Music based videogames are usually the best kind of videogames and, exceptionally, there are two new releases on the horizon that you need to know about: one for Japan and, unusally, one for Europe.

Astute videogame watchers will already know about Guitar Hero, the latest title from videogame music makers Harmonix, developer of the excellent, BAFTA-winning music based PS2 games, Frequency and its sequel, Amplitude. The premise here is simple: Guitar karaoke. A classic rock hit from the last twenty odd years plays out on screen. The player follows the input directions given by the game by pressing the corresponding brightly coloured button on the plastic Gibson SG guitar controller simon-says style. The better in time with the pulse you are the higher you score. If that sounds too abstract then watch this American news team’s amusing demonstration.

Here’s what you must do if you own a UK PS2. The game is released on in Europe on April 7th 2006. It will sell out straight away as rhythm action games with fantastic build quality peripherals always do. Then you’ll have to pay double the RRP on ebay if you want to play it. So, go here (the first place I could find that lets you buy it now) and preorder it now. It’s the kind of game that’s accessible enough that boys and girls which don’t play videogames will want to play, but is still challenging, fun, quirky and brilliant enough that boys which do play videogames will want to play.

Astuter videogame watchers will know, of course, that Harmonix/Red Octane have in fact stolen/ adapted the idea straight from Konami, the Japanese developer that arguably invented the music-based videogame as we now understand it. Their ‘Bemani’ musical instrument games resulted in the moniker, Rhythm Action, a genre development that led to their ubiquitous and frankly genius line of dance mat videogames.

History lesson: In 1998 Konami released an idea into the arcades called Guitar Freaks: a kind of Dance Dance revolution title for guitarists. This got ported to the PlayStation 1 in 1999 (Japan only naturally) and a guitar controller (similar in style but without the build quality of the Guitar Hero one) was released to play it with. Come the Playstation 2, Konami released a port of their other Bemani plastic instrument tile, DrumMania complete with an actual Yamaha DTX V-Drum-style controller.

Their stroke of genius was that the subsequent two PS2 Guitar Freaks/ DrumMania games actually linked up, allowing one player to play drums, one to do lead guitar and, if you were well prepared enough to have a second guitar controller, another to play bass or rhythm guitar all in the same front room. Anyone fortunate to have actually played this set-up will tell you: it’s peculiarly like an actual band rehearsal, albeit plastic and binary but still, that unique sense of working together to create synchronised soundwaves is unmistakably present.

Nevertheless, the whole set-up was prohibitively expensive, both to the Japanese and moreso dedicated importers, so they didn’t sell too well. But Konami have announced GuitarFreaks/ DrumMania V is to be released on the 16th March 2006, perhaps in answer to Harmonix’s game but, more probably, to promote their new ‘V’ series of Bemani title in Japanese arcades.

If you have the money and the means this is a fantastic investment, not least because the DrumMania series of games is extremely fun and actually teaches you how to play drums for real (unlike all other Bemani games which simply show you how to tap buttons in time to music and improve rhythmic awareness).

The PS2 DrumMania series is compatible with Yamaha’s ‘real’ USB drum midi controllers such as the entry level DD50 and DD55 making it a pretty extraordinary training tool for would be drummers. You can watch a friend of Chewing Pixels demonstrate this set-up.

Windows users can try out a DrumMania simulator here although I’ve no idea if it’s any good.