Guitar Praise

Guitar Praise is a Christian rhythm video game for PC. Published by Digital Praise, it uses contemporary Christian music with gameplay akin to that of the Guitar Hero and Rock Band games, although it is only compatible with its own wired and cordless USB guitar controllers. A second guitar can be connected for two-player mode. The games can be played on a computer running Microsoft Windows or Mac OS X. While the game does not contain a mode for vocals, it does display the song's lyrics on-screen during the song. It also supports online leaderboards.

Expansion Packs and Future Plans
Digital Praise has confirmed that expansion packs will be released in the future, adding more songs to the game. The game has sold so well that the company is even considering expanding it with things such as a full drum kit and microphone. CEO Tom Bean has said that Digital Praise, whose games have only been for the windows/Mac, may expand to consoles one day.

ICE reports that Digital Praise intended to release the game on consoles but according to Pete Fokos: "We would love to put this on consoles but so far the console makers have not allowed us to participate." ICE stated their opinion that the reason for this is that "publishers see Christian games in general as too big a financial risk."

Technical Problems
Being available only on computers cause trouble to those who wish to play using a television set, as the only current method to do so involves connecting a video cable between the computer and the TV. Also, an adapter and audio cables are required to use the television speakers. Digital Praise is working on a website to help people hook their computers to their TV, which is available at www.hookpctotv.com

According to one reviewer "[t]he game does support widescreen 1280x720 resolution if your computer/monitor allows it. Playing this game on a widescreen monitor will cause the image to stretch with non-widescreen resolution, which is unfortunately what I was limited to with my S-Video output. I do not know if the positioning of the interface objects is modified to adjust to widescreen or not." No compatibility with other guitar controllers from Rock Band, Guitar Hero, or even third party controllers is supported by the game.

Reception
The game was generally well received in both Christian and non-Christian gaming reviews. Many reviewers noted that, while the game was essentially a knock-off of the popular Guitar Hero series, it still remained a good game in its own right. However, many reviewers pointed out that in order to play multiplayer you must buy an extra guitar, as the game is not compatible with Guitar Hero or Rock Band guitars. Wired noted that they experienced some mild technical issues when playing on an LCD screen, and a glitch that froze the game when trying to switch to a different window while the game was running. They also concluded that while the guitar peripheral was well-built, it lacked an automatic shutoff feature included in other guitar peripherals on the market, making it easy to accidentally leave it on and run down the battery.

Christian entertainment site ICE gave the game a 7 out of 10, summarizing their thoughts by calling Guitar Praise "[a] “rock-solid” product that can stand up with the competition. While some of the problems were downers overall the game was quite fun." However, they also noted that this style of game is better suited for console play, citing small text size and poor use of screen layout as major issues. "As a PC and Mac only title it is heavily limited by the nature of the beast." PluggedIn Online concluded that "yes, Guitar Praise is indeed a Guitar Hero clone. Only this clone is better than the original.

Non-Christian gaming outlets were also largely impressed with the game. Tracey John of MTV's Multiplayer blog wrote that the game "is no doubt a slick and surprisingly competent “Guitar Hero” knock-off aimed at the game-playing Christian market; Digital Praise seems to embrace that fact instead of trying to re-invent the music game genre. And aside from the specifically Christian-themed music, there was no overt religious imagery or tones within the game that I noticed." U.S. Military site Stars and Stripes says that "Developer Digital Praise obviously has an idea that strikes a chord with Christian youth and a few tweaks would make this a popular item. Even as it is, it’s fun — just not as fun as the others."

The game exceeded sales expectations, and according to icepowered.com, the game is selling faster than inventory is available. Exact sales figures are not currently available although in the past Digital Praise has noted that since the game is directed at a smaller niche than most video games, the sales expectations were much lower than that of an average game.

Song List
At launch, the game included 52 songs from 43 different artists.

Expansion Pack 1
In September 2009 Digital Praise released the first Expansion Pack for Guitar Praise with 25 new songs.

Digital Praise also released a 5 songs in a downloadable package that are not available in the standalone game or in Expansion Pack 1. They are:

Digital Praise has recently announced the first Band-Specific expansion set. The expansion is Stryper-Themed.