Guitar Hero 5 Review

I remember the good ol’ days of the Guitar Hero franchise. There were only a few and were certainly only released once a year. I remember the insane amount of anticipation over Guitar Hero 3, even 6 months before release. Now, it’s 2009, and this year, there are 4 Guitar Hero releases including Guitar Hero: Van Halen (which was released as a free companion to Guitar Hero 5). While I do find it just a little bit ridiculous, Guitar Hero 5 has reinstated my faith in the franchise, if only in the sense that the series can still be original after so many releases.

Since this is a music game, I feel it is appropriate to start with the audio section of this review. That said, I must say, I have never been more impressed with a Guitar Hero setlist. There is soft music like “Kryptonite” by Three Doors Down, all the way to the surprising (and my favorite) “Du Hast” by Rammstein. There is a lot of variation and none of the songs are boring to play. While “Do You Feel Like We Do” by Peter Frampton is a very long song, the random solos keep it interesting. The music studio is now in Version 2 with a new look and cool new autoplay features that allow you to work with pre-written riffs and beats to give you an idea to start with. It is very helpful and much easier to use than the last studio.

Guitar Hero 5 really takes into account all improvements needed on past games. All of the complaints I had with past iterations such as World Tour and Metallica have seemed to disappear. Like a lot of my fellow Guitar Hero players, would still love to have custom song uploads, but that is a long time off. The drumming part of Guitar Hero 5’s gameplay is still solid and fun. Vocals are just as frustrating as ever (but in a good way). Overall, nothing has changed much in the core part of the gameplay except for “hammer-on chords” which take a good deal of getting used to.

The user interface has been highly revamped for both ease of access and for a pleasing aesthetic. The whole theme seems to be easier party play, such as the option to jump into the demo song at the title screen, or to jump in and out of play seamlessly when you have a friend or three playing. On top of that, the online play has been reworked to allow modes such as Rockfest and 4v4 single instrument games (4 drums vs 4 drums, etc). Rockfest is a new mode that allows players to go head to head in interesting challenges that put your skills to the test in ways not seen before in any rhythm game. This really adds a nice level of freshness to online gameplay, which to me anyways, has been rather stale in the last few titles.

Overall, Guitar Hero 5 is really just another notch up in the rhythm genre that has developed in the last few years. Has the constant flooding of rhythm titles killed off a bit of the luster? Possibly, but maybe if a franchise doesn’t come out with five titles in one year, some of that anticipation will come back and some of the fans will be won back. Guitar Hero 5 is a step in the right direction. With the option to play as your Xbox Avatar on the Xbox 360, and finally being able to control who is in your band when playing a gig (including the special unlockable characters…Johnny Cash singing Darkest Hour anyone), the future is getting brighter.