I just want to bang on the drum(s) all day

When I first tried a pre-release demo of Rock Band at the local Wal-Mart, it was the drums that really drew me to the game. After all, I'd already been through two-and-a-half Guitar Hero games, so the guitar and bass, while highly anticipated, were nothing new. And since my previous spirited attempts at singing have been classified under the Geneva Conventions as a "war crime", it left only the percussion role to get excited about. Pounding out the beats on Faith No More's "Epic" for the first time convinced me that I would buy this game at any price, and probably pour an obscene amount of money into buying all of the downloadable add-on songs for it.

Months have passed since that fateful day in the Garden Section, and I've worked my way up to the "hard" difficulty on Rock Band's drum tour. As fun as playing pseudo-guitar is, nothing makes one feel like a rock god nearly so much as nailing a tough drum sequence on Radiohead's "My Iron Lung" or Smashing Pumpkins' "Cherub Rock". The similarity between hitting Rock Band's grey rubber pads and playing on a real drum kit is worlds closer than what you'd experience trying to go from a plastic guitar to a real six-string. The fact that there's a correlation (if somewhat tenuous) between playing a video game and making real, actual music makes drumming a unique and engrossing experience.

For you other fake-drummers out there, there's a great article on sticking over at ScoreHero. Aside from (hopefully) helping me improve my game a little, it's also reinforcing the fact that I'd be nowhere near the "knowing what the hell I'm doing" level if I were to play real drums.

But it's still okay to pretend, right?