We here in the United States are sliding into a holiday weekend, with Independence Day falling on Sunday this year. Google has designed a new AR game to celebrate the occasion, combining fireworks, national landmarks, and Guitar Hero into one odd experience.

Unlike some of the company's other AR experiments, this one doesn't use your phone's camera to transform your surroundings. Instead, you'll be thrown into virtual environments that wouldn't look out of place on PC twenty years ago. Once you kick off the game, the setting quickly shifts to nighttime, and you're met with one of several patriotic tunes based on the landmark you've chosen. Among the selections: "America (My Country, 'Tis of Thee)," "Yankee Doodle Dandy." and a hard rock cover of "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Your goal is to click or tap along to the beat of the song, launching virtual fireworks into the air to light up the sky and earn points. The gameplay is straight out of Guitar Hero, albeit much more forgiving in terms of timing. At the end of a session, you're given a score and options to share or play again.

I tried it out on both my laptop and my phone, and it's definitely a better time on mobile, even if it's not really worth checking out for more than a couple of minutes.

That doesn't mean you can't have a little bit of fun, of course. During the third stage, I realized that the game generated fireworks explosions regardless of whether you were hitting the note on the correct beat. As the visual artist responsible for crafting a unique experience for my virtual crowd, I put on a show the only way I know how: by blinding them into oblivion.

"You can do better," indeed.

If any community organizers are reading this and would like to put me in charge of their fireworks display next year, I'm available for hire. For everyone else, you can try out Google's new AR game over at its Arts and Culture page.