I had to dig them out from under a pile of newer releases from the likes of Avril Lavigne, but I did eventually locate them. And while the campaign's on-disc music consists almost uniformly of Top 40 artists from the past five or so years, GHTV includes beloved six-string standards like Weezer, The Clash, and Pantera. At 200-plus songs, it still pales in comparison to Rock Band's extensive back catalogue, but it does crush Live's 42 tracks. This brings us to Guitar Hero Live's other half: Guitar Hero TV, a music platform that layers gameplay on top of a reasonably sized library of official music videos. Artists such as Skrillex and Eminem are undoubtedly popular, but their tracks just don't make sense for a guitar-driven experience. Unlike rock songs, they were never intended to showcase the guitarist. Way too often I found myself playing one simple, repeating hook over and over because, honestly, that's how a lot of pop songs are structured. Tastes are subjective, granted, but even if you love every artist on Live's roster, many of the songs just aren't cut out for Guitar Hero gameplay. The biggest issue, however, is the music. I also occasionally felt like what I was playing didn't meaningfully match what I was hearing, especially at the highest and lowest difficulties. Similar sounds and guitar techniques sometimes manifest differently in different songs, which made the learning process a bit more frustrating. That said, Live doesn't completely nail this new gameplay right out of the gate. The challenge and progress that inform this style of play account for a huge part of the genre's core appeal, so to completely revitalize those qualities is a serious accomplishment. Even seasoned music game vets have to start from scratch, which renews the sense of reward that comes so naturally as your skills develop. By altering the underlying chord buttons to two rows of three, new inventive patterns are added to the traditional scrolling note gameplay, including clever new 'chord' formations and intricate variations on hammer-ons/pull-offs. Its new button configuration fundamentally transforms how the game plays, and delivers some desperately needed innovation to a stagnant genre. Thankfully, Live's other major change pretty much single-handedly redeems the entire game. The new guitar features two buttons side by side on each of the first three frets. I appreciate Live's attempt to do something truly different-and this new approach did provide a few memorable moments late in the campaign-but the execution spoils what was potentially a cool idea. Couple that with the obnoxious announcers and bland, and pointless fake Tweets that pop up between songs, quickly the presentation becomes grating. If you nail every single note for 90 percent of a song but somehow screw up the outro, the video still switches over to the negative take, leaving you to face jeers from the crowd and dirty looks from your band as the next song loads up. Depending on your performance, you're either an irredeemable embarrassment or an untouchable rock god. Now Skrillex, on the other hand.Īnd weirdly, crowd reactions come in just two flavors: good and bad. Now Playing: Guitar Hero Live - Video Review Yes, that's a banjo in the background, but hey, at least it's kind of like a guitar. It's so campy it borders on parody.īy clicking 'enter', you agree to GameSpot's Every single person smiles aggressively with canned enthusiasm while uncomfortably mugging the camera and giving you the most comically exaggerated thumbs up you've ever seen. The game absolutely trips over itself to sell you on the idea that you're a totally super cool rockstar. Everything from the costumes to the acting to the unskippable concert intros feels painfully forced and inauthentic. And when I did notice, I frequently cringed. In theory this should immerse players in the fantasy of playing in front of thousands of fans, but I was generally too focused on the gameplay to notice everything happening in the background. The first of the game's two completely separate experiences is simply called Live, presumably because underneath its standard note highways, it uses real actors and a first-person camera to make players feel as though they're really standing onstage. Some of these new ideas work beautifully, while others fail miserably, which makes Guitar Hero's long-awaited return a consuming, often overwhelming sequence of incredible highs and unbearable lows. And it delivers new music through a freemium-style service rather than simply selling individual tracks. Its guitar trades the long-standing five button layout for three pairs of buttons stacked on top of each other.

Its visuals rely primarily on live action footage rather than traditional game graphics. Guitar Hero Live is a complex machine with many moving parts and a lot of new ideas.

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