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Guitar Hero

Platform: PS2 Release Date: 2005 Players 1-2

Have you ever wanted to be a rock star? To live the life of fame and fortune and be able to rock out with your guitar in front of thousands of screaming fans? Sorry to break it to you but that probably isn't going to happen. Why not try Guitar Hero instead?

Guitar Hero pretty much plays like a standard music game. Notes come at you at different speeds and you have to press the right button for each note. There is something that makes Guitar Hero different, the guitar controller.

The guitar controller, modeled after a Gibson SG, is well made and it feels and plays like a real guitar. It even has a whammy bar that changes the sound of the notes! The controller is very comfortable and it has an adujstable strap if you get too tired holding the guitar when playing. The five colored buttons are the fret keys that you press, along with the strummer, when the notes come scrolling down the screen. The guitar also has a tilt sensor. When the star power bar is filled you have to tilt your guitar up to use it to double your multiplier. Star power is very handy and it can be used strategically too. Do you want to use your star power to get an 8xs multiplier during the easy notes? Or do you want to save it until the hard solo to prevent you from losing the song? Guitar Hero has an adjustable difficulty that allows anyone to learn how to use the guitar controller and learn all the techniques. The easy difficulty, for instance, only uses 3 of the 5 buttons while expert uses all of them. The career mode is where you will probably spend the most of your single player time at. In this mode you choose a character and a guitar and try to go from a basement band to rockstars at the biggest concerts. This is the mode that you will have to play if you want to unlock new songs. Depending on the difficulty you will have to play a different amount of the 5 songs in each of the sets in order to unlock the next set. Each set gets harder and harder and will teach you new tricks like how to move up and down the fret keys or to do fast chords (two notes at a time). By the time that you get to the last set you will be ready to try the next difficulty. When you finish a song you get a review and depending on whether you got a 3,4, or 5 star review you will get different amounts of cash. The cash can be spent on more songs. characters, guitars, and making of videos.

Turn it up to 11!

The songs that you buy can be used in quick-play mode too. This mode is the mode to play if you only have 10-15 minutes and want to get a few songs in. The difficulty is adjustable and can be switched at any time. This mode also tracks your high scores so you can compete against your friend's scores. The best mode in Guitar Hero is the multiplayer mode. Instead of both people playing the same notes (like in DDR) each song acts out kind of like a duel. During solo sequences you and your friend will switch off and on and during the rest of the song you each play and try to score higher than the other. Guitar Hero is one of those games you will need to bring out at a party because non-gamers can learn how to play it fast and they will love the music. The only problem with the multiplayer is that a second guitar controller costs $40! It is a pretty steep price but the controller isn't cheaply made and is very sturdy so it will be worth your money if you play multiplayer games often.

Being a music game, the audio is probably the most important part of Guitar Hero. The song selection is all rock so if you don't like rock music than Guitar Hero probably isn't for you. The song selection is surprisingly good for the first game in a new music series. Within the 47 songs it won't be that hard to find favorites. There are classics such as You Got Another Thing Coming, I Love Rock and Roll, and Bark at the Moon along with newer songs such as Take Me Out. The rock music is pretty well represented and while their will always be songs missing, it is a very good selection for the first game.

Rocking out in front of my thousands of fans.

The music actually wasn't recorded from the actual group but it sure does sound like it. Almost all of the songs sound like the real bands and the guitars are always right on. The notes that come at you during the songs actually make it feel like you are playing the song. When at the hard or expert difficulty the notes go up and down the fret keys. Low notes will go up the fret key while the high notes go down, just like on a real guitar. The music is coordinated so you only hear the guitar playing when you play the notes right. The guitar is always the loudest part of the song in this game so you won't have to worry about those loud singers and drum players drowning your guitar out. The best way to play Guitar Hero is to turn the volume up as loud as you can stand and rock out.

In most music games all you will see are flashing lights or some low-polygon character dancing in the background but Guitar Hero has both, and more! The graphics are surprisingly good for a music game. The characters are all motion captured and actually match each song. Your guitar hero will move up and down the fret just like you do during the song and will match right on time with each song. The singer also will move his mouth to match the lyrics and the rest of the band will match up with the song too. That means you won't see your character strumming like crazy when there isn't any music playing which is a very nice thing. The characters all look very nice and aren't jaggy at all like most ps2 games. The venues are very well designed and look like rock concerts. Each one is based off of a certain type of rock concert. There is a basement for the high-school/college rocker, an outdoor concert for the loud rocker, and a huge dome with a good vs evil theme for the biggest rockstar to play at. The most surprising thing is that all of the fans screaming are actually 3d models. They may share animations and some are repeated but it is better than the 2d cut-outs that are in sports games. The game has a nice blur effect that happens every once in a while to make the crowd look like a huge mass of people that are jumping up and down. Guitar Hero is a very good looking music game.

Rockstars love toxic waste.

Guitar Hero is one of those games that doesn't really have an ending. Sure you can beat Career mode on expert mode but you can always keep playing to learn more techniques and master the hardest songs. The career mode will take you 2-5 hours to beat for each difficulty and playing them over for a higher review will earn more cash to buy unlockables. Getting 5 stars on all 47 songs on expert will definantly take some time. The real reason why you will keep wanting to play Guitar Hero long after you bought it is because of the song selection. It is easy to find at least 10 songs that you will enjoy playing over and over and will keep you coming back to Guitar Hero.

Closing Comments

Guitar Hero fixes the problems that many music games are plagued with. It has a good song selection, makes you feel like you are playing the song, and has great replay value. Stop playing Dance Dance Revolution and go try Guitar Hero. You will never look back...

Gameplay: 9/10 Audio:9.8/10 Graphics: 8.5/10 Replay Value: 9/10 Overall: 9.2/10

Cons: -Indie songs are hit & miss -Still missing many classics

Pros: -Awesome controller -Filled with the classics -Makes you feel like a rockstar