Guitar Hero Live Review - We'll Do It Live!

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Guitar Hero Live Review - We'll Do It Live!

Guitar Hero: Live ends the tradition of the Guitar Hero series always playing catch up to Rock Band, but it does it by entering a completely different race.

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[Steve the Pocket]

So there's actually a literal meaning to the "live" part of the title. Interesting. I'll give this one to Activision: They actually released a game with less reliance on paid DLC than its predecessor or its competitor. Granted, they also changed the formula to force everyone to buy a new controller, but... eh, after this long and with likely no plans for another sequel I'll give them that much.

 

[FPLOON]

First off: Didn't Guitar Hero come first, which lead to the OG developing team behind that moving on to Rock Band after the second(?) game in the GH series?

Second off: Is it still worth getting on the Wii U due to a lack of a Rack Band alternative?

Third off: The lack of a "sweet spot" intrigues me the more I think about it...

 

[P-89 Scorpion]

So there's actually a literal meaning to the "live" part of the title. Interesting. I'll give this one to Activision: They actually released a game with less reliance on paid DLC than its predecessor or its competitor. Granted, they also changed the formula to force everyone to buy a new controller, but... eh, after this long and with likely no plans for another sequel I'll give them that much.

I wonder how many people still own the old controllers after 5 years? I can't believe most people would keep that many due to the needed room.

 

[Visulth]

I'm just waiting to see if they'll fold and release GH:Live 2 with a bloody drumset. I've always preferred GH over RB, but the only option for drumming is RB so it's no choice for me.

 

[Something Amyss]

First off: Didn't Guitar Hero come first, which lead to the OG developing team behind that moving on to Rock Band after the second(?) game in the GH series?

Well yeah, but before Harmonix left for Rock Bandier pastures, there was no Rock Band to play catch-up with. Their first Rock Band changed the genre, and GH3 didn't. The notion that they've been playing catch up with Harmonix and Rock Band isn't inaccurate.

Though I'm not sure that's true here, anyway. The new guitar seems like it's designed like a compromise between classic GH/RB and "pro instrument" mode. And I'm not entirely sure I like that, given I'd rather just play pro instruments in RB or, preferably, play Rocksmith 2014 for guitar content (Especially since I can plug in my own SG). The confusion the review describes may come from this design choice.

 

[ccggenius12]

Periodic release of new music videos huh... A Dire Straits add might force a purchase from me... Dat music video.

 

[Kahani]

all of the music is instantly accessible and requires no downloading or hard drive space

Well that's obviously bollocks, isn't it. Either you download it or it's already on your hard drive, the only alternative is for it to magically appear out of no-where. Presumably what you meant is that it's streamed on the fly rather than downloaded and saved in advance, but that still means it gets downloaded. Given some people's crappy internet and download limits, that's a fairly important point.

This is a game that from the ground up is fundamentally different than all Guitar Hero and Rock Bands before it...
It's a surprisingly innovative title...
The biggest change in Guitar Hero: Live is its guitar peripheral, which now has six buttons

Um, this is a joke, right? This is an incredibly innovative game fundamentally different from everything that came before it, and the biggest difference is that the pretend guitar has a slightly different button layout.

 

[Sight Unseen]

First off: Didn't Guitar Hero come first, which lead to the OG developing team behind that moving on to Rock Band after the second(?) game in the GH series?

Yes. Harmonix developed Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero 2, and Guitar Hero: Rocks the 80's, published by RedOctane. Activision bought RedOctane and the IP rights but figured they didn't need Harmonix anymore and let them go. They put Neversoft on the succeeding games, and now Freestyle Games is at the helm. Harmonix went to MTV Games/ Viacom and pitched Rock Band. The rest is history.

Second off: Is it still worth getting on the Wii U due to a lack of a Rack Band alternative?

As someone who is a MASSIVE Harmonix and Rock Band fanboy, and who was actively boycotting Guitar Hero since 2008, I decided to break my boycott and buy this game, and I'm having a pretty good time with it. If you can get over the ridiculously campy FMV videos, lack of ability to actually own DLC for the game, lack of hyperspeed options, and a sometimes difficult to read charting style and hammer-on system (hammer ons are marked by highlighting the outside of the note in almost the same colour of blue used to mark star power sections making the two almost indistinguishable especially when they overlap), it's a pretty fun game so far. It's worth noting though that this game ONLY has Guitar and vocals, none of the other instruments that the series has had since they copied Rock Band.

If all that I've said so far hasn't turned you off of the game, then give it a shot. The GH:TV setlist is huge (~200 songs) and pretty varied and balanced with lots of memorable hits.

Third off: The lack of a "sweet spot" intrigues me the more I think about it...

I think that this game does quite a few things well, but blunders on several others. If they can clean up their charting somehow, especially the hammer on system, it will make things a lot better.

This is a game that from the ground up is fundamentally different than all Guitar Hero and Rock Bands before it...
It's a surprisingly innovative title...
The biggest change in Guitar Hero: Live is its guitar peripheral, which now has six buttons

Um, this is a joke, right? This is an incredibly innovative game fundamentally different from everything that came before it, and the biggest difference is that the pretend guitar has a slightly different button layout.

It may seem like a simple change, but it changes the way you have to think about fretting notes in a very significant way. It may just be clumsy charting sometimes, but the new system has a way of fucking with my head and having the 2x3 layout makes new combinations possible that weren't before, like barre chords, and having to make semi-realistic chord fingerings. You have to re-learn a lot of what you mastered even if you are a seasoned plastic guitar warrior.

Also, having an extra button makes this technically more complex than other games even without the new layout.