Frets on Fire: Like Guitar Hero Except It’s Free
- July 6th, 2007
- Read 3388 times
- 2 Comments
Guitar Hero and its ilk have transformed our nation’s garage band-playing youth into PS2-playing zombies. In researching this phenomenon I came across a freeware, open source game for PC, Mac OS X and Linux called Frets on Fire. It’s a complete, 100 percent rip-off of Guitar Hero only you can import your own songs into the game. (A good tutorial for that is here.) You control the action with either a keyboard, USB gamepad, or GH guitars. (The Xbox 360 guitar merely needs drivers to work, while the PS2 controller needs a PS2-USB adapter.) I started working on “Nothin’s Gonna Stand in Our Way” by Spectre General AKA Kick Axe last night and it’s coming along well. Up there is a clip of some dude playing a song I’m sure you’re all familiar with, if not sick of.
Hey, if nothing else, it’s way to kill a half hour here and there. It’s a hell of a lot easier to make custom songs than modding your PS2 like the Kick Axe video shows.









ProfessionalGun (Who am I?)
1 year ago
What!? No adoring fans screaming like crazy as you shred their faces off? No star power?! :)
. . . I appreciate Guitar Hero so much that I feel compelled to pay for the game in all its brilliance - not forgo it in favor of free alternatives. Great for people who don’t have the consoles, though! . . . And definitely cool that you can use any song.
Moose (Who am I?)
7 months ago
Heck. I love it. The mac version was a little squirrelly, but after messing around in console I figured out what was wrong.
Frets on Fire is totally customizable as well.
It’s even better that it’s totally free, now I don’t have to go spend $80 just to play guitar hero stuff.
Some graphics are turned, like the cassette covers and the hit notes while playing, but I will soon figure it out.
I give it a four out of five for Frets on Fire.