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Guitar Hero is a franchise that has been going strong for many years. Since the franchise started with Guitar Hero 1, many people have picked up the plastic guitar peripheral to try it out, and have been caught on the sensation that has been sweeping the gaming world. Fast forward many sequels later, and the rhythm gaming genre has been milked to its extreme, and plastic peripherals are filling homes all across the world. This causes companies to play their best cards, and Activision does no different. The latest sequel, Guitar Hero 5, has been highly anticipated by many fans and has not disappointed. Lets dive right into this rhythm game that is truly one of a kind!
Playing as a full band with your friends is an unforgettable experience
What makes this game different from the other Guitar Hero games? The different types of game modes is what will get this played in the Wii at your parties. The main addition is Party Play, which is a jump in/jump out system where anybody who isn’t playing at the moment can simply connect their remote, press join, and start no matter where they are in the song! This works flawlessly for a couple of friends to get together and jam to some tunes, and that is why it is there. Another neat feature is the option to have more than 1 person play the same instrument. This offers up for a much larger band, and a better overall experience! Beware though, if you have a rather small TV, it can clutter up the space if you have too many people playing at once, but besides that, this mode is well handled.
There are also some neat versus side-modes that are meant for multiplayer, which are titled “Rockfest” games. These games include Momentum, Streakers, Pefectionist, Do or Die, Elimination, and Pro Face-Off. Momentum is where each player starts out on medium, and once they reach a 20 note streak, the game ups the difficulty, but if you miss 3 notes, then the game brings the difficulty down. This can either lead to very fun times or very frustrating times, especially when everybody is missing notes on a very hard solo. Streakers is when points are awarded with the player’s note streak, and whoever has the most wins. You get 1 point for a 10 note streak, 2 points for a 20 note streak, and it keeps on climbing in that order. Perfectionist is when the game judges each player on a certain section of a song, and whoever gets the most percentage hit gets 4 points, the player that hit the second most 2 points, and third place/last place gets 1 point. Both of these modes flow seamlessly into creating the fun party atmosphere that the game was driven to create. Then you also have Pro-Faceoff which has been included in previous iterations of Guitar Hero. The objective is to score more points than the other player, and it works just as it should. Elimination is a mode where the lowest scoring player is eliminated from the match, which also works great and gets the job done. The mode that I thought was unnecessary was Do or Die. Do or Die causes the player to fail out after missing 3 notes, which can cause both players to fail out and just listen to the song until it is over. Overall, these modes make the party more exciting, but can be pretty bland if they are played over and over again.
The ability to have more than one person play a certain instrument makes this game great
The game also has the regular career mode that has been used for all of the Guitar Hero games, but this time with a different objective. Instead of trying to pass all of the songs to get through the game, it is directed by earning stars. This gives you an incentive to try harder to reach certain areas. Of course, if you are a stickler for unlocking songs, all of the game’s setlist is unlocked in quickplay. This gives you the choice to play through the game, or not and just jump to your favorites, which is something that I like to have available. This takes away the stress of playing 3 hours into the game just to unlock Freebird or some other top-tier song.
The controls in this game are standard rhythm game controls, with the same peripherals as Guitar Hero: World Tour and Guitar Hero: Metallica. The only major upgrade to the controls is the vocals engine, which has gotten a huge update from its broken ancestors. It is now more Rock Band-esque, in look and feel. The vocal engine is still a little too tight, but its good enough, and a huge step from their past vocal engines.
The game’s graphics are nothing that should be ignored, as they really define the game’s look, and make it stand out. The guest appearances made me feel like I was playing as that celebrity, which is good in the case of Kurt Cobain. There are still some kinks with how the characters play the instrument, but nothing to worry about. Even for a Wii game, the graphics look great and stand out among other rhythm games released for Wii.
The main part of a rhythm game is the setlist. Activision does a good job of putting songs in the game that appeals to different music tastes, and it works out at parties, especially when you add DLC to the game. The only problem is that Activision was too focused on making the setlist appeal to everyone that they end with a mediocre setlist in terms of songs that would fit together.
Overall, this game is a great rhythm game. Its diverse setlist can help it appeal to different ages and different types of gamers. Besides the party experience, this game doesn’t have too much to offer for a single-player experience, unless you’re a career-junkie. The replay value of this game is just the same for just about any rhythm game, if you like the songs/modes you’ll come back. The DLC is another factor that will keep players coming back, and the fact that Wii owners can now buy full albums/packs and transfer their GH:WT songs is an upgrade. Guitar Hero 5 is a leap in quality compared to Guitar Hero: World Tour, and hopefully Activision will continue to publish games of this caliber.
