A game like Guitar Hero: Smash Hits is hard to review, because it is a game that by all accounts, shouldn't exist as it does.
The third of seven games in the Hero franchise, Smash Hits was the major console release that came out a week after Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits for the handhelds. It is perhaps the most unique Guitar Hero side game ever made, and is often cited as one of the reasons for the downfall of the Guitar Hero franchise. That is a lot of pressure on just one game, but what makes Smash Hits earn that reputation?
As part of their strategy for market dominance, Activision had an idea of creating a "Greatest Hits" release of Guitar Hero songs in one place. The concept is not too wild, real-life bands do it all the time after all. So Activision had a new studio trying their hand at making a rhythm game, Beenox.
Beenox would go on to have a history of co-developing the Skylanders series, and provide tons of support for the Call of Duty series going into today. Before all of that, they were probably best known for Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions and porting several Tony Hawk games to the Mac in their early years. Beenox's game development is not super robust, but Activision, who purchased the studio in 2005, saw some potential in them as a subsidiary studio who can support heavy hitters like Neversoft and Infinity Ward.
To that end, Guitar Hero: Smash Hits is one of the few times Beenox is not providing support or co-developing the game, it is wholly their own title. At first glance there is a lot of promise with Smash Hits as well; you have, what is arguably, the best set list in any Guitar Hero game. See, Beenox was not just content on re-releasing songs from previous titles; they wanted to upgrade them to be both fully band-compatible, with master recordings. It was also an attempt to get songs that were exclusive to past games, like Guitar Hero 1 and 2, and Encore: Rock's the 80's, into a modern title.
Credit has to be given to Beenox for their selection of songs, featuring a really solid setlist that, while only 48 tracks, is indicative of the highs of the Guitar Hero franchise. Each of the songs was also a master recording, or in the case of a few of them re-recordings or live concert recordings, to replace the covers made in the original games.
Make no mistake, it is a fantastic setlist. Songs like "Godzilla", "I Love Rock and Roll", "The Trooper", "Killer Queen", and "Killing in the Name" make the cut, bringing a full band experience for a myriad of bands that have not been featured in World Tour, or have not had their specific song re-released. It was clear the older titles had preferential treatment too, with 14 songs from Guitar Hero and 19 songs from Guitar Hero 2 making the cut. For numbers sake, Encore: Rock's the 80's has six songs returned, Guitar Hero 3 has 8 songs represented, and Guitar Hero: Aerosmith even gets in on the action with "Back in the Saddle."
Regardless of any issues with the game, having these songs return was massive plus. However, Smash Hits does have some fatal flaws. Beenox chose the songs by weighing them based on their fun value, memorability, and how they may translate for a band. In general they did a good job, but a lot of the songs feel undercooked when it comes to drums or vocals when compared to Guitar and Bass charts. This is unavoidable because the songs were originally for a Guitar-specific game.
The necessities for the band focus however lead to some outliers that, in theory, could spike difficulty if played alone. The games final setlist contains five of the hardest songs from the franchise, "Bark at the Moon", "Raining Blood", "Psychobilly Freakout", "Free Bird", and "Play With Me", with a special encore of "Through the Fire and Flames". Yes, the mad lads at Beenox decided to put one of the hardest songs in the franchise as the final challenge for your main setlist.
You can applaud the sheer audacity to include "Through the Fire and Flames", but that final stretch is a killer row for guitar players throughout. Bass, Drums, and Vocals have some challenging songs in there, but guitar is the only instrument that might struggle heavily to complete the game. In an attempt to be more balanced and include all of the instruments from World Tour, Smash Hits feels like it is a very guitar-heavy game, which kind of goes against the whole point of why World Tour was made.
There is also another wrinkle to this, and that is the charting. Beenox was given the original guitar charts from Activision, but decided to re-chart every song for themselves. They would then compare the charts to the original versions and make small adjustments to the final version, with some guidance from Neversoft for good measure. Since Smash Hits uses the World Tour engine - the third game to do so in the series - a lot of the additions from World Tour are present, including slide notes, playing notes with a sustained note, and other tweaks.
Beenox went heavy on some alterations, which can be a good thing. As all of the songs are now master recordings, we get different note placement for some sections that makes more sense. For the two live recordings, it is also mapped out to that cadence decently well. Here is the problem though; a lot of alterations just feel off, either by Beenox putting too many notes onto the screen, or over-relying on slide and sustained note sections.
Card's on the table, I feel Beenox was too green in making their own charts. The game kind of suffers a bit from feeling over-produced, and compound that with aforementioned difficulty spikes, and you have a game that kind of overstays its welcome despite being only 48 songs. It really doesn't matter how good the setlist is, which again, is probably one of the best out there, the charting suffers from lacking a more practiced hand at making the songs feel fun and challenging without being frustrating.
All of this kind of compounds with one final problem; there is little in justifying the game even existing. When everything else about Smash Hits is a literal carbon copy of World Tour, from interface to GHTunes to other gameplay modes, it's really hard to not look at Smash Hits and feel this could have been a DLC release. Hindsight being what it is, it's probably for the best it wasn't in the end, as these songs are now at least available to play on disk, but at the time this was a major problem and one that was indicative of Guitar Hero as a whole.
This is basically an issue with design philosophy. If Smash Hits were just a side game with only guitar and bass, then the game's challenge and hell, its existence, would probably be more justified. It's a re-release of classic songs, with updated charts, and it is a chance for players to play them alone. Then, for DLC purposes, you can release the songs from Smash Hits as a full band option for World Tour or the upcoming Guitar Hero 5. This could have been at least more of a reason for Smash Hits release.
As released, Smash Hits only recourse would be having the games songs being exported to Guitar Hero 5, but even then only 19 of the 48 songs would be exportable, with another two coming later as DLC for future games. So that full band experience for great songs like "More than a Feeling", "Bark at the Moon" or hell, even "Through the Fire and Flames", would only be available on Smash Hits.
Reviewers at the time rightly said Guitar Hero: Smash Hits is a textbook example of the franchise being milked for all it's worth. Despite the setlist, despite the thrill of hearing master recordings of fan favorite songs from less that four years ago, the charting is off, the gameplay is not balanced for a full band, and the lack of support outside of the games release just feels crass. Smash is by most accounts not a bad game technically, but it is an incredibly disappointing one. It is a game that struggles to justify its existence at every turn, and even if it's unintentional, feels like a massive cash grab that leaves a sour taste in your mouth. Smash Hits is not rock bottom, but it's an indicator of where Guitar Hero is going.
Authors Note: Footage of Online play was found on Youtube. Credit goes to the following channels: