Guitar Hero Mini-Review
Okay, so I finally bought Guitar Hero. Actually, I would have purchased it WEEKS ago, but it was sold out everywhere and I didn't feel motivated enough to try and order it direct.

I had heard great things about it, but when I saw some people playing a store demo, I was skeptical. But I had too many recommendations, so I bought it and brought it home. Next my wife was skeptical. We played, and now we're both huge fans. The game is just fun. No, it doesn't really simulate playing a guitar at all... any more than Medal of Honor simulates fighting in World War II. It's just a game - but it's a really good game.

One of the smartest choices they made with the game is to use popular, classic rock songs as their headliner tracks. ZZ Top, Blue Oyster Cult, Black Sabbath, Boston, Cream, the Ramones, Joan Jett, Jimmy Hendrix, David Bowie, Queen, White Zombie, Judas Priest, and newer tunes --- if guys like ME (thirty-somethings who grew up listening to these tunes) were their target demographic, they nailed it dead-on. The songs are sound-alike covers by WaveGroup Sound, but they did a great job making them sound like the originals. They also include some indie tunes from contest winners and the Boston garage scene that can be "purchased" in-game in career mode. These are a nice change of pace, and the ones I've heard are pretty dang good. Good enough that I may be motivated to see what these guys have available for purchase in the near future. But those aren't what's going to sell the game, so Harmonix / RedOctane wisely put them in as "bonus tracks."

I really liked the manual that comes with the game. The cover is a high-school composition notebook, and it keeps to that theme throughout, complete with doodles in the margins and handwritten verses from some of the songs. It's the whole high-school garage band flavor, and it's nailed. You get a similar flavor in-game, as your band progresses from basement shows and cheap fliers to headlining slick magazines and playing at big concert halls and rock festivals.

The game just OOZES atmosphere and style. There is a good deal of irreverent humor as well - once again reinforcing that this is all a game and you are intended to have fun with it. The high score list is written on a bathroom wall next to a urinal. When you input a new high score, the urinal flushes (flushing the previous fifth place high scorer down?). As you progress to a new venue, among the news quotes is one claiming that your band has just sold out. The "loading" screen is an amplifier with three dials that all crank up to eleven - a nod of course to the movie "This is Spinal Tap." In a more subtle joke, the cash rewards in career mode are in the form of an invoice that shows how nearly everyone - including bribes and lawyers - is getting a bigger portion of the cut than your band is.

The 3D graphics aren't close to what would be considered AAA quality by many publishers these days. You know what? It doesn't matter. Like Dance Dance Revolution, most of the graphics and background action are ignored by the player as he or she concentrates on playing the game. The graphics are mainly for the benefit of spectators. They are stylized, but colorful and fun. The guitarist whips into wild acrobatics with their instrument when the player goes into Star Power mode. He also plays the guitar with some moves that resemble real chords and string-bends. The audience reacts as the player moves between different levels of performance quality. The graphics are just fun, and convey a level of excitement, a little bit of silliness, and a lot of fun.

Ultimately it comes down to how well the game plays, and there's nothing I can really complain about here. The RedOctane controller performs really well, and overall the game makes you feel like you are really playing the song. When you screw up you get sour notes, and missed notes come out as missing guitar segments in the song. At lower level, a single note on the controller might simulate a whole series of notes in the song (not to mention chords), but at higher levels your actions on the controller more closely resemble the music. Beginning level demands very few "chords" (multiple fret buttons pressed at once) and only three fret buttons. Higher levels require you use up to all five buttons, and chords become the rule rather than the exception.

My comment after playing a few times and feeling like I was really rocking out was, "Wow, this game makes you feel a lot more competent than you really are."

This game won awards up the wazoo last year, and from what I can tell, it was all well-deserved. I expect most of the cost from the game went into licensing the music, but it was money well-spent. While it's hard to claim that is is in any way original (it's "yet another" rhythm game, and it's not even the first guitar game for the PS2), Guitar Hero is well-executed with an outstanding mix of music tracks, dead-on style and humor, and good, challenging gameplay that just feels right. It's a winner.

Labels: Guitar Hero, Mainstream Games

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