You were handed maracas and you laughed. Then you were told to dance, but you were too cool for that. Singing? No way. Bongos couldn’t even get any love from you. Instead, you said, “I want to rock.” With that request in mind, Guitar Hero is the latest attempt to make the average gamer a rock superstar.
Guitar Hero is the first collaboration between Harmonix, the creators of Frequency, Amplitude and Karaoke Revolution, and the folks at Red Octane who have supported DDR and Bemani-style games since their infancy in the United States. It features the Guitar Hero SG Controller, a licensed (albeit smaller) replica of the Gibson SG guitar.
The guitar, which comes as part of the Guitar Hero bundle, features five colored fret buttons, a strum bar, and a whammy bar along with Start and Select Buttons. The guitar also features a tilt sensor, which we’ll get to a bit later. In general, the guitar feels a little wimpy. Mine creaked a little bit when it was being held, and the strum bar clicks loudly.
It only took about five songs with the guitar before it felt great. Throwing on a set of headphones or cranking the volume on your stereo eliminates the strum bar clicking issue, although I actually found the click useful in terms of knowing when I hit notes. Gamers with smaller hands may have some issues with cramping, so players may want to be sure to occasionally put down their guitar and let their band’s bassist have at it for a song or two.
Over time, I have noticed the fret buttons starting to stick a little bit, likely from sweat and oil from my hands. While it hasn’t affected my gameplay, I can see where it could be an issue with gamers who may be a little too focused on their score in the higher difficulty modes. I suspect over time some premium guitar controllers will appear from Red Octane for the advanced player, but you’ll need to live with the standard ones for now.
Now that we’ve gone over the controller, let’s talk about the game. Guitar Hero features Quick Play, Multiplayer, Tutorial, and Career Mode. The latter mode is where you’ll spend most of your time, leaving you to choose an in-game avatar, then name and tour with a band. The tutorial is broken into three parts, two of which are immediately available and take about five to ten minutes to run through. They’re very simple, yet give you enough to rock through the Easy difficulty.
Gameplay in Guitar Hero is surprisingly intuitive. Different colored notes flow down a scale onscreen, and as they reach the bottom, you’ll need to press the corresponding fret button while hitting the strum bar. Longer notes require you to hold the fret after the strum. On some of the longer notes, you’ll get to bust out the whammy bar, scoring you big points and providing your own little touch to the track. After the first few songs they’ll begin to toss chords (two frets) at once as well, but once you’re comfortable with the system, it’s a cakewalk.
You receive points for every note you hit. For every ten in a row, your multiplier increases to a maximum of four, unless you decide to bust out your “Star Power.” Star Power is obtained by hitting combinations of notes designated by stars or by whammying on longer, special notes of these varieties. Once your Star Power passes the halfway mark, you can tilt your guitar upward, activating the Star Power which doubles the multiplier, pumps up the crowd and scores you big points. Whenever you score some Star Power, a small crackling noise can be heard, which is a small annoyance.
To get through each level, you’ll need to keep the Rock Meter pumped up simply by not screwing up. Each missed note not only gives you an annoying sound and messes up the track, but it also drops your Rock Meter. If it falls into the red, you’re in trouble, though hitting a bunch of notes successively can bring you back into the green, especially if you have Star Power activated. After each song, you’ll be reviewed on a five-star scale and given stats on your performance, such as the percentage of notes that you hit as well as your longest streak.
Even after the tutorial, it will take several songs for your body to get coordinated enough to properly play the game. Not everybody can easily look at a screen while using both their hands to do two separate things. Fortunately, even my grandfather can get through the first few tracks, as Guitar Hero is very forgiving to the novice rock star. In the early stages, you’ll only need to deal with three fret buttons, and you won’t have to worry about any advanced techniques.
As you progress through career mode, you’ll unlock new sets featuring five songs and different venues throughout a “pseudo-Boston” area. As you advance through the four difficulty levels, more frets will be added into the songs, forcing you to learn how to move up and down the fretboard.
Checking out the advanced tutorial is extremely helpful, as it will teach you how to “hammer-down” and “pull-off,” techniques that even real guitarists use to help them rapidly hit notes. It should be mentioned that these techniques don’t come naturally, especially when following the tutorial, but through practice and repetition they can become part of your repertoire without your realizing it.
Once you’re playing at the medium difficult level, you’ll have the added bonus of getting cash for each hit you belt out, scoring more for better results. You can use cash to unlock songs, guitars, skins, new characters and behind the scenes videos. It should be mentioned that Guitar Hero has one of the most rewarding unlocking systems of any music-oriented game out there. Your first several hours can be spent unlocking accessories for your characters and opening up seventeen additional tracks.
Speaking of the tracks, the music is top-notch. Guitar Hero features 30 tracks ranging from metal classics like Black Sabbath’s Iron Man to rock ballads like Boston’s More Than A Feeling. While Harmonix has plenty of solid guitar-wailing rock classics in the line-up, they took care to add modern-day hits from artists like Franz Ferndinand and Queens of the Stone Age, which don’t feel out of place at all. In fact, unlike other music games, no single song on the soundtrack feels out of place. There’s no “gimme” songs like Row Row Row Your Boat here; just pure rock and roll. I should mention that these songs are all licensed covers, but all play so well that a friend commented that they sound more like impersonations than actual covers. Unless you’re a rock addict, you probably won’t even know the difference.
Many of the additional, unlockable tracks were mastered by bands from the Boston area, while others were done by friends of Harmonix, or the some of Harmonix staff members’ own bands. One track was even included as the grand prize of a national search. These tracks are of high quality, and the game could’ve even stood alone on their weight.
Guitar Hero features a multiplayer mode where you can go head to head against a friend. In this mode, one player can carry the other, making it not just ideal for competition, but also for practice. While you can get away with letting your friend use a controller, they won’t be happy until they can rock with a guitar of their own. Unfortunately, individual guitars currently aren’t yet available in stores, though they can be pre-ordered through Red Octane’s website. Red Octane has also announced a multi-player bundle.
The graphics and presentation are much more engaging than any previous music game. While you’re rocking out, your on-screen character is rocking out. As you’re using your “Star Power” on a massive chorus, your guy is dancing and pumping up the crowd. Missing notes? The crowd is missing it too. While Harmonix could’ve got away with just showing the scale and randomly throwing graphics and polygon characters into the background, having the graphics connected to the gameplay is a really nice touch.
Where Guitar Hero really stands out is in how the notes you play are integrated into the onscreen gameplay. Next time you play DDR, start a track and step off the dance pad. The song is still playing, and while there’s a little booing, you’re not missing much. Now throw in Guitar Hero and do the same thing with the guitar. All you hear is the drummer, the bassist and the vocals. There’s no guitar in the audio track until you start playing. The song is dead without you, and that’s what makes Guitar Hero so satisfying. As you increase the difficulty levels, you have to deal with more frets, more notes and your playing begins to seem more and more relevant. This game makes you like you’re actually playing guitar, something that is sorely missed from many music-oriented releases out there.
Overall: 9/10
If you can get over the fact that you’re playing a plastic guitar, you and your friends are going to have a blast playing Guitar Hero. It is by far the most enjoyable and accessible music experience of its generation. The days of frantically hopping around on dance pads are over, and the days of rocking out to some of the greatest rock songs of all time are finally here.
