Learning by game.

Most everyone even remotely interested in video games will recognize the picture on the right. It's Guitar Hero, the game where you get a controller that looks like a little plastic guitar and you can rock out to all sorts of tunes, getting higher and higher scores the more accuratly you press the buttons on the "guitar". It's wildly popular, spawning endless sequels and imitators, including those that include multiple guitars, a drum set and a microphone so you can create your own virtual band.

Except that anyone who's actually played Guitar Hero knows that it's not GH or any clone. (No preening virtual rock stars in the background.) Instead, it's a freeware program called LittleBigStar. The main difference? No plastic guitar. Use your real one. Play the real songs.

LBS and an unreleased commercial competitor called Guitar Rising are the first wave of games that have come full circle. Lots of people want to play music with friends, but learning an instrument is hard. So the game makers created Guitar Hero and its clones and proceeded to make money hand over fist. Millions of copies have been sold- in fact, they've sold so well they now bring in more money than the sales of actual digital music. Players have spent hundreds of hours learning Through the Fire and the Flames on expert.

But you're still playing with a cheap plastic imitation of the real thing. So why not skip it and just use a real instrument? You can still use the same idea- hit the right notes at the right time and you get a higher score. Even better, the computer can adjust the difficulty: if you can't play a passage, just slow it down until you can, then pick up the pace later. Think of it as a metronome, but a lot more fun. Unlike guitar Hero, LBS also includes a top bar that mimics guitar TAB, so you can learn the notation at the same time that you are trying to max out your score

I'm not sure what to call this: it's not a simulation, but it's still a game. The closest thing I can think of is comparing a shooter game like Quake to a game of paintball. It's not virtual anymore- you're playing (within the limits of not dying) as close as possible to real combat. As a rank beginner, it's also close to impossible for me since I still need to watch my fingers rather than a screen, but LBS will force me to break that (bad) habit that I need to dump anyway.

These real life games aren't there yet- they still have difficulty handling quick chord changes and LBS shows that it's a labor of love by a single person, but expect to see a lot more of these pseudo-simulations coming soon.