Guitar Hero 5
Between my complete dislike of GH: World Tour, all the spin offs, and recent comments from both the head of Activision and the Guitar Hero brand, I was ready to dish out the hate on this game. In truth, there really hasn’t been a Guitar Hero worth owning since 2, but Guitar Hero 5 might change that.
First my feelings on the series in general so you know where I’m coming from.
Activision and Neversoft have rested far too long on the brand created and popularized by Harmonix, creators of Guitar Hero 1 and 2. After a crazy string of buyouts Harmonix was with MTV games and EA with Rock Band, and Activision tasked Neversoft with continuing development on the Guitar Hero series. While Rock Band innovated with a full band game, new tour mode, and tons of visual and gameplay enhancements, Neversoft continually pumped out a dated product that was either more of the same, or just ripping off what Rock Band had done the previous year. Of course because of its brand recognition, and the smart marketing idea to sell the game/guitar only bundles for cheaper, Guitar Hero remained the best selling franchise despite the lack of innovation and quality.
For Guitar Hero 5 Neversoft seems to have learned that they can’t rest on their past success forever, and thus Guitar Hero 5 features some very interesting new features, and a new coat of paint that makes it the best Guitar Hero game (and the only one worth a damn) since GH2.
One of the biggest improvements to me was the visual quality and style. The past couple interactions of GH have looked the same to me, boring cartoony designs led to some very dated looking visuals. GH5 seeks to improve upon that with a much nicer graphical style. The graphics aren’t so shiny and while the silly looking characters remain, they fit much better in the game. Everything just looks better and is less distracting from the gameplay.
Guitar Hero 5 forgoes the whole band kit thing this year assuming that you have already purchased World Tour and have the complete kit, or previous guitars. You can buy the game separately or bundled with a guitar.
If you don’t have a previous GH guitar or only have a Rock Band guitar then I do recommend getting a GH guitar (either this kit or an older cheaper one). The one thing that Rock Band has never been able to match is the quality of the guitar controller that Red Octane puts together for GH. As for drums you can use any drum kit, but the game is dumbed down depending on the kit you’re using. As Guitar Hero drums have 5 pads while RB ones have 4. It’s the same for guitars as the newer ones have the touch pad controls.
The gameplay feels more refined than previous versions, I found the voice recognition and the hit detection for hammer ons and pull off to be more accurate then previous versions.
The game still allows you to use any microphone for singing including the 360 headset which is nice. Vocal track options include the standard and scrolling options, as well as a karaoke option which makes the words appear like a karaoke screen (see the video for an example).
GH features its usual quick play, online and nonsensical career modes.
The music studio makes a return from the previous game as well, adding tons of replayability to the game for creators or gamers who love those user created tracks.
There’s also some new multiplayer modes including a Party mode that allows players to drop in an out, and a Rockfest competitive mode which allows up to 8 players online (duplicate instruments are allowed) in a series of elimination challenges.
Several changes were made to the career mode which makes for a better experience. The new career mode for GH5 seems to fall between the previous GH games (bad linear approach), and Rock Band (good completely open approach), and this works really well for the game. You start with only one venue, but that venue will have several songs 5, with several unlockable encores or bonus set list challenges. There are 13 venues with roughly 7 songs each. To unlock newer venues you need to earn a certain amount of stars. The star count is much less than the usual (beat 4/5 songs to continue nonsense), plus there are extra ways to earn stars through song specific challenges. Each song gives up to 9 stars. 5 for how well you perform, 1 if you perfect it, and 3 for the optional challenge. The challenges are instrument based, so the player with that instrument has to attempt them. The challenges could range from get this high a note streak, or hit all the whammy sections, or keep this multiplier for as long as possible, etc. Depending on how well they do, the band will earn an additional 0-3 stars. This means you can unlock new venues much faster, and you can easily skip the songs you don’t like.
The absolute best improvement for GH5 is the set list. I found myself loving at least 3 songs from every venue. There’s just an abundance of wicked tracks in this game. Which is great coming off the garbage set list that World Tour had. The complete set list contains 85 songs, and there’s a lot of good stuff in there. For more tracks, we’ll just have to wait and see if they don’t drop the ball again on DLC.
All in all, GH5 is a solid game, there’s a ton of features in it and a great set list. I would even say I enjoyed this game over Beatles Rock Band. If you’re not a huge Beatles fan and want a good music game this year, then it’s safe to say that you should check out GH5.
Like this game? Order it online
