A highly addictive game. Rock On!
THE GOOD
-Excellent selection of music
-Addictive gameplay
-Fun controls
-Great party game
THE BAD
-You don't get to play the full song in Head-to-Head mode
OVERVIEW
Guitar Hero is an extremely addictive game. Once you start playing you can't stop and before you know it, its 3 am! This game really makes you feel like you are the Lead Guitar in a rock band. You and your cover band start playing at small bars and clubs. You earn money and play at different venues based on your performance. If you are good enough you'll make it to a rock star status. Whether you play alone or with a friend your bound to have tons of fun with this game.
GAMEPLAY
The game has a very simple concept that is sort of like DDR. You have 5 different color buttons that scroll downward on the screen (that are with the beat of the song) and when they reach the end you have to time your finger placement towards the head of the guitar with the correct color button and strum the guitar with your other hand. Sometimes you have to hold down 2 buttons to strum a chord. The more notes you hit correctly the higher your rock meter goes and vise versa. If your rock meter reaches past the red (missing too many notes) your game will end. The guitar is also equipped with a Whammy Bar. The Whammy Bar can be used to put vibrato on a note. With this said, the controls for this game are excellent. Although, the hammer on and pull off techniques sometime don't work properly. Another thing to note is that the more successful consecutive notes you play, the higher the point multiplier increases (2X, 3X and 4X). Along with the point multipliers there are special notes in a song that look like stars. If you hit all those notes you will earn power for the Star Power Meter. Once you fill this up to half way you can unleash your Star Power. All this does is increase your multipliers by 2 (2X, 4X, 6X and 8X). This will come in handy if you are on the verge of losing and need to boost your rock meter.
The game is divided into two parts: the single player and multiplayer modes. In the single player mode you start off by picking your difficulty which are easy, medium, hard and expert. Easy has you only worrying about 3 buttons to press where as the expert mode uses all 5 buttons along with playing every single note in the song (including the solos). After you choose the difficulty you progress to your first venue, which is a party in someones basement. You only have a few songs to choose from but once you meet the requirements, based on performance, you will move along to bigger and better venues. And as you progress through the game you'll earn money, which you can use to buy characters and gear, and new songs that you can use in multiplayer.
The multiplayer mode is also a lot of fun and great for parties. You have the option to play with or against each other. When playing with each other both guitarists play at the same time and try to finish the song. In Head-to-Head mode each player plays different parts of the song and who ever has the most points at the end wins.
GRAPHICS & SOUND
The visuals are great for this game. You get a great feel of your environment and the crowd that you are playing for.
This is probably the key to this game's success. There are plenty of big name songs in this game like "No One Knows", "Fat Lip", and "Bark at the Moon". I now find that if I hear any of the songs in guitar hero on the radio I start playing "air guitar hero".
CONCLUSION
If you like playing the guitar or even if you are new to playing music there is lots of fun to be had with this game. There is plenty of replay value to this game so you will get your money's worth. So, rock on guitar hero!