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VIRTUALISATION Review: Guitar Hero 5 - Stones versus The Beatles
VIRTUALISATION Review: Guitar Hero 5 - Stones versus The Beatles | Review: Guitar Hero 5 - Stones versus The Beatles |
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| by Mike Bantick | ||||||||||||||||
| Sunday, 20 September 2009 | ||||||||||||||||
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World Tour shook things up, (at least with Guitar Hero devotees) by chasing the Rockband full band architecture. Suddenly Guitar Hero was less of a solid single player title and become more of a party game. But there were some issues with World Tour, much of it because of this party game transition. Whilst any competent band of video-gamers could jump in, get set up and start playing, and there was a new ‘beginner’ no-fail level for the young’uns. It did get messy when a host tried to set up an ad-hoc party game with a newly formed band, yet to learn how to play their plastic instruments. The squabbles that ensued over which instruments, avatars, and songs to be played were more reminiscent of a band having been on the road for three months than a fresh faced upcoming act. Guitar Hero 5 addresses much of this, unashamedly stamping itself as a party favourite but retaining plenty for hardcore former Guitar Heroes. Right from the initial load screen things are different; GH 5 doesn’t present you with the usual menu list. Instead a song from the (completely unlocked) set list is loaded and the game begins playing itself. This is ‘Party Play Mode’, and is the first evidence of the drop-in-at-any-time nature of this new game. Players can either move to the menu, or pick up and instrument and join in with the on-screen band, changing difficulty levels on the fly. When the current song finishes, a new random song will be selected and begin playing, in what amounts to a never-ending gig. No longer does some poor sucker need to unlock the songs for others to play, but there is still an unlocking element to the Career mode. The lines are blurred now between single and band careers, with the ability for players to join in at any time, select their instrument and difficulty and away they go. Significantly the instrument selection can be any combination of equipment available. So if you invited your drum loving mates around, there is no reason why four drum kits cannot be thumping away to the same tune. Likewise four singers, or any other instrument combo can used. Each band member has their own rock meter (now a small thermometer instead of the larger gauge) and the game can be played so that whilst individuals may fail, the band can go on to complete the song. This saves much finger pointing and band break down, but you have to wonder if there really is a need for ‘song failure’ in a game such as this, a simple rating at the songs end may suffice for challenge purposes. Speaking of challenge, there are several multiplayer battle modes in the competitive RockFest Mode. Players can choose from a number of head-to-head game types such as ‘Momentum’ where songs get difficult or easier on the fly or ‘Elimination’ with a last-man-standing style picks the ultimate winner.  CONCLUDED on PAGE 2 |
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