Guitar Hero Video Game Review »

Guitar Hero Video Game Review

Several years ago, Konami released an arcade game in Japan called Guitar Freaks. It was part of the company's famed Bemani series of music games, and as you might have guessed, it used a guitar-shaped controller to interact with it. Several new versions of the game followed, and ports appeared on both the PS1 and PS2. With the great success of Konami's Dance Dance Revolution series in the U.S., one would think that Konami would localize Guitar Freaks as well. Sadly, that hasn't been the case, and music game fans have been forced to import if they wanted to rock out.

All that has changed now, as Red Octane and developer Harmonix (the creators of Frequency, Amplitude, and Karaoke Revolution) have decided to beat Konami at its own game with a new title called Guitar Hero.

The setup for Guitar Hero actually looks a lot like Amplitude, with a slanted plane scrolling from the depths of the screen. As each song plays, notes scroll down, and once they reach the bottom of the screen, you "activate" them. Sounds like most music games, right? For the most part, it is, but what sets Hero apart is its wicked-awesome guitar controller.

The game includes a darn-near full sized guitar controller that sports five "fret buttons," a "strum bar," and a whammy bar. To play the notes, you must simultaneously press the proper fret button (they're color coded to the notes) and, well, strum the strum bar when the note hits the bottom of the screen. Using the whammy bar at the proper time will fill up your Star Meter faster, which can then be activated by tilting your guitar upwards to enter the score-boosting Star Mode.

The main single-player mode is a career mode where you chose from one of eight characters (two must be unlocked) and work your way up through a series of venues. As you progress, more songs are unlocked and the difficulty becomes much greater. If you play career mode on normal difficulty or higher, you earn cash from each gig (the better you do, the more you get), allowing you to purchase new goodies. Aside from new characters and songs, you can also buy new guitars and behind-the-scenes videos. These extras definitely make you want to earn more dough.

You'll eventually end up with over 30 songs to choose from, including plenty of rock classics like "I Love Rock and Roll," "Ace of Spades," "Smoke on the Water," and "I Wanna Be Sedated." Sadly, all of these songs are covers, but to be fair, they're pretty good versions. The unlockable songs are all from smaller bands and are the original versions. I was pleasantly surprised to see a Freezepop song as an unlockable. The band tends to show up on Harmonix's releases, but their synth-pop style isn't necessarily the first thing that comes to mind when you think of "guitar-heavy rock songs." Although some might see this as a plus, I wasn't a big fan of playing to the entire song. Most music games feature abbreviated versions of licensed songs, because once you hit the three minute mark or so, things start to feel "too long." At least there was no "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida," so I shouldn't complain too much.

Wailing on the guitar, I might add, is immensely satisfying. During the early stages, it's simply a fun novelty, but as the difficulty increases, the feeling of playing an actual musical instrument becomes much stronger. Hitting multiple chords (i.e. triggering multiple fret buttons at once) and moving your hand back and forth to deal with all five fret buttons becomes quite an exercise in hand/eye coordination.

There's even a two-player mode where you and a buddy can rock out together. It's definitely a lot of fun, but you'll want to spring for an extra guitar controller. Playing with a Dual Shock just isn't very fun. It's also less challenging since you don't have to coordinate both hands to work together (by holding down the fret buttons and strumming) -- the Shock's buttons act as both the fret and strum, so there's less work involved.

When a music game's loading screens show an amp that's being cranked up to 11, you know that it takes its rock and roll seriously. Well, maybe not completely seriously, but it definitely loves the subject material. And it'll only take one song for you to love it. It's a bit of an investment with its $69.99 price tag, but you'll definitely get your money's worth.

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