QCF: Guitar Hero Live

everal times in the last week, I attempted to give my television a high five. I may have also waved at it at some point, or it waved at me maybe? To be honest I really did not expect that sort of response to the live-action that is a part of the GH Live mode in Guitar Hero Live.

Truthfully, I really thought that at first glance, that it would be cheesy and unnecessary.

Funny to find out that it creates moments that I feel like the genre was created for and is an important part of a title that creates the video game equivalent of a 24-hour music video channel, with an immediate sense of immersion that only falters with questionable paid content.

The one time developer of the DJ Hero series, Freestyle Games along with Activision have made their intentions known to resurrect one of the most successful franchises, five years after the last release in the series, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock.

While there may have been a growing demand for the music game to return, and the convenient coincidence of developer Harmonix also releasing the fourth entry of the Rock Band series around the same time, Freestyle actually took a risk in completely changing the gameplay. Everything from the modes, to the very guitar design itself, has been overhauled to create an experience that is at another end of the spectrum compared to Rock Band.

Where Rock Band has kept many of the features that made the game successful including the full band play style and local party-themed cooperative play, Guitar Hero propels into competitive online scoreboards, completing challenges and unlocking customization options. I originally saw these unlocks and wanted to immediately draw comparisons to another Activision published title, but thankfully I would not say it gets that bad. Then again, we may very well get Doritos branded highways and Mountain Dew concert venues so we will have to wait and see on that one.

Upon finishing the live action tutorial and concert that follows, you’re given access to the two modes of play that make up Guitar Hero Live; GH Live and GH TV. GH Live is gameplay with recorded video of a band that will play alongside the player viewing the scene in a first person perspective as lead guitar, reacting to your gameplay based on how you are performing.

The crowd is also recorded and will react positively or negatively to your playing and depending on how poorly you perform will boo, hold up signs and throw debris onto the stage. The details that I enjoyed the most were the band members and audiences that would fit the specific venue and types of songs that were being performed during the concert.

A skate park that is host to teenagers jumping to a fast-paced play through of Blink-182 or smiling flower children humming along to folk rock from Mumford and Sons, each recreation of the concert event truly puts you in the spotlight. It may still feel a little corny playing in this mode, however now actually playing and seeing the mode play out I will say it is much better than cartoon characters with ridiculous proportions and guitars made out of coffins.

GH TV is the other mode in Guitar Hero Live, and it operates as a 24 hour music video network with two channels constantly playing music that the player can jump in and out of play at any time. The channels will play a block of music based on genre, from 80’s Rock Ballads to Top Pop Hits, which are displayed as a half an hour block of music, but I believe it’s between three to five songs for each block of programming.

This mode will grant the player unlocks and coins based on their performance against other real players playing the same song online, as well as raise the player’s reputation and GH ranking. These curated songs and blocks of music offer a robust selection of music and the actual videos, a nice surprise to someone that remembers when music television played music videos and were joked about in episodes of Beavis and Butthead. Before I begin to start getting grumpy and telling nonexistent children to “get off my lawn”, I will say that I do wish they had more guitar focused songs instead of just what is popular in music now, like Skrillex.

Do they even play guitars in Skrillex songs? God, I’m really showing my age, and stupidity in current music so we should probably move on.

Let’s focus on the guitar next, maybe the biggest change to the Guitar Hero gameplay. Forgoing the five-colored button set up that Guitar Hero created back in 2005, the new guitar has a six button layout; three black buttons on the top of the frets and three white buttons on the bottom of the frets.

Lower difficulty levels will normally focus on one row or the other during gameplay, sometimes throwing in a power chord where both buttons in the fret will be held down and played at the same time. More experienced players will have some challenge in playing harder difficulties playing different buttons from each row at the same time.

Since I am in no way musically trained, or knowledgeable in any applicable way I can only say that playing these notes did seem perhaps like playing actual chords on a guitar. My hand was twisted at times that made me believe that I could play a guitar, anyways. The guitar still features a whammy bar that does nothing, really. I don’t know does it actually doing anything to the score or the way the song is played? I’m truthfully wondering this if anyone wants to comment or message me that would be helpful because I normally use it and have no idea if it’s helping at all.

Also returning is Star Power, which can be activated by tilting the guitar or pressing the button near the bottom of the controller only this time powers can be unlocked and selected by the player to either increase their score, taking away notes from the highway or eliminating them entirely for a brief moment.

At any time, the player can also hit the GH button that is located next to the whammy bar that will take them to the menu to select customization options, the music catalog and other services.

With Freestyle Games reinventing the Guitar Hero series, they have also brought about some unfortunate changes that may not please some players—the biggest being the inability for players to utilize any of their previous instruments or library of DLC songs and Guitar Hero games.

In creating this reboot not only for the current generation of hardware but also for previous systems like Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, I feel that the community of players on those systems will feel very cheated to not be able to use their equipment or games on the same system. It’s more understandable launching the title on the new systems that have not yet had a Guitar Hero entry but it is still a missed opportunity and maybe not in the best interest of the consumer.

Another decision that may rub some people the wrong way is the way song plays are accessed in Guitar Hero Live, which is not as simple as selecting the song you want to play in the catalog at any time. Players will be required to earn play tokens throughout either GH Live or GH TV mode, each token allowing the player to play any song in the catalog one time.

The entire song catalog is available to play with no restrictions; however, it requires the purchase of a party pass that is $6.99 on the marketplace of whichever system the game is played on. The inclusion of GH Cash will purchase play tokens and access to premium concerts in the Guitar Hero catalog of songs. These items are able to be unlocked during normal gameplay, but this model seems like the most glaring problem with Guitar Hero Live.

I can appreciate the developer selecting a vast and unique selection of songs, attempting to broaden the player’s knowledge of music both old and new. Unfortunately, this is overshadowed by the unheard of inability to play the songs within the catalog at any time.

It just seems that the player has no control over which songs they get to play at any time, unless they pay for the access or earn it through gameplay—you don’t even have the ability to buy the song to play anytime. I already don’t agree with having to buy the song to play it, but that not even being offered or an option is just ridiculous.

I still believe that the game is successful in relaunching the series and taking chances instead of playing it safe, but this one misstep really sets back the game from really being the overall achievement the rest of the game really is.

Perhaps this will be changed in future updates, I can only hope. Nonetheless, the return of Guitar Hero changes the formula to a genre that it introduced a decade ago, with gameplay that will not require a party or group of people to initiate and will have potentially long legs with challenges and songs that will be changing on a regular basis.