I went over to my older brother and his fiance's house for dinner with my girlfriend one night last week. As we stepped out of the elevator and knocked on the door I heard something blasting out from inside. The strangest thing was that my brother had shown no previous love for Kansas and Heart singles. Was he developing new tastes? Did a strange assortment of music come over the Galaxie satellite channel?

No, it was the infamous Guitar Hero coming from the speakers. In we came and then we saw my future sister-in-law, a voice like an angel and a great guitarist -- and she's holding what looks like a Fischer Price toy and gazing slack-jawed into the television.

I played the game of course and I have to admit: it was the most fun I've had messing around with a videogame since I first tried the Wii. The first thing I decided to do was pick a song that I already knew how to play on guitar (the real one without flashing meters and percentile scores) and proceeded to stumble badly through all four minutes of it. After the crowd booed my rendition of "John the Fisherman" I was met with a challenge. For some reason it made me feel horrible that I had suddenly lost the ability to play guitar and for the rest of the night the four of us sat around and tried to come to terms with the fact that we were relearning our native instrument all over again.

On the drive home I felt a need to own the game. I had to conquer it. Instead I spent hours on Ebay and EBGames browsing for used copies, third party guitar controllers and then eventually coming to the realization that all of this was useless. I looked back at my real guitars. If I bought Guitar Hero III I was to give up on playing the ones I loved and possibly end up forgetting the real deal. To beat Expert mode I would have to give up money and time better used on the real thing.

I could see myself a year down the line, unshaven and unshowered, with a bulky left hand that knew no fretboard position past first and mild arthritis developing in the "picking" digits on the right. On the other hand I could see myself writing new songs -- learning an instrument to play songs that weren't covers of random top-40.

Then I decided I wouldn't let Guitar Hero enter my house. It was too fun. It wanted to ruin my life.

Seriously though, the game is great; incredibly fun, lots of replay and co-op value . . . only it will devour your soul if you let it.