Originally published at Diehard GameFAN
Through the course of 2009, we’ve seen the Guitar Hero franchise multiply like rabbits and with Van Halen
on the horizon, you can at least count on one more release in the
series to hit consoles this year. Crunched into the music market last
month, console gamers were treated to a new spin-off entitled Band Hero. At face value, Band Hero serves as a more welcome addition to the franchise than most people will give new Guitar Hero titles credit for. While most of Activision’s Hero releases cater to specific bands, Band Hero
opens up a wider, and arguably, untapped demographic in an attempt to
stray from the edgier rock anthems to provide more pop-oriented and
well-known classics to draw in a more family and multiplayer-focused
affair to encourage more accessible multiplayer and party excursions.
The attempt is definitely more noble than most of its releases;
however, with some confusing material, lack of innovation and strong
competition against Harmonix’s LEGO Rock Band, this otherwise solid game can be easily lost in the shuffle, especially if you’re not a fan of the songlist offering.
To sum it up in the least amount of words possible, Band Hero is a spot-on replication of Guitar Hero 5
with a few presentation tweaks and, obviously, a new, niche songlist.
On one hand, this is a fantastic aspect of the game as the modes and
accessibility found in Guitar Hero 5 easily makes it the best
title in the series in regard to balancing, freedom of progression and
ease of use. As such, as a carbon copy of the format, Band Hero
is just as accessible, which is a blessing considering the target
audience for the title. On the other hand, this is the exact same game
I reviewed about two months ago, as you can see from this snippet of
that review:
“Let’s just say I’m not going to waste my time explaining the
game’s premise. Since you are reading this review online, you have the
Internet and have some interest in games, so I’m inclined to believe
you aren’t an anti-social hermit that has never heard of Guitar Hero.
Every staple mechanic found in World Tour returns, meaning you have
selections between quickplay and career modes (albeit these are now
fully fleshed out with online features), the band, character and
instrument creation tools, GHMix makes a return with a few more options
and the competitive modes make a return with a bit more emphasis and
twists. For the most part, the “new” modes are just twists on ones
already given to us in previous entries but the sequel does pack on
some dandy features.
Hands-down, the biggest feature lies in the fact that Guitar
Hero 5 allows players to play whatever instrument they please,
regardless of whether or not someone is already on that instrument. No
longer do the expert guitar players have to fight amongst themselves to
see who gets “demoted” to bass, as bands can consist of five lead
guitars if that is the players’ desire. The mixing and matching is by
far the game’s greatest accomplishment and puts its flexibility beyond
what is even found in Rock Band’s
entries. Guitar Hero 5 also dumps World Tour’s long-winded and painful
career mode and cash earnings to provide players with challenges per
each song. This is a most welcome change as not only are players able
to tackle the career in a bite-sized, per-song fashion, but each song
has an instrument specific challenge (such as using only upstrums on
bass guitar, holding on to a 4x multiplier as long as you can,
whammying sustains for specified timeframes, etc.) that will have
players coming back to songs with different instruments and full bands
for those high-scoring band achievements (which is strengthened by the
smart decision to finally allow the career to go online). These
challenges are now what unlocks the hidden characters, cheats and
customization goods and all 85 tracks are available from the getgo,
meaning players won’t have to slave away for cash to enjoy certain
songs. These two features are certainly well-played on Neversoft’s
part.”
Sure the feature set is indeed full, especially when you add in the other additions to GH5 such as the band moments and party modes, but seeing as the name Band Hero
implies Activision is trying to take something in a different
direction, it’s a bit painful to see no effort whatsoever being made to
differentiate itself from a game released two months ago. I mean, GHMix
wasn’t even changed to BHMix or something different. If the Band Hero
series wants to continue, it could definitely use a shot in the arm to
differentiate itself because, as it stands, the song list is the only
feature that will pull players into this game and I’ll tell you right
now, Band Hero’s song list will turn away a lot of people.
On that same token, though, the title’s song list will pull in a
good chunk of players based on its more pop-oriented tones. Names such
as Hillary Duff and Taylor Swift have such huge fan bases that two such
names on their own would warrant a purchase from some and you’ll see
other recent names such as Maroon 5 and No Doubt mixed in with classic
acts such as Jackson 5, Carl Douglas, Don McLean and Marvin Gaye. The
lineup does have some “name brand” power to it, although it touches on
the lighter side of rock and this will admittedly turn away some Guitar Hero players, however, given the context, I believe the included acts touch on the intended demographic extremely well.
The gameplay in Band Hero largely remains untouched: Strum,
strike or sing on your favorite instrument as indicated by the game. Of
course we wouldn’t expect this foundation to change, but don’t expect
any leaps and bounds toward the improvement or innovation of these
features. With the career mode challenges, thankfully, more variety has
been injected into the tasks, providing a little bit of freshness for
the title and preventing the mode from getting as repetitive as it does
in Guitar Hero 5. Otherwise, you’re getting the same linear
experience with the mode – earn stars from song selection chunks to
progress to the next venue and complete challenges to unlock character
items, which, for some people, are completely worthless. The basic
approach to the career mode worked in Guitar Hero 5 as it was much better than what was implemented prior, but not seeing the mode progress at all in Band Hero is certainly a bummer.
Being built off Guitar Hero 5 means you will see a lot of the same visuals and menus as well as sound effects directly recycled in Band Hero – with so much borrowed material, Band Hero
really seems more like a expansion or track pack, but with more than 60
songs and many not being available elsewhere, I wouldn’t say Activision
is overcharging on the title. The default characters do receive some
touch-ups with new attire that reflects the pop presentation of the
game, but every character’s GH5 outfit is included as well.
On the whole, you do receive some additions that cater to the target
demo of the title, but players won’t find anything mindblowing and the
quantity of such material isn’t exactly overwhelming. The two major
graphical changes seen in Band Hero is in the menus being
re-skinned to feature all sort of purple/pink colors to perhaps appeal
to the female demographic and a host of new venues that range from your
basic mall to spring break resorts and all the way into space. The
venues do sport a sliver more craziness to them and do provide a bit
more variety to them than the previous versions’ stereotypically
worldly locales, however, you still get recycled characters placed on
top of them for the most part. Of course, the career movies are
replaced with new ones, but these are just as generic and not
entertaining as ever and fail to really tell any sort of interesting
story. With those features aside, you’re getting everything handed
directly over from Guitar Hero 5 – it looks great for the
most part, but some jaggies on the characters and a few instances of
transparency issues on the tap notes take the graphics down just a
notch.
As I’ve stated before, the song selection could potentially turn
away a lot of players, but when you look at the tunes from a technical
standpoint, everything is in tip-top shape here. The audio rings
through clearly and stage effects and pyro boom through your speakers,
really pounding the rock experience into your ears. However, again, you
do get a lot of recycled sound effects, but given that the music is
real star of the audio, it is mostly forgettable. On that note,
however, there are some really questionable song choices that go
against the grain here. In a game catering toward family play and
tweeners, there are a handful of songs containing questionable sexual
content for this group and there are some really bizarre content edits,
most infamously in the muting of the word “whiskey” in American Pie, that may draw the ire of fans of these songs.
The charting on the songs also potentially go overboard, with even
some of the tunes being a bit of a challenge on the medium difficulty.
In trying to go for a more casual audience, one would think the
difficulty would be eased up just a tad. Seasoned Guitar Hero
players will no doubt go to town on the expert difficulty and, yes, I
would believe there are eight-year-olds out there that can shred with
the best of them – I’m not out to discredit the younger crowd – but Band Hero
should really be drawing in the casual crowd that doesn’t play the game
regularly. Finally, Activision is beginning to go way overboard on its
implementation of faux instruments – if I’m holding a guitar, I should
be playing the guitar, not switching over to instruments such as the
piano, trumpet or such at the expense of finding a way to use the tap
buttons. A few of the songs really abuse this use of the tap notes and
it just did nothing but take me out of the experience with its
absurdity, especially with the piano trills found at the end of I Heard It Through the Grapevine.
On the whole, while the lineup of tunes really hits home, the way they
are implemented among the context of the demographic had me scratching
my head a number of times.
In another bit of progress with the series, Band Hero does
offer the ability to export and import tracks between a few of the
franchise’s games along with implementation of downloadable tracks.
While it isn’t a feature new to Band Hero, it shows
Activision is showing dedication to the cause and with the admittedly
generous offering of free tracks available from World Tour
through the newest titles, players can easily bump up the song
offerings beyond the initial 65 without any extra cost. I would like to
see this Band Hero series continue for the sake of the casual
crowd, but, if it does, this spin-off really needs to somehow
differentiate itself beyond splashing everything with what I’ve heard
some people refer to as “girl colors.” It has a nice approach and
thought going for it and maybe even a deal with a label such as the
various artist CD collection of NOW! could lend some credibility to this extension in the future. As it stands now, however, Band Hero is a carbon copy of Guitar Hero 5
and fails to produce anything fresh while implementing a song list that
will no doubt alienate a lot of people no matter how well put together
it is.
GemuBaka Final Review Score: 3 of 5
Many people will probably come into a review of Band Hero
expecting the reviewer to lambast the song list choices in the title,
but, that’s just not the case. Activision and crew has actually
assembled quite a suitable song list for a new demographic in family
and party play while implementing pop songs to appeal to tweeners and
these are appropriate grounds for a spin-off. The crutch here is in the
title doing nothing to differentiate itself from Guitar Hero 5
aside from a purple and pink menu skin and a new song list – you’ll
even see instances where the developers couldn’t even be bothered to
remove instances of the initials “GH” from a number of items. This
leaves the title feeling more like an expansion or track pack than
anything with its own identity and is no doubt the title’s biggest
failure. Also, there are confusing ways the content is implemented that
wholly works against the grain when you take a look at who Band Hero tries to appeal to and these additions are no doubt going to drive a good portion of longtime Guitar Hero
fans away from this entry. When you get over these glaring downsides,
however, you still have the foundation of an enjoyable experience and
everything that made Guitar Hero 5 fun carries over into Band Hero. Band Hero
is another instance where my recommendation would be based solely on
whether or not you enjoy the song selection offered in the title. The
fun of Guitar Hero is still here, but this spin-off has a
long way to go in building its identity and offering something music
game fans must have.
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