Guitar Hero Turns 12 Today, Watch Someone Play The Hardest Song At 666% Speed

In 2005, RedOctane, a company specialising in the manufacture of unique game controllers, created Guitar Hero after making the hardware for an arcade game called Guitar Freaks. The first game in the series was made on a budget of $1 million, which is the video game equivalent of making your debut album on a budget of $200. 

First released on November 8 2005, the game has had eight major iterations (six Guitar Hero games, two DJ Hero games and Band Hero) and five expansions on various consoles. There are spin-offs for Windows and Macintosh systems, mobile phones, the Nintendo DS (the Guitar Hero: On Tour series), and an arcade version. 

The first game in the series is considered to be one of the most influential video games of the 21st century, it has sold more than 25 million units worldwide and is the 3rd largest game franchise after the Mario and Madden NFL franchises. The third title in the series, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, is first single video game title to exceed $1 billion in sales.

But enough stats. Let's celebrate twelve years of Guitar Hero by watching someone play the hardest song on the hardest setting. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you, Through The Fire And Flames by Dragonforce, 666% faster than normal, as performed by someone called LeafGreenHD:

Inb4 everyone reminds each other that he could've better spent all the time practising for that performance actually learning the real guitar.

Here's Dragonforce doing Through The Fire And Flames IRL: