After almost four years of rocking out, the Guitar Hero franchise has entered a certain stage in life, where it comes out so regularly you can set your calendar to it. Another year brings another track list I want to play, another reason to plop down my $60, another reason to call in sick to work with Guitar Hero-itis.
It’s almost reached a point where it’s like the Madden NFL franchise. Every year, we’ll have a new track list and some updated features that may or may not entice fans to pick it up.
With Guitar Hero 5, the series is back on track. The previous installment, Guitar Hero World Tour, was Neversoft’s first attempt at competing directly with Harmonix’s Rock Band. Although it had some innovative ideas, World Tour was rough around the edges. The song creation mode was nowhere near as good as I was expecting, the actual band gameplay felt a little disjointed, and the drums were a little stiff for my liking.
In Guitar Hero 5, what Neversoft seemed to do was ferret out every single complaint gamers had about not just Guitar Hero, but music games in general and fixed it. What we have is a more polished experience. The band elements are more integrated and don’t seem to be competing against each other. The graphics look light years better. The team even did little things like getting rid of the design of the fret boards so that it’s less distractin. It’s now a vinylish-looking black.
Have you ever picked a song, started playing it, and midway through realized that “Man, this is way too long.” Well, now before picking a song, Neversoft shows you how long the song is. That way you don’t inadvertantly pick a Free Bird length epic.
Even failure is a little easier for the band. If a guy can’t keep up with the notes and fails out, he won’t bring down the rest of the band. Instead, if the rest of the players keep it together. The guy who failed out will automatically come back in.
And speaking of playing together, there’s a new element called Band Moments, which rewards all players with a special bonus if they manage to nail these special flaming notes unison. It’s like an instant Star Power for the band, boosting the score considerably.
On a similar thread, there’s now drop-in and drop-out play. If someone wants to jump into your band filled with four drummers (Yes, the game now supports any combination of instruments.), one person can leave and another person can hop in the seat. He can even change the difficulty if it’s too hard for him.
Lastly, fans no longer have to go through the campaign to unlock songs. Now, players have all 85 tracks playable from the start. If that wasn’t enough, Guitar Hero 5 also lets players import songs from other titles in the franchise such as Guitar Hero World Tour and Guitar Hero Smash Hits. Of course, you’ll have to pay a re-licensing fee, but to make up for that, the imported tunes will have the new Band Moments, vocal star power and other new features.
All of these improvements take the little annoyances out of music games so that players will spend less time going through menus and resets and more time rocking in Guitar Hero 5, when it ships to stores Sept. 1.