The Blend Games staff conferred on some magical lists to end the year that was 2007, and we still have a few up our sleeves. Aside from getting together and arguing, each writer on staff also has their personal memories of gaming in the past year. Over the next week or so we’ll feature a little something from each member.

Today Jeff Richard talks about how he picked up a plastic guitar and rocked your world. Well, maybe he just mock rocked his living room…but he certainly had fun doing it. Rock Band and Guitar Hero have become phenomenan’s, despite the ridiculous appearance of a 200lbs grown man holding a small plastic guitar.

But we’ll let Jeff tell you of the rock that was 2007. Grab your scotch and cigar, take a seat in the corner chair and enjoy our continuing series of 2007 Retrospectives.

My Weeks As A Rock Legend
By Jeff Richard

Guitar Hero 3 was innocent enough when it came out, I thought. A nice annual update to include some new songs, some new features, maybe a story mode—no problem, I’ll have a go with it and we’ll see what happens. It would be a nice change of pace from blasting through Gordon, Alyx and Chell’s world’s in The Orange Box, right? Nothing bad will happen here, you can’t get hooked on the stuff.

Two weeks later and I could barely see my other games’ boxes from all the dust that had accumulated. They were thick layers that floated into the air whenever the room was rocked too hard from the sound of DragonForce’s “Through The Fire And The Flames” blasting through our surround sound speakers. I had become hooked on Guitar Hero III.

Weeks went by and for a few moments I thought I had forgotten what a normal controller felt like. Then came November 20th—Rock Band Day—and with the promise of new songs, better downloadable content and less 2D flying monsters on the game’s interface, Rock Band entered the household. And not only ours, but many close friends picked up that giant game box as well and got to rocking pretty quickly. Soon enough, our apartment had become a mini karaoke bar (it was already a regular bar…), complete with folks rocking the drums, guitars and belting out “Say It Ain’t So” like Rivers Cuamo from Weezer, or growling like Metallica’s James Hetfield on “Enter Sandman” or, uh, “singing” like the guy from Fall Out Boy on “Dead on Arrival”.

It was safe to say we had all found a new gaming addiction.

For me, I consider the release of Rock Band to be one of the best moments of 2007. It’s simply one of those games that arrive every so often that not only takes the gaming industry by storm, but also propels it further into the realm of mainstream entertainment. 2007 has been a flagship year for mainstream success with Rock Band, Guitar Hero, Super Mario Galaxy, Halo 3 and even Mass Effect selling enough to warrant it becoming a mainstream title. If the past year is any indication of what ’08 will bring, I think it’s safe to say we’ll be seeing a lot more titles that bring together friends in more of a party atmosphere than ever before. The Wii alone will be bringing back two of the most popular local multiplayer games ever released with Mario Kart Wii and Super Smash Brothers Brawl.

So here’s to 2008, may it bring all of the drunken, lamp-smashing, blood-curdling-amateur-singing good times of 2007.