GH1H: Brand new experience for the world. Guitar Hero had just come out and it was an experience that nobody had actually seen before. Like most GH1H players I know, Expert was mainly done for showoff with us. I felt much more comfortable with Hard, since there were still some of those crazy hard charts that I would never stand a shot at FC'ing. This was before any kind of automated pathing stuff came out, so there was still fun in filling in some of the really old note charts, like http://web.purplefrog.com/∞~thoth/guitar-hero/2/shout-at-the-devil-1.png . The Hard community was one where sharing stuff wasn't required; it was just done because we were all trying to overcome the same game. We all sucked at the game, and we idolized the few that were truly great. People fell into different specialties over time. Some could make good SP paths, some could execute paths well, some could hit that hard part. Overall, though, we were all around the same playing skill, which is why I think I had so much fun with GH1H. -- Hylian

Like Hylian mentioned, GH1 was brand new and as a result, there were a lot of now very good expert players running around on GH1H. Again, GH1 had no automated paths, so a large part of the fun of the game was coming up with your own paths for songs and competing for the top scores on songs. Songs like the infamous I Love Rock And Roll had ever changing top scores from people constantly one-upping each other. Also, at the point no one was really amazing at the game so the full game went un-FC'd for quite some time, even on hard. Legendary (at this time) Expert player ES42 even dropped down to hard for some of the more difficult songs and held first place, even without FC's.

The real star of GH1H was Javman, local league commish. At one point he had first on GH1H by over 600k, an insane amount even by today's standards. Slowly but surely, over the course of about four months, Echelar took first and held it for quite some time. He said he lost interest around the time optimal paths came out and robots began playing. Armageddon was the first to FC the entire game on hard. For the journey to FC GH1H, read this thread: http://www.scorehero.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1703&highlight;∞=#1703 --Boomsars, info provided by Echelar

GH2H PS2: So, GH2H was probably the greatest jump I've ever felt with a GH game. I still remember rushing out to buy the OPM demo and play it with my girlfriend at the time, just to get a shot at playing those super awesome hammer-ons that ACTUALLY WORKED. I didn't know about the HO/PO bug; I could care less. There were notes that I was able to play WITHOUT STRUMMING. It was probably the most satisfying feeling I've ever felt. I had sightread through GH2X about five minutes after getting the game on a laggy TV, but it was the most fun I've had with a GH game. After being the 11th person ever to pass Jordan, I dropped down to Hard to relax a bit and get a bit more into my comfort zone. Sho 'nuff, all those people that I had so much fun in racing against in GH1 came to play with GH2 too, so it just felt like the same community had moved on along with me. I was a pretty competent GH2H player at the time, and was able to push my way into the top 30 at one point. My first 1st place score on a song, Stop!, was ironically my least favorite song of the game for a while. That score was quickly overcome by emptyset's new score on the song, which I struggled for a while to overcome right after. This kind of friendly rivalry was pretty indicative of what GH2H was really like. You'd take a first or overtake your personal rival, stop for the day, and realize that your rival had given you some new challenge to overcome. Been slacking on that Shout at the Devil FC? Get on it, since emptyset, rabies, and Sully had all gotten it already (I use rabies and Sully because we had a shortlived three-way rivalry in GH2H. They had always been personal rivals of mine, and it's fun to see how they've progressed ^.^). -- Hylian

GH80sH: Fun fact. I actually had no intention of purchasing this game based off of all the preview stuff. I mean, $60 for so few of songs? Why would I want to do that? I broke down after playing 18 and Life at a Best Buy and realizing that quality kicks the crap out of quantity. 80s is actually now my favorite GH game. See how the world turns round? Anyway, I went ahead and did a similar kind of fashion to what I did on GH2: Sightread X, have fun on there, then drop down to Hard for competition. I was a bit saddened to see that not all of my rivals had went ahead and picked up 80s along with me, but it just introduced me to a lot of other people to compete against that I hadn't really bothered to doing. I started competing on 80s and really surprised myself with a few sightread FC's that ended up being 1st place or at least top 5 at the time (I still haven't touched Heat of the Moment or 18 and Life since my sightreads. I think HotM is still in the top 20 after all this time. :D). Charts were more sophisticated at this point, so song by song, I started going through and ground my way into the top ten. I've slipped a bit since then, mainly because of my inability to FC the rest of the game, but whenever I'm near a PS2, I make it a habit to hop in 80s and reminisce about all the fun competition I had. -- Hylian

GH2H 360: GH2 360 came out on April 3rd, 2007. At that point, many people who had GH1&2 for PS2 transitioned and a ton of new players became familiar with the name Guitar Hero. Many players used hard a stepping stone to expert, but a couple settled right in. Players who are now very good at expert (i.e. PreistMLH) played hard then, and held quite a few first place scores. The person in first overall however, was Darkbeat. He had already FC'd half the setlist two days after he got the game. He was 12th place with only 37 songs submitted. He got the first FC of the 360 exclusive, The Trooper. His 64th FC, FTK on April 11th, 2007, put him in first place. His final FC was Psychobilly Freakout on October 7th, getting 69 FCs and 70 100%'s (TLTB).

The next leader for quite some time was Sully. He pathed practically every song he played (with Piso's help) and held first on a good majority of the songs. Once Rock Band came out, he went over to RBX guitar and never looked back. Soon afterwards, psxfreak101 took first. Around this time, debr came out with his program for "optimal paths," which resulted in practically a redux of the entire game by various members of the community. At this point, it became more about squeezing that it was pathing. Jedihero took first, then. Somehow he was able to squeeze the shit out of stuff with the explorer. First was then taken by McSkinny, who for some reason put his average multiplier in every comment despite serving no real purpose. At some point Piso was 1st, however I can't tell you when. After GH3 and it's sexy Les Paul came out, GH2H activity dropped dramatically, and only those who were really awesome continued GH2. Brockbfball1563 took first place by squeezing the everloving shit out of anything and everything, having never done so before due to tilt activation on an explorer. Strykerx took first for like a week but no one likes him anyway. <3 He was also the first to get 73/74 FC's. Brock reclaimed his first and is still sitting there today. Strykerx retook first. Nope, Brock took it back again. Deal with it. :) --Boomsars

Eddaket is always hard.