Guitar Hero 5 is by no means anything revolutionary, but the core elements are still satisfying enough to make this year’s iteration a worthwhile experience.
The games most notable feature is its accessibility. Right from the get go you'll be able to play a random song from the start screen. You can drop in and out whenever you feel like, and change the difficulty if you so desire. Another feature that adds more of the same is party play mode. Party play mode is essentially the same as when you first boot up the game. You can drop, add, or even change the difficulty of your song. It's all nice and can be really convenient if a friend isn't that good at an instrument on the higher difficulties.
Aside from its accessibility, you'll notice that this year’s game is graphically superior to its predecessor, Guitar Hero: World Tour. All of the characters look more realistic as opposed to cartoon characters in past games. Character animations are pretty spot on and lip-syncing is more improved. Camera angles add another dimension to the believability of your band on stage or others. Yes, that's right, Guitar Hero 5 features real musicians. You can play as Johnny Cash or even the versatile-front-man, Kurt Cobain, and a few others. Once you play their songs, you'll unlock them to play any songs in the entire game. It's quite absurd to see Johnny Cash singing "Du Hast" on stage, or Kurt Cobain singing "Livin' on a Prayer."
Back from last year's game is the Guitar Hero studio. They revamped the interface to make it quicker to create songs and overall make it more accessible to everyone. And, of course, more effects have been thrown in for the instruments, you'll see a visualizer that matches to your songs while you play them, and a few other subtitle adjustments have been incorporated. Speaking of modes, gone from Guitar Hero: World Tour is the story mode. In this year's game it is just called career mode. Basically, you just play songs until you can advance to the next venue. The boss battles are also not present in this year's game. You can also import songs from last year's game, but not only will it cost you, not all of the songs are importable from last year's game. What a bummer.
Gameplay wise, this is still a Guitar Hero game. You'll still be pressing, or hitting the color the you see on a highway-like scroller as it comes your way. You can now save other band mates as opposed to everyone failing in last year's game. They have layered a few other challenges to make it somewhat of a more fresh and longer lasting experience. The game features around 90 songs, which are all unlocked from the start. Yes, you can play "Smells Like Teen Spirit" right from the get go. However, this year's song selection seems like it was trying to please everyone. We have Bob Dylan, Rammstein, and Johnny Cash. It doesn't really mix well, and I would have preferred a more structured set-list rather than a "Let's try to please everyone." But that doesn't take away from how fun they still are. With over 90 songs, and the inevitable DLC coming down the road, this game will last you quite a while.
With all of that said, Guitar Hero 5's ease of accessibility, very solid gameplay, and it's overwhelming set-list makes this year's addition worthwhile. While it isn't a ground breaking entry into the overpopulated rhythm game genre, it still leaves a small dent in the genre. Fans from past games will no doubt be returning, and newcomers to the plastic phenomenon are welcome with open arms with Guitar Hero 5.
The games most notable feature is its accessibility. Right from the get go you'll be able to play a random song from the start screen. You can drop in and out whenever you feel like, and change the difficulty if you so desire. Another feature that adds more of the same is party play mode. Party play mode is essentially the same as when you first boot up the game. You can drop, add, or even change the difficulty of your song. It's all nice and can be really convenient if a friend isn't that good at an instrument on the higher difficulties.
Aside from its accessibility, you'll notice that this year’s game is graphically superior to its predecessor, Guitar Hero: World Tour. All of the characters look more realistic as opposed to cartoon characters in past games. Character animations are pretty spot on and lip-syncing is more improved. Camera angles add another dimension to the believability of your band on stage or others. Yes, that's right, Guitar Hero 5 features real musicians. You can play as Johnny Cash or even the versatile-front-man, Kurt Cobain, and a few others. Once you play their songs, you'll unlock them to play any songs in the entire game. It's quite absurd to see Johnny Cash singing "Du Hast" on stage, or Kurt Cobain singing "Livin' on a Prayer."
Back from last year's game is the Guitar Hero studio. They revamped the interface to make it quicker to create songs and overall make it more accessible to everyone. And, of course, more effects have been thrown in for the instruments, you'll see a visualizer that matches to your songs while you play them, and a few other subtitle adjustments have been incorporated. Speaking of modes, gone from Guitar Hero: World Tour is the story mode. In this year's game it is just called career mode. Basically, you just play songs until you can advance to the next venue. The boss battles are also not present in this year's game. You can also import songs from last year's game, but not only will it cost you, not all of the songs are importable from last year's game. What a bummer.
Gameplay wise, this is still a Guitar Hero game. You'll still be pressing, or hitting the color the you see on a highway-like scroller as it comes your way. You can now save other band mates as opposed to everyone failing in last year's game. They have layered a few other challenges to make it somewhat of a more fresh and longer lasting experience. The game features around 90 songs, which are all unlocked from the start. Yes, you can play "Smells Like Teen Spirit" right from the get go. However, this year's song selection seems like it was trying to please everyone. We have Bob Dylan, Rammstein, and Johnny Cash. It doesn't really mix well, and I would have preferred a more structured set-list rather than a "Let's try to please everyone." But that doesn't take away from how fun they still are. With over 90 songs, and the inevitable DLC coming down the road, this game will last you quite a while.
With all of that said, Guitar Hero 5's ease of accessibility, very solid gameplay, and it's overwhelming set-list makes this year's addition worthwhile. While it isn't a ground breaking entry into the overpopulated rhythm game genre, it still leaves a small dent in the genre. Fans from past games will no doubt be returning, and newcomers to the plastic phenomenon are welcome with open arms with Guitar Hero 5.