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Video Game Reviews
And here you thought that the
rhythm game genre was getting
stale. While Konami still has a
firm lock on most
rhythm-oriented games, another
company called Harmonix has also
released its share of
interesting rhythm
games--Frequency and
Amplitude--both for the
PlayStation 2. Plus, Harmonix
and Konami have teamed up in the
past on the Karaoke Revolution
series. Now, the Cambridge-based
developer is taking a similar
approach to the world of guitar
rock with Red Octane's Guitar
Hero. With its extremely smart
approach to difficulty, its
great guitar controller, and its
killer song selection, Guitar
Hero might just be the best
rhythm game ever made.
Unleash hellish rock
death upon your foes at
the touch of the whammy
bar.
Guitar Hero is played with a
special guitar-shaped controller
that has five buttons up on the
neck, with one on each of the
first five frets. Instead of
strings to pluck, a small,
clicky flipper is on the body of
the guitar. And, just for kicks,
it's got a whammy bar. The
guitar feels pretty solid and
generally well-made. The game
screen consists of a scrolling
fret board that has various
colored notes on it. Each color
corresponds to one of the
buttons on the guitar, which you
must hold down while strumming
on the flipper. Some notes have
lines attached to them, implying
that you should hold down that
note for a longer period of
time, similar to the freeze
arrows found in Dance Dance
Revolution. Technically, you
could play Guitar Hero on a
standard PS2 controller, if you
wanted to, but it's not nearly
as interesting without the
guitar. Also worth noting, the
guitar isn't compatible with
Konami's Guitar Freaks games, so
if you're looking to replace
your increasingly rare and
somewhat flimsy Konami guitars,
you're out of luck.
Unlike most rhythm games,
Guitar Hero has a career mode
that sort of dictates how you
should proceed through the five
difficulty settings. This is
probably the smartest part of
the entire game. Anyone jumping
into even the medium difficulty
setting without a decent amount
of experience isn't likely to
get very far. But starting on
easy, which only uses three of
the five buttons, is a great way
to get used to playing the game.
Also, you'll be playing easier
songs when you first start, and
you'll work your way through
multiple brackets of tracks as
you play. Medium difficulty
steps things up by only
occasionally working in the
fourth button. Eventually,
you'll start using that fourth
button more and more as you move
down the song list. Hard
difficulty does the same thing
with the fifth button, giving
you time to get used to pressing
it with your pinky, which, let's
face it, isn't normally much of
a gaming finger. By the time you
hit expert, you'll be ready to
slide up and down the neck of
the guitar to hit all five of
the buttons. But it doesn't mean
that you'll cruise right through
the level, either. Expert gets
extremely difficult, especially
when it comes time to play the
songs' solos. But if you've
worked your way through the
other difficulties, you'll
probably enjoy the steadily
increasing challenge.
The game's difficulty
scales well enough to
make it accessible to
novices.
Aside from the career mode,
you can also enter quick play,
which lets you play any of the
tunes you've unlocked in the
career at any of the five
difficulties. High scores are
tracked in this mode, which is
great, but you can't select your
player and guitar, which reduces
their importance a bit. You can,
however, choose your player and
your guitar in the multiplayer
mode, which lets two players go
at it. Unfortunately, it doesn't
look like guitars are being sold
separately at the moment, so
you'll have to either buy two
bundle packages or, if you don't
want to wait for guitars to go
on sale later this year, hope
someone in your area also picks
up the game. It's a shame that
this isn't more readily
available right out of the gate,
since the multiplayer mode is
one of the game's greatest
assets. The songs are divided
between the two players really
well, and you'll trade off solos
and such as you play.
While Guitar Hero draws very close comparison to Konami's Guitar Freaks, we have yet to see that
series hit any console outside of Japan. So while you can head over to an import-friendly arcade for your guitar gaming fix
Guitar Hero is your only option at home. But not only is Guitar Hero the only in-home option, it's the best you'll find there
or in a coin-op house. Harmonix and Red Octane have nailed this one in almost every way, and while we can always wish for more
and we want more, now, what's there is nearly perfect. The Axe. The main catch of Guitar Hero is its Gibson SG-based guitar peripheral,
and though you can play the game with a standard controller, the SG guitar is essential to completing the experience. If you plan on
playing the game's two-player mode, you'll definitely want to pick up a second SG don't stick your buddies with a regular pad.
The SG features five fret buttons, a strummer instead of strings to pick, a whammy bar, and is roughly the same size as a travel guitar.
It's pretty comfortable to wear, not only because of its light weight but because it's reasonably close to the size of a real guitar
75% the total size or so is a reasonable guess - so it doesn't feel awkward in your hands as it might if you were holding a toy
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