Question: To Wii or not to Wii?

So the kids and I went on a play date (how I loathe that phrase; I'd rather call it an event, because that's often what it is) today and they were exposed to a very different world. They saw, for the first time in their young lives, a really really big screen TV. I think it was plasma, but what do I know? And they saw….Wii. We saw Wii.

None of us had ever seen anything Wii-related or Wii-ful, so this was an education. The seven year old host showed us Guitar Hero. There was a band singing “Dream Police” who looked NOTHING like Cheap Trick, and the three kids with whom we were visiting all sang all the words, as the oldest played the game.

It was ten shades of adorable watching a toddler sing “Dream Police”, but the whole experience left me a little cold. Because you don’t learn anything at all about playing guitar by doing Guitar Hero. It’s just another glorified video game. It’s probably good for your recognition and small motor skills, but so are marbles, FFS. So I don’t know about this whole Wii-volution. How interesting is it to push colorful buttons on a toy guitar?

Very, as it turns out. But I wouldn’t know. My kids didn’t want to try it and I didn’t get offered and it would probably not have come off so well if I hogged a second grader’s toy.

Let me say this: I do see the appeal of it; the music is totally GenX, so it’s fun for parents. And the little ones like anything with buttons and sounds. Maybe Guitar Hero is fun for the whole family. Maybe, even more so, it's a safe and drug-free way to indulge in our rock star fantasies.

If so, I say all hail guitar hero. But if it’s just another electronic game our kids can play while we try to ignore them, I’m not interested. Aren’t there enough things like that out there already?

So, Guitar Hero: brain rot or family fun n' fantasy fulfillment?

You be the judge.