Digital Praise, the company behind the award-winning PC-video game Dance Praise, a Christian Dance Dance Revolution, has just announced Guitar Praise. A press release on the company’s website says, “Combining unique play features with a playlist of today’s most popular Contemporary Christian rock hits, Guitar Praise gives Christian retailers a headlining opportunity to build on the $1 billion guitar game segment that continues to smash sales records among young consumers.”

I had personally lobbied Digital Praise to come out with a Christian Guitar Hero, as I enjoy the highly-successful game where you play classic songs on a plastic guitar controller. But I am not exactly excited by the choices that the makers of Guitar Hero make as far as songs go. Songs such as “Anarchy in the U.K.” from the Sex Pistols (I’ve never played the song but with that S-word in the band’s name…), “The Number or the Beast” from Metallica (because of my Christian faith, I do not like to have anything to do with devil music), “Talk Dirty to Me” by Poison (referencing that S-word again), and “Suck My Kiss” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers (which originally was supposed to have another word instead of “kiss”) really turn me off. I tend to stick to songs like “When You Were Young” by The Killers, “My Name is Jonas” by Weezer, and “Miss Murder” by AFI. But when you’ve already got 100% on those songs on the level you can play well in (Medium for me), you’d like some new ones, songs you actually know. For instance, I’ve already written that Guitar Hero: Aerosmith was okay, but I would have liked to know more songs.

Artists already confirmed by Digital Praise for Guitar Praise are “Flyleaf, Skillet, Stellar Kart, tobyMac, Newsboys, Petra, 12 Stones, Spoken, Whitecross, Thousand Foot Krutch, Paul Baloche, David Crowder, and Red,” with others including Relient K, Hawk Nelson, Casting Crowns and dc Talk also on board.

Personally, I’m psyched. I’m ready for this thing in September. I wish I had been at the International Christian Retail Show in Orlando last week. That would have been crazy. But I’m ready. I’m hoping that Rush of Fools, Family Force 5, and The Afters are on there too.