Hard-hitting riffs, screaming solos and lots of shredding were heard by anyone who stopped by the GameStop on Berry St. Saturday afternon.A Guitar Hero 2 tournament preliminary round attracted 12 contestants, ranging in ages from 15 to 21. There were three TCU students among those, each playing six songs to win a chance to advance to the next Saturday’s 10-song final round, said John Zender, a GameStop employee.

The winner of the second round receives a wireless Guitar Hero 2 controller.

The competition’s winner was determined by a total scores from six songs, Zender said.

Guitar Hero 2 is a Playstation 2 game in which players use a guitar-shaped controller to jam along with one of 64 guitar-heavy songs by pressing color-coded buttons on the neck of the guitar. Players strum the rhythm by pressing the strum bar located where the pick-ups would be on a guitar.

Players receive points for every note played correctly and rack up more points when playing several measures without error.

“I’m here to rock the house and show up these Pascal High School students. I’ll show them what a TCU education can do,” said Gina Grant, a junior music education major.

Nick Aguiler, a 15-year-old Pascal High School student, advanced to the next round by winning the tournament. Junior news-editorial journalism major Marcus Murphree, Skiff sports editor, advanced to the next round when he came in second. Aaron Diaz came in third.

Aguiler said he credited his skills to the hours he spent playing Guitar Hero 2 after school. He said he didn’t own the game, but practiced at GameStop regularly.

Some tracks played during Saturday’s competition included Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird”, “War Pig” by Black Sabbath and “Strutter” by KISS.

The purpose of the preliminary round is to prepare contestants for three upcoming competitions including the regional finals, Zender said.

“This gives people a chance to see what they’re up against,” Zender said.

Zender said he expects a larger turnout for the upcoming competition Saturday.