Guitar Hero Review

Visuals 7/10
Gameplay 10/10
Control 10/10
Sound 9/10
Replay Value  9/10
Impact Rating 10/10
Overall Rating 91/100

Long time fans of the rhythm genre have seen piles of concepts come and go or linger around in the market, from dance games, to bongos; Simon says style play, and even Karaoke.  Yet many of these games neglect the rock base.  In fact, with the exception of Konami’s Guitar Freak’s, there hasn’t been anything in the rhythm market targeted towards rock fans.  Enter Guitar Hero, the second guitar franchise on the block, and for those who like to rock, your prayers have been answered.

Guitar Hero is developed by rhythm game veterans Harmonix who have developed classics such as Karaoke Revolution and Amplitude.  This time around though we won’t be in the music, and we won’t be singing though (well at least not as a part of the game).  Guitar Hero places you exactly where you want to be, in the roles of your favorite Guitar Legends of old as well as a few new ones.

So of course with every rhythm game there has to be some form of input, and this is Guitar Hero, so hand me a guitar!  We’ll Harmonix teamed up with Red Octane and did just that offering one of the most solidly constructed gaming peripherals to date.  The guitar is black in colour with a white pattern emblazoned in the center.  There are five action buttons each with its own distinct colour, and there is a strum bar to play out the notes.  They even went so far as to include a whammy bar (which actually does work in game) and start and select buttons designed to look like volume knobs.

The general premise of the game is simple, select a song and follow the on screen notes to complete the song.  Remember though, this is like a real guitar, you need to prepare the notes you want to play, and strum to actually activate the notes.  Because of this, you can prepare your fingers ahead of time, but you can only strum when necessary.  The game will offer up single notes, extended notes and chords (2 notes pressed in unison).  During extended notes while holding the button down, if you wail away on the whammy bar the music in game will actually be affected as if you really were wailing on a whammy. 

Star notes also exist, and like Harmonix’s previous efforts, to obtain them you music complete all the star notes without missing one.  When you do so, your star meter will begin to fill, and once it’s full, raise up your guitar in triumph (no seriously you have to raise the neck so it points up) and activate your star power which doubles your score for the duration of star power.  They also will help keep you along during troublesome solos for longer than if you weren’t in star mode.

The gameplay is broken down into a few modes: Career, quick play, and multiplayer.  As you can probably tell, Career mode is where the bulk of the game is.  In this mode you can select from 8 different rockers.  You begin your conquest as a garage band playing small venues, but as you progress through the game, so will your band on their rise to stardom eventually headlining a huge tour.  The better you perform on your songs, the more money you earn which can then be put towards new characters, guitars for you characters and skins for those guitars.  There are also songs you can unlock for quick play and some videos from the Harmonix crew. 

The game has a nice slew of replayability offering up four difficulty levels: easy, normal, hard, and expert.  The pacing is also excellent.  With easy, only three of the five buttons are used.  As you progress through the difficulties, buttons are added, and riffs become more complex.  By the time you reach expert you’ll be using all five buttons and you will be expected to know how to use them. 

Multiplayer although limited to two players is one of the most enjoyable experiences in the game.  Players will rock back and forth at times battling solos against each other while other times both will come together to form a brilliant string of chords.  Of course half the fun is screwing up and hearing the song reflect that.  The multiplayer is as fun as you let it be, so bring it to a party with 2 controllers, pop on some costumes and rock out. 

Graphically Guitar Hero is a lot like Harmonix’s other titles.  They offer an intentional cartoon style which isn’t over the top, but adds more flavor than realistic graphics could.  Shows you play have large crowds fully animated, and the different guitar designs are spot on the originals.  There won’t be any graphical excellence awards handed out to Guitar Hero, but what it set out to do, it accomplished admirably. 

Of course what’s a rhythm game without music?  Of course Harmonix never disappoints with their song lists.  Classics like Jimi Hendrix, Deep Purple, and Ozzy Osbourne are featured for the most part but some retro flair is offered up by the likes of David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, and there are even some newer tracks from bands like Audioslave and Queen’s of the Stone Age.  Harmonix fans fear not, for even though this is a rock based game, Freezepop managed to squeeze their way into the game with a dance rock hit you are sure to love.  As always we receive covers from the main artists but fortunately there are a ton of independent bands with songs in the game who actually gave Harmonix the right to use.  All in all the game tops out just under 50 tracks for you to jam to. 

Guitar Hero is a game that is so simple in design but its execution is so perfect that you can’t help but fall in love.  Level progression is perfect as you’ll never be too overwhelmed until far into the game, yet the game will never be too easy as it teaches you the skills you need to beat the songs.  Offering up the best rhythm peripheral to date aside from metal dance pads, tons of replayability, a great 2 player mode, and a ton of tracks it’s hard to see what Harmonix can do for a sequel, the only exception being that we need the return of the create a character feature from Amplitude.  The ability to unlock and deck out a character would have been a great addition as would online play.  Here’s to Guitar Hero 2, because if you haven’t gotten this game yet, you are missing out.

BEST FEATURE – Best gaming peripheral in years

Paul Nunes, Gaming-Media Staff