There's been some discussion about this game over at Hyper and after recieving the game last night I thought it only fair that you folks get the good oil on what is one of the most fun games I've played in a long time. Who would have thought that a rhythm game would have the potential to be one of my fav games of 2005?



Guitar Hero is the name of the game and it comes to us from the good people at Harmonix (Amplitude, Frequency). Red Octane, designers of high quality gaming peripherals have also got in on the act, co-developing an SG shaped guitar controller that you use to play the game. It can be played without the guitar but to be honest the guitar is such an essential element of the joy this game can produce that you would be foolish to get this game without one.



People who have played other Harmonix titles will be familiar with the basic idea. Notes come flying at you along the game grid which is basically a moving fret board. Each 'string' is colour coded to match the five buttons on the guitar neck and your task is to hold down the correct buttons and 'strum' the guitar on the notes. Do this correctly and you will play the next note in the song, mess up and you get a disconcerting bit of feedback, or stopped note. Either way when you are stuffing up your neighbours will know and when you are doing well you are really rocking out. When you power up your guitar you can tilt it upwards to engage the star power mode and watch your score sky rocket.



The selection of songs is fantastic. While they are all covers they are exceptionally high quality covers. In many songs you would have a hard time picking it wasn't the original. Each of the songs have fantastic guitar licks to rock out to and the feeling when you make it through the opening to Smoke on the Water for the first time is just great.



It is only available on import at the moment but if you have the ability to get the game do so!

For your interest here are a couple of review scores -

GameSpy 4.5/5
IGN 9.2/10
GameSpot 9/10
1UP 10/10
Gaming Age A-
UGO A+

Looks like fun, but wouldn't you be better off buying a real guitar, just saying. That way you can play any song you want and even make crap up, I myself have little to no musical talnet so can see this game helping me but for anyone else, I can see this as just a pale imtation.

But you had fun and that can't be discounted but do you or have you played a guitar for real?

Mostly this game is a mute point for me as I won't be getting a PS2 anytime soon but you there you go.

It sounds like a sound argument but the fun is in the way the game makes you feel like you are playing a kick arse rock concert.

The idea is accessibility. There is enough challenge in this game that the harder levels are ridiculous but on the easy modes you can still pick it up and bash out Ironman in five minutes of play. This is a luxury not present in the world of guitar playing. You can play a guitar for a year and not produce sound like you produce with Guitar Hero.

This is a game that has a basic mimicry of playing guitar but it is still a game. You will play the one song over and over to get better scores, more star power, etc.

Sure if you can actually play guitar well you may not have any fun with this but then again my housemate has been playing guitar for years and was grinning like a lunatic as his on screen character was spinning his guitar around his head.

I'm still waiting for my own place, so I can finally buy my Drum Mania machine.

God bless the Japs for giving us rhythm games.