Guitar Hero 5 – 360 – Review

As the rhythm game genre has
exploded from a niche affair to a full-fledged cultural phenomenon, you’ll be
hard-pressed to find someone at least slightly familiar with video-games who has
not at least heard of Activision’s Guitar Hero series. Since it’s debut only a
few years ago, the series has put out several entries, from actual entries to
the series to single-band specific games focusing on legends like Aerosmith and
Metallica, sometimes with several games hitting in a single year. Last year’s
game marked a pretty big step forward for the franchise, moving it beyond its
auspicious guitar-only roots to a full-fledged band experience.

Luckily for fans of tiny plastic
instruments, the next entry to the series proper, Guitar Hero 5, is landing on
the Xbox 360 less than a year from its direct predecessor, Guitar Hero World
Tour. As you might expect, the game is not exactly the evolution that Guitar
Hero World Tour was (or even Guitar Hero II from the original game for that
matter), but instead plays it pretty safe, offering higher production values,
improved graphics, and a whole new setlist. Additionally, the game adds in a
couple more features to turn the game into a more party-like experience,
including a Party Play Mode that allows players to drop-in and drop-out of a
never-ending no-fail set of random tracks. Guitar Hero 5 is a pretty fun and
open-ended affair for casual fans, but with a lack of innovation and real change
from its predecessor, one has to wonder if this is a representation of the
series finally hitting the creative wall.

Borrowing a note from the Guitar
Hero: On Tour series on the DS, Guitar Hero 5 offers new features in the career
mode by way of challenges. These challenges are instrument specific, requiring
you to utilize a single instrument type in order to win the challenge. These
challenges vary quite a bit, with some requiring you to hit a certain number of
snares on the drums or whammy notes during a song for a set number of seconds,
or even some that require you to only up-strum through a set number of notes.
The challenges are ranked, with Gold, Platinum, or Diamond certifications adding
to your star total and unlocking new features like outfits for your rockers.

Speaking of rockers, the Xbox 360
version allows you to play as your Xbox LIVE Avatar. This is a nice touch in
theory, adding a personal element to the game, but looks somewhat odd, as your
Xbox LIVE Avatar looks juxtaposed against the somewhat more realistic looking
in-game characters, almost like a Muppet playing alongside real people.

In terms of new gameplay elements
outside of the career mode and the aforementioned Party Play Mode, Guitar Hero 5
allows players to jam along to the same songs with the same instruments. Any
feasible combination of instruments can be used here, be it four lead guitars,
four mics, three lead guitars and a bass, or dare I say, four drums (the
logistics are terrifying). This is an interesting addition to the formula but
doesn’t really add a whole lot to the game overall, as it doesn’t feature a
competitive element, and it’s just more of a fun dynamic when everyone in the
band is playing a different instrument.

The game makes a few changes to the
core gameplay. Hammer-on chords are now possible, and the band setting now
allows each player to have their own star power. Additionally, there are new
Band Moments that occur whenever the whole band nails specific sections of a
song, resulting in a scoring boost, as well as a cool visual cue.

The game’s setlist is a bit of a
mixed bag. The added tracks range from numbers like classic live versions of
Peter Frampton’s "Do you Feel Like We Do?" and Rush’s "Spirit of the Radio", as
well as Nirvana’s "Smells Like Teen Spirit", and Iron Maiden’s "2 Minutes to
Midnight" ("Hell yeah! Why wasn’t this on here before?") to 3 Doors Down’s
"Kryptonite" (Uh…ok). There are quite a few more party friendly songs
scattered throughout, including tracks like "What I Got" by Sublime, "Ring of
Fire" by Johnny Cash, and "Play That Funky Music" by Wild Cherry that make for
songs that people will be more willing to sing in party settings. However, there
are also a lot of Indie Rock tracks this time around, including songs by bands
like Band of Horses, Elliott Smith, Artic Monkeys, and Sunny Day Real Estate
that most casual players won’t be familiar with. Guitar Hero 5 then seems to
have a pretty severe identity crisis in this regard, as the tracklist can’t seem
to decide whether or not it wants to be a party game that everyone and their
grandma can sing along to or a cutting edge display of indie cred. Either way,
people of all tastes will likely find a handful of songs that they enjoy and
will play repeatedly and ignore the rest.

Guitar Hero 5 also allows you to
import songs from Guitar Hero World Tour, should you be in possession of both
games. Whereas Rock Band 2 allowed you to do this with Rock Band 1 for a five
dollar charge, Guitar Hero 5 lets you do this for a little less than that. Unfortunately, while
Rock Band 2 would import all but three tracks from the original game, Guitar
Hero 5 leaves off far more titles from its predecessor in its import process,
including all three of the Tool tracks from World Tour, Van Halen’s "Hot for
Teacher", Joe Satriani’s "Satch Boogie", and quite a few other personal
favorites. Also a bummer, the game requires you to download the tracks instead
of import them straight from the disc, which takes longer depending on your
broadband connection.

As with the preceding two titles,
Guitar Hero 5 features appearances from famous rockers from the game’s setlist.
Included in the cast are Shirley Manson of Garbage, Matt Bellamy of Muse, Carlos
Santana, as well as Johnny Cash and Kurt Cobain making posthumous appearances.
As you play through the game’s career, you’ll also be able to unlock said
rockers for your band line-up.

The game’s online portion has been
updated to incorporate a new mode called Rockfest, an 8-player mode that
supports 4-on-4 gameplay via several sub-modes. These modes vary, and include a
"Momentum" mode where the songs ramp up in difficulty (or conversely lower) as
you rack up bigger combos, a "Streakers" mode that rewards long note streaks,
and an Elimination mode that knocks off the lowest scoring player every 30
seconds. At the beginning of the match, players create a playlist, choosing
songs and the corresponding gameplay modes. Additionally, Rockfest can be played
via a single system with four players.

Graphically, the game is a marked
improvement over its predecessors. The characters still sport the cartoony
aesthetic that the series has been known for over the years and the game’s
staple characters like Johnny Napalm, Casey Lynch, and Lars Umlaut keep their
overall appearance, but also boast some better details. Additionally, the stages
look very good, and benefit from a variety of subtle special effects, like depth
of field and motion blur, making this the best looking title in the franchise
yet. However, the game is still not quite the visual tour de force that other
titles on the system are.

Guitar Hero 5 isn’t quite the
evolution that fans of the series would hope for, instead offering more of the
same. The tracklist is pretty spotty, and the additions here are modest at best.
However, the series formula is still pretty fun and works well in a party
setting, even though fans might be left in the dust wanting something more.

Gameplay: 7.9
While Guitar Hero 5 is still a pretty fun game and the series’ mechanics are
solid, Guitar Hero 5 doesn’t really do much to bring the franchise forward as a
whole. The setlist is ho-hum overall, and the ability to play with the same
instruments on the same song is interesting, but isn’t quite as fun jamming
together as a band with each person having their own role to play.

Graphics: 8.5
An improvement over last year’s game, Guitar Hero 5 features some pretty
good looking character models and environments, benefiting from some nice
graphical touches like depth of field and motion blur, as well as some good
lighting effects. The licensed musicians that make appearances here are well
represented, especially Cobain, albeit somewhat eerily so. However, it’s still
not the prettiest game on the system.

Sound: 8.0
The game’s sound quality is great, but the score is brought down by the
lackluster tracklist.

Difficulty: Medium

Concept: 7.5
Guitar Hero 5 is a nice addition to the series, but doesn’t really add much
innovation to the mix.

Multiplayer: 8.5
The game’s band mechanics and online play are sound, and the new Party Mode
and Rockfest modes are fine additions. The ability to play as the same
instruments in one song is an interesting, if gimmicky addition.

Overall: 8.0
Guitar Hero 5 isn’t the evolution that Guitar Hero World Tour was, and
instead offers subtle changes and modest additions to the game. While the core
mechanics are still fun, it seems possible that the series’ creative well has
been tapped dry.