Guitar Hero

Review from AJ - Thursday, 27 July 2006 @ 12:00am

Do you see people playing Singstar and secretly wish you could play, but even Milli Vanili have more singing ability than you? Or perhaps you wish you could dance with the girlies at Timezone; proving your moves on DDR? But you can't, because you have the coordination of a drunk with a serious inner ear infection? Or maybe you think both games suck because you're too much of a man to play girls games, and besides, singing and dancing isn't a 'game' anyway. Whatever your excuse for avoiding 'games that require talent', quit your bitching because there are no more excuses. Drag out your skin-tight acid wash jeans and put on that flannelette shirt, because Guitar Hero is here! Ok, maybe I've over sold it just a little?.

Guitar Hero from Harmonix easily gets my vote for best game so far in 2006. Yes, more fun than Burnout Revenge; yes, more exciting than Ghost Recon and yes, it will provide you with more chick pulling power than the New Falcon V8 Ute. Sure the guy in Harvey Norman may ask you to turn the volume down, but once you show off some of your killer moves, even the manager will bow before your Eddie Van Halen-like awesomeness.

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Guitar Hero is quite simply a huge amount of fun. It is easy to pick up, but difficult to master. Harmonix have managed to produce a game with a very finely tuned learning curve. The game features a really great 'career' mode, where you start off (predictably enough) as a garage rocker and work your way up to a stadium filling guitar legend! The game has 30 cover versions of some really great rock tunes as well as another 17 indie tunes making for a pretty hefty 47 songs (unlike tripe like Singstar Anthems which only features 20 songs; and they're crap). Even though the songs are cover versions, it doesn't mean they're crap. This is about the guitar after all, and whilst Iron Man isn't quite the same without Ozzy Osbourne, it's a pretty close attempt. The game is played similarly to Dance Dance Revolution; a series of circles flow down the screen and line up with one of the 5 buttons on your fret board, and you push the right button at the right time. Hitting the right note is only half the job however, because you also need to strum at the correct time as well, which then pretty closely resembles the action of playing guitar. There are single notes, chords (2 buttons at a time), sustains (hold the note for a while) and even some pretty tricky sequences which require a little extra skill (more on that in a minute!).

The career mode will start you off in easy mode where only 3 of the 5 note keys are used. This is a good place for beginners to start. The 30 songs are broken up into 5 groups of 5 songs Opening Licks, Axe-Grinders, Thrash And Burn, Return of the Shred and Fret-Burners (the clever ones out there will realize that is only 25... the last 5 aren't available in easy mode). Initially only the first 5 songs are available; beat those to unlock the rest. Completing the tracks on easy mode is pretty simple, and you'll quickly unlock the rest. Once you start down the list of songs, things get a little more challenging. But with a bit of practice you should be able to get through them. The real fun, however, starts on the medium difficulty. In this level 4 of the 5 buttons are used, which requires just a little more practice and coordination, and the unlock shop also becomes available. Earn money by playing well and you can buy more guitars, guitar skins, new songs and even new characters. After completing the set of 25 songs on medium, you unlock the last 5 songs. These are rightfully called Face Melters, and they're pretty tough. Of course if that isn't enough for you, step up to Hard Mode which uses all 5 buttons and the speed at which the notes scroll is substantially quicker. For experienced players only! Once you've mastered the game, and no song is too tough for you, you can TRY to step up to Expert mode which features every note of the song... seriously. I think it's impossible.

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As you progress through the tracks you'll need to learn some advanced techniques like Hammer-ons and Pull-offs and effective use of the Whammy bar. Scoring works based on the number of correct notes in a row. The more notes you get right, the bigger the multiplier (up to 4x). Get a note wrong and it is back to 1x. It's worth mentioning that a Rock Meter judges your performance during a song, if it falls too low, you lose and will find yourself booed off the stage. To help you have such a fate, you'll want to make good use of a thing called Star Power. During a song certain note sequences will be shaped like stars, hit all of these and you will slowly increase your Star Power. Fill up the meter, turn your guitar vertically (yes, seriously), and activate your Star Power. This doubles all your points (turns your 4x into 8x!) as the meter slowly empties and will give your Rock Meter a serious boost towards the green.

Probably the greatest thing about Guitar Hero, other than its ease of play, is the great selection of songs. Even if you don't know the songs, you'll quickly come to love them. Unlike games like Singstar, it isn't important to know the songs to do well, just push the right buttons at the right time. Of course, if you are a fan of the classics, there is plenty here to make you grin from ear to ear as you strut around the lounge. Speaking of which, get yourself an extension lead for your PS2 controller, you can't fully enjoy being a Guitar Hero if you're tethered to the PS2. Guitar Hero features songs from artists like ZZ Top, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Cream, Franz Ferdinand and Deep Purple. Whilst there are plenty of songs we all wish were included, there is more than enough to keep you occupied. At least we get to look forward to Van Halen, KISS and some more Black Sabbath in Guitar Hero 2, coming in November

In addition to the very cool single player career mode, there is also a Quickplay option which will let you jump into any song on any difficulty, and a multiplayer mode. 'Multiplayer?' you ask, 'with one guitar??'. No, I'm afraid not. For the multiplayer mode, you'll need to pick up another guitar. Now at the moment, I'm not aware of a genuine Guitar Hero guitar available for sale in Australia, although there is one available on Red Octane's website. The guitar that comes with the game has a really nice feel about it. It is solid, has a comfortable shoulder strap, the buttons feel firm, and the whammy bar feels like it wont come off if you get a little too enthusiastic. It also comes with a bunch of cool stickers, which are essential to jazz up your guitar. For enthusiasts, the guitar is a mini Gibson SG replica. There is another guitar available, but it's just not the real deal. We picked one up from JB Hi-fi for about $45. Unfortunately, it is cheap and nasty compared to the real thing. Not only are the fret buttons a little less solid, but the strum control and whammy bar feel flimsy and the whole thing just isn't as well built as the genuine article. The up side is that it comes with a much better selection of stickers. However, to get the most out of Guitar Hero, you do need another guitar (assuming you have someone to jam with!).

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The multiplayer mode essentially is a dueling guitars type scenario. Two sets of notes are displayed on the screen, and you basically take turns at playing sections of the song, and sometimes will even both play the same section. For the competitive among us, this is more fun than the single player version. If you are playing against someone of equal skill, the winner is often decided by only one or two bum notes or by who uses their star power at the right time. Because of the way multipliers work, get a note wrong while the other player is on 8x and you'll quickly find yourself behind the 8 ball. If you have a spare $45 its worth it to pick up another guitar and extend the life of the game. Of course, when Guitar Hero 2 comes out you'll have a second guitar... so that may be a better option.

Summary

If you know who Billy Gibbons, Tony Iommi, Ritchie Blackmore or Stevie Ray Vaughn are then you really should own this already, so why are you even reading this? For the rest of you, you may feel like a fool walking out of the shopping centre with this under your arm, but once you get home, you'll be thankful you did. Guitar Hero is arguably the best game of 2006 thus far, and what's even better is that you don't have to be musical to enjoy it. While graphically not the best, and not exactly original, Guitar Hero is just straight out fun, challenging, rewarding and addictive.

Pros

A truckload of songs with plenty of variation. Easy to pick up, but tough to master. You'll look really awesome in front of your friends, and they will be insanely jealous. Addictive, challenging and fun; all the things a good game should be.

Cons

Would've been nice to have the original artists. Colourful fret boards can make it hard to see fast moving notes. Would've been nice as an option for both players to play the full song in multiplayer.