You wipe the sweat from your face; you and your friends have been waiting for this moment for a long time now. This is your chance to play an encore in front of all your fans and to prove you have what it takes to be a rock super star. You pick up your guitar and look to your friends as you prepare for what could be the biggest moment of your life. In the middle of your song, a friend pauses and runs off to the restroom as you come back to reality and find yourself in your living room.
“Guitar Hero 5” is the next game in the long line of the “Guitar Hero” series and like the others, the story is pretty simple and straight forward. Players perform songs in venues, collect stars and rise to super stardom. There is almost no story involved and the only video that hints at a story is in the beginning and end of the game. While there is no story, the game adds a new twist to the career mode.
Instrument specific challenges are added, asking players to meet a requirement to unlock new items such as new instruments, clothing and new characters. The challenges range from having a 4X note streak for a minute to strumming certain notes. Some of the challenges require you playing with a band and if a band member completes a challenge, other players get the reward as well, so you won’t find yourself playing and instrument you are not very good at or do not like.
The game has also made an improvement on band game play making it more enjoyable to play with friends. The restrictions of the previous games where you had to have a band with a guitarist, a bassist, a drummer and vocalist, are gone as now players can make a band of any instrument combination. Players could play with a band of three guitarists and one drummer or two bassists and a vocalist and a guitarist.
“Guitar Hero 5” also has some guest appearances including Matthew Bellamy, the lead singer of Muse, Carlos Santana, Curt Cobain, Johnny Cash, and Shirley Manson from Garbage. The game is true to the look to the musicians down to the appearance and actions. Each of the special guests plays some of their most popular songs and can even be unlocked as playable characters.
The game also has some new modes to play in a feature called “Party Play”. This new mode allows four friends, or eight online, to play in new versus modes. Some of the options include playing where the fewer notes players miss the faster the song will get making for a fun challenge. Another mode gives points out for the longer players have a streak. All of the old modes like “Face-Off”, “Pro Face-Off” and “Band vs. Band” are still available, but the new mode offers more variety.
“Guitar Hero 5” out does itself with the largest song list of any “Guitar Hero” title. There are 85 songs in total with all of them being master tracks (Original Recordings). The songs have a wide variety ranging from “Johnny Cash” to “Iron Maiden” and some heavy metal songs from “Children of Bodem”. Players could even add more songs by adding in their downloaded songs as well the entire song list from “Guitar Hero: World Tour” and “Smash Hits”, all for a minor fee. This makes for a total of over 200 hundred songs, so players no longer have to switch between the games to play certain songs.
Players can download more songs with Xbox Live or Playstation Network for a small fee to expand their music library. Songs from “Jimi Hendrix”, “Metallica”, “The Killers” and others as well as entire albums can be downloaded. There is a huge store to get more songs, but “Guitar Hero” is a little behind in downloads when compared to “Rock Band”.
“Guitar Hero 5” does great work continuing the series with new features and loud songs. What the game lacks in downloads, it makes up for in fresh new game play. The game once again proves that there is still life in the series and is still just as fun now as when it first came out. Get a group of friends and turn up the volume because this game is meant to be played loud. “Guitar Hero 5” gets an 8 out of 10.
