It’s no secret – I’m a Rock Band fan, I’ve always favoured their tracklists on games & their presentation as well as graphics. Until now.
Guitar Hero 5, with its 83 songs, is a welcome revamp & serious step forward in their series with only a few flaws.
It makes sense to start at the beginning with the brand new idea of its party mode. The idea being that a song is playing in the background before you’ve entered the main menu – the ingenious little feature is that you can drop in or out of the song that’s playing on any instrument. An ideal thing to leave on if you have a lot of friends round with Guitar Hero available if people want to play it.
The career mode has finally dropped the strange empty stories which they used to use, you remember where you’d start off in a fast pace cartoon and work your way from a small venue and end up in hell? Well they are now a thing of the past, replaced with beautifully crafted venues complete with realistic pyrotechnics going off at relevant moments in songs, a very small but notable addition.
Neversoft have also moved away from the cartoon feel which dominated all of their previous releases and have now moved alongside Rock Band with their much more realistic feel in the videos which are vastly better than any of its predecessors.
Now onto the million dollar question… the soundtrack. FINALLY, the developers are moving away from the traditional heavy metal stereotype. They have finally realised that it isn’t just metal music lovers who want to play these games; the tracklist on this game features some unusual but really great songs (whoever decided that Stevie Wonder’s Superstition should be in the game deserves a promotion and a hefty pay rise). The point is, there is something here for everyone, Gorillaz, Kings of Leon, Elton John, Iron Maiden, Nirvana, Johnny Cash… the list goes on.
The basic gameplay hasn’t been altered except for the loss of the distracting little notes which used to pop up telling you that you’d made a ‘hot start’ or you’d reached a ‘200 note streak’ which as you looked at the note abruptly ended said streak. Minor changes which make a big difference – a sign which shows that developers are listening to their consumers which is always a sensible idea.
Now, it’s time to be a little picky, there are small aspects of the game which really irritated me and it may be a personal opinion but during songs like Coldplay’s ‘In My Place’ or previously mentioned ‘Superstition’, while playing guitar I found myself strumming the piano or brass instrument parts. This is guitar hero, not trumpet hero. I’d rather sit and wait for another guitar part to come along and enjoy the superb videos in the background than play the background instruments. I know it’s a small flaw but it really took away that feeling that you were playing the song.
As for longevity, the game introduces a new feature in the career mode which really extends your gameplay. For each song, as well as trying to achieve five stars, you now also have a mini challenge for each song which involves you either maintaining a score multiplier for a certain amount of time or hitting a certain amount of kick drums throughout the song. If you can complete these mini tasks (which aren’t as easy as they all sound) you unlock more clothes for the create a rocker section or instrument accessories.
Moving onto the create a rocker section, it has been expanded from Guitar Hero World Tour – you can change almost every aspect of your character with so many more options than before. Now that the game has moved away from the cartoon feel the characters have a very realistic look to them which allows you to make characters really look like you or even your favourite rock star.
On the subject of favourite rock stars, once again Guitar Hero has pulled out all the stops to bring in some famous characters, Matt Bellamy from Muse makes an appearance alongside Johnny Cash but the coup de gras is the inclusion of the late, great Kurt Cobain. Seeing a digital Cobain rocking away to ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ really captures what the game is all about and attempting the vocals on this song is always fun.
The multiplayer aspect of the game has also been altered. The fun battles where you could break opponents’ strings or increase their difficulty has been sadly removed and replaced by new battles like ‘Momentum’ where your difficulty starts on medium and the more notes you hit the more your difficulty increases. It’s a nice idea but loses the fun of the old battles. The best addition to the new multiplayer is the elimination section – where 4 guitars can be set up to play at once and as notes are missed that person is eliminated distinguishing the true guitar hero between you and your friends.
The studio section of the game is also present which allows players to make their own songs. In all honesty, unless you play guitar yourself or work in a studio this aspect of the game becomes boring after about 5 minutes of playing different chords which sound terrible when put together. However, with 83 songs on the game and a countless amount to download from the integrated online music store who needs to make their own songs?
With The Beatles Rock Band dominating recent headlines Guitar Hero really had to bring out a game which wouldn’t slip under the radar or allow itself to be beaten hands down and although the Beatles game is truly beautiful in all aspects, if you’re not a Beatles fan then it’ll be lost on you. Guitar Hero 5 has a diverse soundtrack with songs that everyone will like, new features which will keep most players entertained for much longer than they normally would be, and a career mode which you’ll want to play again on each instrument to unlock all the rewards… Could you ask for any more?
VideogameUK verdict: 8.5/10
