March 15, 2010
Hero Hero Hero Hero Hero
Gamefly sent me some Guitar Hero 5. I thought it would be fun to mess around with for a day or two and farm some achieveingment points, so I had it on my list. We just play a full night of it. It was fun! I mean, I never need to play it ever again, but it was fun. I would not fault anyone for being into it.
The major things about this version that I like is how intelligent it is. Much more so than previous games, which were being cranked out, some thought when into how to set this game up. Letting you have as many of whatever instrument you want, for example, is kind of silly. But when you get in there, and you don’t have to force someone to be on Drums because nobody I play with likes drums? Well, it’s clear that that mix and match ability is a benefit.
Similarly, I love, love, love the party play mode. I mean, we didn’t really use it? But I’ve fiddled with it before. It’s just kind of genius. This actually is the sort of thing I would put at a party. Granted, I would rather have it with my big Rock Band library, but it’s a great feature. Dropping in and out, flipping difficulties on the fly… it’s a really good idea.
It’s not all perfect, though. Most of it is presentation stuff that I dislike.
I kind of hate the way they display vocals. I’m obviously all about vocals, and I have a much harder time determining how far I am off pitch on the Guitar Hero screen. That’s a big problem, in my book. The vocals are also much, much pickier on even medium than they are in Rock Band. It’s kind of like Expert in Rock Band 1. You really have to be right fucking on that pitch, like a robot. It’s almost no fun.
The art style of the game, too, is just really grating. They’re trying to split the difference between realism and cartoon, and it’s just stupid at this point. Commit to realism or commit to cartoonish parody, already! It just looks kind of awful. It really doesn’t know what it wants to be.
The track list is actually pretty good as well. We found more than enough songs to fill the night that we didn’t completely hate. Granted, a lot of the best ones I already had in Rock Band, but I know that isn’t the case for some people, so it’s still pretty good. “Superstition” was nice. I hadn’t heard that one before. Not-me also got excited about The White Stripes on there and whatnot.
Yeah. It was pretty fun. It was a good night. But there’s nothing there that would make me give up Rock Band. Not to mention I’m so committed. I have so, so much Rock Band DLC. There’s no going back to Guitar Hero. Still, you could do worse if you wanted to rent a rhythm game for an afternoon of fun. Solid, certainly. That’s more than you can say about some recent Guitar Heroes. It’s just not a game-changer.