While in Los Angeles recently for the E for All convention, I was taken to a bar for Guitar Hero night. I'm no stranger to Guitar Hero but playing in a bar was something I had to experience. I was accompanied by my friend Mike and our own video producer Ben.

The Hyperion is probably the smallest bar I've ever been in and on any normal night it enjoys a fair amount of local traffic, but it remains a small bar with no sign on the outside. On Wednesdays, however, the bar becomes host to Guitar Hero II and the patrons channel their inner-Hendrix to play on stage. It's an absolute blast, and I encourage everyone to take the opportunity should it present itself. This was my first night at the Hyperion and what follows is a story about a man humbled. That man was me.

The set up at the Hyperion is quite simple. There's a Playstation 2 with Guitar Hero II and Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s available. It's hooked to two projectors: one projecting a big image against the back of the stage and one projecting a smaller image seen by people on the stage. You take a number from the bartender - there's no additional fee - and when your number gets called you head to the stage, grab your axe, pick your song, face the crowd and rock. There's a smoke machine, flashing lights and the people will cheer whether you play well or not. It looks a tad intimidating but there's always one brave soul who goes up first. After everyone sees that the guy or girl isn't drawn-and-quartered for not acing their song on Expert, the flow of players is constant.

The first thing I noticed was that the atmosphere was very safe and supportive. There was almost no air of competition. Most people play in the Face-Off multiplayer mode so there is no chance of failure but even failing a song would not conjure booing or thrown bottles. Now I'm good at Guitar Hero, but I'd say that I'm "casual good." I play at the Hard level on most songs because Expert is too much work. For our first song, my friend Mike and I chose "Hangar 18" on Hard. We wanted to put the word out there that we came to play and knew our way around a fake guitar. A few beers later, the trash talking started.

As I said before the audience didn't care about competition. They applauded everyone enthusiastically. They would notice if you hit a particularly hard string of notes and it might yield you an "oh yeah!" from the crowd but it wouldn't get you any free drinks. However, gamers look for competition. It's in our nature. An abundance of beer only makes things worse.

"No one in here can touch me," I said. My friend Mike - who had been here before - smiled and remarked: "Yeah, it looks like the heavies aren't in tonight," he said. "Usually there are some really good guys playing and I've seen plenty who can take you." As the night drew on and the drinking continued we returned to the stage several times to knock out the harder songs but I was on watch for these regulars Mike mentioned. I saw a few guys who were pretty good but I felt safe that I was probably the best Guitar Hero II player in the room - which in retrospect was a dangerous assumption.

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