I spent the better part of today at Virgin Megastore in Times Square for the Guitar Hero II event sponsored by Microsoft. The event starred 5 lucky contestants who played it out for a chance to rock with Gene Simmons of KISS.

The event started off strong with the 5 contestants each playing their choice of song on expert difficulty to see who could rack up the most points. Congrats goes to JW from Texas who put up an impressive 330k points playing Possum Kingdom by Toadies. A close second was Matt from Texas who scored 320k points playing Iron Maiden’s The Trooper.

JW won an amazing GH2 guitar customized from a Fender Stratocaster designed with the Xbox 360 logo. He also got to play Strutter with Gene Simmons. Gene didn’t play on Guitar Hero, telling the crowd that he really sucks at the game. Instead, he played his signature Axe bass guitar while JW rawked out. Unfortunately, the staff didn’t want to take the time to hook up JW’s winning prize guitar, even though he was asking.

After the two got done shredding, Gene called up the two female contestants to play with him. After a few promo photos with their tongues out, they got down to playing.

And that was really it, thanks to Mr. Simmons. He bolted off stage and into the back for interviews while the Guitar Hero staff started to run some contests. They called 3 people from the crowd on stage to see who was the best. Didn’t matter really, because they all won a copy of the game anyway.

Halfway through their song, the music went out. Technical difficulty you think, but sadly, no. Gene Simmons made them turn off the music so the reporters could hear him better. That ended the event, with another hour of contests planned by the staff.

Personally, I think it was a huge dick move to end the event so soon. I expected Gene Simmons to at least play up the crowd some more, but he just wanted his money and to get out of there. Very disappointing.

Overall, the event was fun. There was at least 100 people there, and most cleared right out after Gene left, leaving the Guitar Hero fans to enjoy what would have been a great hour of contests. Too bad one person’s ego had to ruin that.

Pictures coming soon from the event.