology moves the Internet search engine to inside the media player, revolutionizing the way listeners search while listening online.

Zelnick's answer? "Possibly," but Zelnick said there's nothing currently in Take-Two's schedule that fits that bill. For his part, Zelnick is waiting to see how much staying power the trend has, and whether to define it as a "music genre" or a "rhythm genre."

Zelnick said such considerations are "terribly important when you invest in AAA properties that you expect people to play for over 20 hours."

Zelnick has good reason to demonstrate his restraint to his investors, of course - right now his mandate is to prove that they're better off sticking with his guiding hand than with EA's.