For a very long time, gamers have gotten to know the tradition style of Guitar Hero. Five buttons on the neck of a plastic guitar that you have either wrecked by now playing Through Fire And Flames or has somehow stood the test of time. These were the days of when Guitar Hero was a fun game to pick up and compare to its competitor in Rock Band later on. However, we are in a new era of Guitar Hero. An era where we are LIVE, an era where a SIXTH button has been added and things have been redesigned. With the changes made is this game worth a look?
What I Liked
- GHTV – While playing this game, the one thing I enjoyed was the Guitar Hero TV mode in this game. This is the only type of “Multiplayer” you are going to get when it comes to this game as if takes you and a bunch of people around the world playing the same song and ranks them in real-time. So if you suck, 9 other people will know you suck. This is not the only thing, but it is the only streaming music video play along mode (think singstar but with guitar). Instead of playing to a “live” crowd, you play along with the Music Video of that song in which you either selected to play or if you went into one of the channels that is constantly streaming songs, they have picked. I like the concept behind it and is a pretty enjoyable experience if you like competing to beat others scores along the way.
- Track Listing – Both Rock Band and Guitar Hero are known for having a diverse collection of music, in their own way. Rock Band centers more on the full band experience with its track listing and Guitar Hero just tries to throw as many genres that may contain a guitar as possible. I like both to be honest, probably more of a thumbs up to Rock Band because of the Back Catalog that came with it. However I think that Guitar Hero Live has a pretty good, diverse amount of tracks to keep you interested. My personal favorites on the core list would have to be “Berzerk” by Eminem, “Club Foot” By Kasabian, “Little Monster” By Royal Blood and “R U Mine?” by Arctic Monkeys.
Love/Hate Relationship
- No Music Store – I put this here because I semi-like the idea of unlocking songs to playing during the GHLive mode, but at the same time it doesn’t have a dedicated music store that lets you buy new songs unless you count the idea in GHTV. I guess I wouldn’t mind this more if they had a mixture of both. You can unlock the base tracks on the disc and be able to add new songs that aren’t in the game through a music store.
What I Disliked
- New Guitar Controller – So remember when I said new era? Yeah, The controller is apart of that. I am not a fan of it to be honest with you. I get that music games in the past and probably now are looked at as a learning tool but I don’t feel this controller accomplishes anything other than learning how to move three fingers from left side of the guitar neck to the right. Not only that, I also feel that the controller at times is not as responsive as past controllers.
- Guitar Hero Live Mode – I’m not a big fan of this because it doesn’t feel authentic to me. While playing Rock Band, if I’m doing well it feels great, the crowd has a natural reaction to my godliness. Guitar Hero Live it’s real people…all around you…taped to react if you’re doing well or not. Sometimes it just doesn’t match up to your actual performance.
- Calibration Process – This is not the best calibration process in the history of both Guitar Hero or Rock Band. I would say that Rock Bands calibration process was a lot better and more friendly to make sure you and your TV were in sync. This process gives you a cowbell on a sliding bar and a dot that is supposed to hit this cowbell on time with the sound. That is it, you’re not really calibrating your controller, you are just…calibrating…something…your ears and sight maybe.
Conclusion
After giving this game a go for a few days, I have to think that the new developer was very ambitious with their vision for Guitar Hero Live. While some ideas were pretty cool, the majority of other things fell short for me. If you are looking for any sign of Guitar Hero of past, you won’t find it in Guitar Hero Live. Instead, you’ll find a new direction that somewhat takes elements of Singstar and combines them with a rhythm game like Guitar Hero but turns it completely upside down on its head. I would only recommend that if you REALLY want this game that you wait till it goes on sale (which won’t be long with the Holiday Season approaching) and buy the guitar bundle. Otherwise, I wouldn’t really recommend buying this game.
*This review is based on a copy of the game sent to us by the publisher