While things were going quite well for Activision and
Neversoft, Harmonix and MTV Games were looking into making a new series of
music games. This would also feature a guitar controller like Guitar Hero, but
the guitar would have ten frets rather than five; the first five being in
exactly the same place as the Guitar Hero controller but the other five would
be on the base end of the neck of the guitar. They also developed drum kits,
complete with a bass pedal and four symbols. Finally, they added a microphone
for singing, similar to the SingStar series. All of these combined created a
four player game, where someone could play guitar, another bass, someone on the
drums, and someone singing, all at the same time. Harmonix called this game
Rock Band, and it was officially a direct rival to the Guitar Hero series. This
game series was more emphatic on online play, and more importantly,
downloadable content, something the Guitar Hero struggled to do successfully at
the present time.
Neversoft and Activision responded by initially going in a
different direction, to creating another spinoff title. This title was Guitar
Hero: Aerosmith, paying homage to one of the most famous rock bands of all
time. There were many of Aerosmith’s most famous tracks on the game, as well as
songs that inspired the band to create music in the first place, and also
tracks that were inspired by Aerosmith. It was a wild project, but one that was
ultimately successful with Aerosmith fans.
However with Rock Band on the rise and getting rave reviews,
and with the game being very successful with all the available songs for
download, Guitar Hero inevitably conceded they had to expand to compete. They
too, starting using a drum kit set and a microphone to the game, also creating
a good multiplayer experience. They released “Guitar Hero World Tour”, the
fourth title in the main series, and had a then record 86 tracks in the game,
and for the first time, all the songs were master recordings.
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| The complete World Tour package. Naturally a second guitar is needed for four player fun. |
One of the criticisms that was given for Activision’s
“Guitar Hero III” was that very little had changed to the gameplay since
“Guitar Hero II”. Their response with “World Tour” was to have many new
features. First was to have the four player experience as mentioned before, as
well as change how the Career mode is played. The player can choose to play
guitar, bass, vocals or drums, and multiple players can join in to create a
full band. The player(s) choose their instruments; they choose an avatar and a
band name. They then have a choice of ‘gigs’ to choose from, rather than the
linear list of songs in the previous three games. Each gig has a different set
list, and the idea is to complete the ‘gig’ and unlock the “Encore” song. After
completing the “Encore” songs more gigs open up. This new method of choice made
the choices a bit more personal rather than the previous games tell you what
songs to play in what order. In the “Quickplay” mode, you can create your own
gig playlist, rather than play songs individually. Choosing up to six songs in
succession was definitely an improvement time wise to get the most out of the
game. One of the main criticisms of “Guitar Hero III” as stated earlier was
that the game was too difficult, the response was to add a new difficulty mode
called “Beginner”, which featured the use of only one fret and this made the
game simpler yet. There were more musicians added to this game than in “Guitar
Hero III”, with Jimi Hendrix, Hayley Williams of Paramore, Ozzy Osbourne, Sting
and a few more. There were also real venues added rather than the fictional
ones of previous games, most notably the Ozzfest that was set in Germany.
The biggest additions to the were the “Create a Rocker”
system, which allowed you to customise your own player. Another addition was
the mode which allowed you to customise your guitar, which allowed you to
change the colour and design of the skin and neck of the guitar; these
additions further added to the individuality of the game. Another big addition
was the ability to create your own songs note-for-note, on any of the
instruments, and you can then put them online for other people to hear. The
idea was for you to create your song, and it would be the “Expert” difficulty
setting, and the game itself would create the simpler versions of the song.
Guitar Hero World Tour was released in October 28th
2008 on the Xbox 360, PS3, Wii and PS2, and was met with positive reviews,
although it still didn’t reach the heights of the first two games in
praise. There was a big feeling overall
that Rock Band pretty much did everything better than Guitar Hero in nearly
every aspect. My main criticism of the game lies in the list of songs; it’s
just a weak playlist. Considering there was a record amount of songs available,
most of the songs just weren’t any where near as fun to play, and there are
questions to why certain songs are on the game again, especially the foreign
tracks. With all due respect to Los Lobos and Spain, but not everyone can sing
“La Bamba”, despite it being a very simple Spanish language track. My favourite
track to play from World Tour was “Love Me Two Times” by The Doors, as it felt
reminiscent to playing some of the great songs on the original game, the beat
and riffs are just fun to play and it really brought me back to a few years ago
when the songs were chosen for their enjoyment rather than the name on the
game. I’d give the game **** stars.
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| Screenshot from Guitar Hero World Tour, emphasising the four players playing together. |
As the Guitar Hero games had now officially hit the seventh
generation consoles, it was only a matter of time before they tried to do games
for the DS, and they released not one, but two games on the DS in 2008. Calling
this spinoff series the “On Tour” series, the idea was for a grip to be
attached to the back of the DS, which overlapped the handheld and the main
compartment would plug into the GameBoy Advance Slot of the DS. Out of the GBA
slot was the compartment, which had four frets, and you had a guitar pick that
was used to strum on the screen of the DS. I’m not going to do into too much
detail on the On Tour series but it was met with a decent reception, and the
Guitar Grip was praised for its innovative design. The song lists however were
quite small and that was were the main criticisms were.
If you didn’t count, that was four Guitar Hero games that
were released in the year 2008. There was “Guitar Hero: Aerosmith”, “Guitar
Hero On Tour”, then “Guitar Hero World Tour” and finally “Guitar Hero On Tour:
Decades”. Neversoft and Activision went a bit mad, releasing game after game
after game, and the series wasn’t selling as well as it used to.
They didn’t stop however. If you thought four games was bad,
they went on to release SEVEN in 2009. You could argue that it was a knee jerk
move, as the game series wasn’t selling as well as before. After paying homage
to Aerosmith, they then followed that up with a great homage to Metallica. This
was a great game, no doubt, and was very well received, but the continuing
onslaught of Guitar Hero games means the charm of the game was pretty much
non-existent. I have this game and if you like Metallica, get it, it’s a pretty
damn good homage to arguably the most iconic metal band in the history of music.
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| The Guitar Hero games timeline, look at 2009, where SEVEN games we released. |
The onslaught continued with the third and final On Tour
game for the DS, with “On Tour: Modern Hits”, which, like the title suggests,
is a game with many modern songs on it. The third game of 2009 was “Guitar Hero
Smash Hits” which combined all the ‘best’ songs from the first three games for
one game. There was a point to this exercise; the first Guitar Hero game was
only released on the PS2, which was pretty much dead by this point, and the
second one was only released on the Xbox 360. It gave fans access to the great
tracks from the original games, however, at this point most of these songs were
available as downloadable content for both the Xbox 360 and PS3, so the
accusation of Neversoft and Activision ‘milking’ the product was inevitable.
The fifth and penultimate main title in the series was the
fourth of seven games released in 2009. Simply titled “Guitar Hero 5”, it was a
solid entry into the series, and had 85 songs, one down from “World Tour”, in
the game. There wasn’t really any change in the game play from “World Tour”,
but little nifty features were added, such as “Party Play”, which was used for
‘on the spot’ rocking. Anyone up to four players can start playing when they
want, and exit when they want. The songs are played at random and it’s just
song after song. If you want to just play right NOW, this was a good mode to
use. The other mode that was added was the RockFest mode, which had 30 second
bite size sections of songs. You can play up to four players offline or eight
online, and everyone competes against each other in that 30 second time frame.
There are different options to make the RockFest more competitive and
interesting, you could do a mode called “Do or Die”, which refused to let you
play that section of the song if you failed three notes in the song, or another
option was “Streakers” which increased your points tally the longer your note
streak was. This mode was a decent addition to the game, although an argument
can be made to say that it’s not as competitive and fun as just playing against
someone on a specific song.
A new feature was added to Career mode, which was called
challenges, which asked you to do a specific task for a specific song, for
instance with the microphone, one of the challenges was to perfectly hit the
change of tone at the end of David Bowie’s “Fame”, when he says the word many
times (at the ‘is there any wonder?’ section of the song). There were more
musicians added to the game too, with Kurt Cobain of Nirvana, Johnny Cash and
Shirley Manson of Garbage and Matt Bellamy of Muse being available.
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| Matt Bellamy, one of my favourite guitarists, was featured in "Guitar Hero 5". |
The game was released on September 11
th, 2009 in
the UK and was met with a great response. It’s considered the best post
Harmonix Guitar Hero game, an opinion I definitely share. “Guitar Hero 5” had a
great selection of songs when compared to “World Tour”, although it’s still
weaker than the first and third games I feel. But there were some great tracks
on the game, even from a fun playing experience, like “Sweating Bullets” by
Megadeth and the incredibly odd “21
st Century Schizoid Man” by King
Crimson. The songs were definitely better in terms of a band experience rather
than a guitar experience, which really in the end doesn’t make sense due to the
game being called “Guitar Hero”. But that’s the evolution of the series and the
name “Guitar Hero” sells more than any other music rhythm game. I’d give the
game ****1/4 stars as it’s a solid effort, but it still lacked a lot of the
charm that the original had, and the track listing is not quite as good as the
third in the series.
Going back to these spinoff titles, Neversoft and Activision
continued the rampant “Guitar Hero” titles by moving onto DJ sets, with “DJ
Hero”. Whilst you can argue that this isn’t a “Guitar Hero” title, let’s be
honest, there would be no “DJ Hero” without “Guitar Hero”. “DJ Hero” has a
turntable controller instead of a guitar controller which had three “stream”
buttons on it, and it had a crossfader, an effects dial and a Euphoria button.
I’m not going to get into much detail on this once again but it was praised by
critics for its diverse track listing which did more than just do rap music,
and for its change in approach to the “Guitar Hero” series.
The sixth game in 2009 was “Band Hero”, which played pretty
much identically to “Guitar Hero 5”, but with a different set list. These songs
were aimed at an audience who liked softer music, pop rock if you will. Artists
such as The Jackson 5, No Doubt, Taylor Swift and N.E.R.D. were featured. The
game was met with a mixed reception due to the fact that it was pretty much
“Guitar Hero 5 Lite”, and only had 65 tracks in comparison to the 85 tracks in
the earlier game. Last but not least “Guitar Hero: Van Halen” was released, and
was similar to the Aerosmith and Metallica homage’s.
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| Gwen Stefani of No Doubt in Band Hero. |
At this point everyone had had enough of Guitar Hero. The
sales waned, there were far too many games and the critics slated the makers
for milking the product far too much. What needs to be remembered in all of
this is the expense of the games as a fan and customer. The guitar and game
bundles here in the UK are usually £50, or the band packs were usually around
£150. So, if I were to get the band pack for £150, then each game would cost
£30. So for just the main series, I could have easily have spent £400 in Guitar
Hero games to get everything, if not more. It’s just stupid money for the
average customer, and you need to remember, it was only four years ago at this
point when the game series was created. Also, this was around the time where
the credit crunch happened, which squeezed the pockets not just of the people
of the UK, but the States as well. The critics were very harsh on the creators
of Guitar Hero, making jokes and ripping them for asking too much from the
fans, making too many games in succession. To be fair, they responded with
announcing that they would reduce the number of games to be made in 2010.
And that they did, in 2010, the last year of the life of
Guitar Hero, they only released two games. They released the final game in the
main series, which was called “Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock” and then “DJ Hero
2”. I want to briefly talk about DJ Hero 2, and say that once again, the game
was well received. The main positive to take from the game was the even more
diverse track listing on display, using artists such as Metallica, Lady Gaga,
and Rihanna, artists not associated directly with rap and dance music.
But the main final act for Guitar Hero was “Warriors of
Rock”, which is also the most diverse of all the games. They wanted to distance
themselves as much as possible from Rock Band whilst using the same
peripherals, and changed the style of gameplay dramatically to achieve that
goal.
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| Warriors of Rock features a lot of influence from Rush's 2112 album and song. |
They did many changes, from things as subtle as adding yet
another difficulty level in “Expert+”, although this was only used for the
drums, where they introduced a double bass pedal. Keeping with the theme of “Warriors of Rock” they redesigned all
the characters in the game, giving them ‘warrior-esque’ looks and abilities.
The career mode is replaced with “Quest” mode, where it is made possible to get
much more than five stars for your song rating. In fact, it’s possible to get
up to forty stars for each song. This is done by the ‘warrior’ star power
abilities, which can do things like give you a six time multiplier for your
star power rather than the original two, or by hitting a succession of note for
an instant star gain. “Quest” mode puts you through all the songs, similar to
the “Career” mode of old, but with added layers of story in a way never seen in
the series so far. The story is narrated by Gene Simmons of KISS, where the
player must save ‘the demi-god of Rock’ from a creature called “The Beast”, and
the player must recruit eight more players to take on this creature. The
players are basically the other characters from the game, who all have their
signature styles and abilities. When recruited, these characters then turn into
their ‘warrior’ guise, and are ready to take on The Beast. Without going into
much more detail on the game, a lot of the latter parts revolve around the band
Rush, and the ‘2112’ song, the logo and the ‘starman’ icon associated with it.
This new approach to the series was met with praise by
critics, yet it did raise the concern that people who aren’t fans of Rush might
not like the game much. It may have been a better idea to make this game
“Guitar Hero: Rush”, although to concede, there are many other songs and
artists featured in the game. Rush’s role in this game is purely for “Quest”
mode, and there area total of 93 songs by 85 artists in the game otherwise,
which more than makes up for anyone not interested in Rush.
Unfortunately for Neversoft and Activision, the game didn’t
sell too well and it ended up being the final nail in the coffin of Guitar
Hero. Activision in February 2011 announced that the series is on hiatus due to
poor sales, although the way it was worded, it feels like it is indeed the end
of Guitar Hero as we speak.
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| The many different Guitar Hero controllers through the years. |
Guitar Hero barely if ever, produced a bad game. The series
was consistently fun and that’s down to the great work done on the guitar
controllers, and the decent selections of songs that were usually available. It
wasn’t in the quality of gaming where Guitar Hero failed. The game series
failed in the end because of greed. There was so much potential in the game
series, but they wanted success, they wanted money, now. They wanted too much
too soon, and it put off players and critics. The rise of Rock Band while not
as successful financially as the Guitar Hero series, has still made over $1
billion in revenue, and a lot of these people who bought into that probably
didn’t buy the Guitar Hero series afterwards, possibly because they couldn’t
afford to or possibly because Rock Band maintained their reputation as a series
who cares about fans. Keep in mind Activision released FIFTEEN titles in four
years, where as Rock Band only released seven (the three main Rock Band titles
with many downloadable tracks, a Lego game, and a homage to The Beatles, Green
Day and Unplugged for the PSP). It was the pure greed and milking of the product
that failed Guitar Hero, they never gave their fans enough time to take a
breather from the series and maybe spend their money elsewhere. The decline in
the music gaming marked at the turn of the decade approached, along with the
credit crunch didn’t help, but Activision made their own grave unfortunately.
Maybe it’s not the end of the game series; hopefully they
take a few years out and bring out a new title then. Let’s just hope there are
enough people who are willing to buy either a new bundle or keep their old ones
to show the interest. I know I will. I love and loved the Guitar Hero games.
Like many people, I played it obsessively four or five years ago. But like many
people, I grew out of it. I love video games in general and will play a variety
of games. I have a wife and kid, and don’t earn a great deal of money, I can’t
afford to buy every appliance Guitar Hero make, AND other games. But I have a
lot of the games now, and I have two guitars. I’m going to upgrade to the Xbox
360 versions this Christmas, as I still have the PS2 originals. But I’m not
going to play all the time, if not too often ever. Because I want to enjoy
these games when I play them.
Guitar Hero has a place in my heart and it will never leave.
Let’s give the series the round of applause it truly deserves, and remember the
many, many good points the series gave us. If it’s truly gone forever, it will
go down as one of the best video game series of all time, but it’s a story that
I hope many other video game companies take heed of when thinking about their
product, the audience, and the cost of video games.
I’ll be back tomorrow
for the final part, the Mixtape, where I list my favourite songs to play in the
game series. But for now that’s all from me, thanks for your time.
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