Guitar Hero review.

[Moogy]

Guitar Hero is not the game I expected it to be. Judging solely by the community's reaction to the game, you would think it was some kind of godsend, an amazing music game fun for everyone. Well, let me dispel that illusion right now - it is most certainly not, and, furthermore, it is the worst music game I have ever played.

Let's start with my main gripe - the utterly terrible control scheme. Three buttons works. Sure, a fret bar as well, even though that unnecessarily complicates things. Four buttons doesn't work. Once you progress to Medium, where the charts start using the fourth button, things become unplayable, quickly. I was forced to sit the controller on my lap and play it Stepmania style, because the layout is simply bad. After a few hours with a game, you should NOT still be guessing about where the controls are. When you play on hard mode, where the fifth button is added, the game is totally unplayable garbage. If you didn't have to hit the fret bar, it would be playable, and maybe even enjoyable. But, as is, it is not. There are also things called "hammer ons" and "pull offs," which, although they may sound like they enhance gameplay and help with charts, are very poorly implemented, due to the fundamentally flawed design of adding a fret bar. The whammy bar, or whatever it's called, is totally useless. Very few hold notes are actually starred, allowing you to fill up the star meter with the whammy bar. Don't even get me started on the idea of tilting the guitar to activate the bonus mode. If you had to add that at all, make it another button like FreQ/Amp, not a totally jarring motion sensor. Another main concern is that the layout of the notes on screen is the reverse of the layout on the actual controller. This is a monumental error that should have been corrected long before the game was released. It simply doesn't make sense, and causes you to second-guess fingerings constantly. In short, the controls are flawed, flawed, flawed. Hopefully Harmonix and RedOctane will learn from their mistakes if they make a second Guitar Hero.

This brings me to the aspect of Guitar Hero that is simply the worst - the god-awful, horrifyingly bad music. Every single song in the game, with the exception of Killer Queen and Ready to Rokk (which are very, very awesome), is utterly, undeniably, ear-shatteringly bad. The songs are also much, much too long, clocking in at 4-5 minutes per song. After playing a soul-crushingly bad "song" for that long, you want to kill yourself. Seriously, every song is utter filth. The meeting about the songlist must have gone as thus: "Hey guys, let's put in a bunch of shitty, overplayed 70s/80s anthem rock songs!" "Yeah, we need some emo too!" "Oh yeah, don't forget the hilariously bad metal!" It is a miracle that Killer Queen slipped into this game, as songs by Queen have actual merit and musical qualities. The Freezepop song, Ready to Rokk, was undoubtedly only included because one of the members of Freezepop is a Harmonix in-house artist. The idea of a Freezepop song, even one utilizing guitars, is ridiculous in such a game anyway. I give the songlist a stone cold F. I would give it an F--, but the previously mentioned two songs save it from utter tastelessness.

Another main problem of the game is the emphasis on player interaction, or "getting into the game," so to speak. Bright, flashy characters and animations, and incredibly distracting backgrounds plague the game. I don't know about most people, but I find that embellishing anything during a music game quickly leads to failure. When I play Guitar Hero, I focus silently on the notes coming down. Nothing else. I don't swing the controller around - I keep it in my hands at one position, quickly rotate it upwards when I want to activate a bonus, then swing it back down. Guitar Hero seems to promote "unhealthy" gaming habits. Which is a bad thing. On a game with a control layout as horrible as Guitar Hero's, you need every ounce of concentration you can muster.

The graphics are good, although the notes are obviously recycled from FreQ/Amp. Oh, Harmonix, why can't you make a game as good as FreQ again? With actual songs, not licensed emo crap.

In conclusion, I recommend Guitar Hero to absolutely no one, except those with an interest in masochism. It gets a 1.5/10 from me.

Anyway, I'm gonna go play PIU:Exceed. Damn, that game rules.