I admire Digital Hero Games’ dedication. Over a decade after Christopher Walken and the cast of Saturday Night Live hilariously introduced the phrase “More cowbell” into the modern vernacular and years after the first cowbell-fuelled parodies of Activision’s Guitar Hero franchise appeared on the internet, the developer released a full-fledged mobile game based on the phenomenon, complete with licensed music that must have cost a pretty penny to secure.
More than just a chance to play cowbell in the Guitar Hero-style, Digital Hero Games has created a story to accompany the game, telling the story of one man’s psychedelic mission to change the future of music using that simple two-tone percussion novelty.
It’s an amazing amount of effort for a game that’s not all that fun to play.
Cowbell Hero‘s note highway is only two lanes wide. There’s only so much a musician can do with an instrument they hold in one hand while holding a stick in the other, after all. You’ve got two sounds you can make, and those sounds are so profound that anything other than a simple rhythmic tapping breaks the spell an appropriately-used cowbell can cast. It’s an instrument meant to be in the background of a song. Bringing it to the fore ruins songs like Strawberry Alarm Clock’s “Incense and Peppermints” and the sound-alike version of The Chamber Brothers’ “Time Has Come Today”.
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