Kelowna

What happens when a local company takes wildly popular video game Guitar Hero and mashes it up with wildly popular websites YouTube and Last.fm?

It comes up with iRok2, a new game that allows gamers to play any song on YouTube, Guitar-Hero style.

iRok2 Media product manager Jonathon Balogh says that he and a core group of Kelowna gamers and programmers have been developing the game for about a year.

"We've reached the point now where we want to know: Is it any fun?" says Balogh.

To that end, the game, which is played online and is compatible with most Rock Band and Guitar Hero guitars, has been given an extremely limited launch exclusively for Castanet readers.

"It's hard, when you've been working on a game for so long, to know if something you put in is any good or not," says Balogh.

The game sounds promising. Pick a song on YouTube and play it through the game's website. The website generates a track based on the video. It can be anything - the latest Panic! At The Disco, old-school ACDC, or the video you uploaded of your kid singing the ABC's.

"So long as our software recognizes it as musical, it will generate a track."

Potentially, that could mean millions of songs to choose from. And after you've blasted your way through a track, if you're not sure what song to pick next, Last.fm will suggest one for you.

Balogh admits the game isn't perfect yet.

"We're kind of at this awkward stage where we want people to play it and give us honest feedback, but we don't want everyone to know about it yet."

Want to try it out? Head to the company website (link is below) and sign up. The invite code is "Castanet." Then leave your feedback.

Link: iRok2's website