Battle of the Bands: A Rocking Trio of Reviews

Everyone has heard of  the Guitar Hero and Rock Band games before so the music rhythm game genre doesn’t need an introduction. Come join me as i lead you through Guitar Hero: Metallica, Rock Band Unplugged and Guitar Hero Greatest Hits.

Guitar Hero: Metallica

If you don’t know the biggest heavy metal band in the world, you must have been born on another planet. Before we start discussing the game itself I think I have to let you know I used to count myself a big Metallica fan years ago, but over the years I started caring less and less for them and their music and then just stopped listening all together. With this hanging over my head I saw the announcement of a special Guitar Hero devoted to Metallica as something I would never get. Then I saw the first trailer for the game and felt my fingers tingling. I really wanted to play this game for some reason, so when it was finally released over here (a good few months after the US release) I shelled out for my own copy of Guitar Hero: Metallica

The game includes twenty-eight Metallica songs and twenty songs by guest acts that include Slayer, System Of A Down, Judas Priest, Machine Head and Mastodon. All in all a decent selection of Metallica songs and impressive guest acts to boot, but the library of Metallica is a bit bigger and better than this. It’s good that they threw in these extra bands for variation but I’d rather have more Metallica songs. The sound quality is what it should be for a game based around music. Remember how hard “One” was in Guitar Hero 3? Yeah expect most of the songs to be able to break your fingers. But then that’s what a Guitar Hero game should be right?

Even though the visuals aren’t the most important aspect of a Guitar Hero game, it’s still nice that someone actually took the time to make the game look at least above average. The character models are life like, which couldn’t be said about the zombie Jimi Hendrix from Guitar Hero: World Tour. The cartoon cut scenes that have been in all Guitar Hero games since Guitar Hero 3 are ok, but not really needed. I’m not playing this game for any sort of story, so I’d get along just fine without them.

Guitar Hero: Metallica introduces the second bass pedal which you can attach to your drum kit. Keep in mind this is meant for players who seek a bigger challenge than expert. Certain songs have this extra difficulty above expert but not all songs support it. But apart from this bass pedal Guitar Hero: Metallica has no innovation. Really it brings nothing new to the genre, but if you ask me that’s not what a game like this is made for. Guitar Hero: Metallica is essentially just a giant songpack for Metallica fans and die hard music rhythm game players. You want to play Guitar Hero with Metallica songs then this is just the game for you, otherwise you can just keep browsing and let this one be.

Plusses:

+ Metallica!

+ A great selection of songs for fans of the Heavy Metal genre.

+ Double bass pedal optional for die-hard drummers.

Minuses:

- Not enough Metallica songs

- Really, get rid of the cartoons already.

- I’m not talented enough to play this game on expert but i would like to add that extra pedal to my drum-kit, too bad it’s exclusive to expert players.

Rock Band: Unplugged

Rock Band: Unplugged is a totally different game from its console counterpart. Besides from being played on the PSP (and not with a plastic instrument peripheral like on the consoles) the gameplay is like Amplitude and Frequency, the games Harmonix made before the first Guitar Hero game. Instead of playing one instrument you play the whole band. You play a sequence of one instrument and then you switch over to another instrument while the first one plays itself. You still hit buttons according to the coloured gems on screen.

The game features 41 songs, seven of which are temporarily exclusive to Rock Band: Unplugged and will eventually be available as DLC for the consoles. The other 34 songs have already been featured either as DLC or on the Rock Band 1 or 2 discs. Overall the songs seem to be picked for their simpleness and not for being high quality songs. The console version just features more epic and faster paced songs than what Rock Band: Unplugged offers. Even the songs that are labeled nightmare or impossible are the easiest of the songs in that difficulty on the console version. The only real problem I have with most songs not being exclusive to Rock Band: Unplugged is that I don’t see myself paying money for a song i already own in Rock Band 1 or 2. That said, most of the songs remain fun to play.

Even experienced Rock Band and Guitar Hero players won’t be able to start on expert, but once they get the hang of it the game is never a real challenge. Even people who can’t play other music rhythm games on the hard difficulty won’t find a problem in playing Rock Band: Unplugged on hard. Which is a real shame because challenge is a key component of the genre.

What experienced Rock Band players will notice is the complete lack of multiplayer. This is a sin when it comes to Rock Band: Unplugged. Rock Band was specifically designed for multiplayer (hence the four instruments) and now they can’t even think of a two player option? The PSP is strong in the online department and it’s a real shame that the developer didn’t bother with this.

Visually Rock Band: Unplugged really kicks the bucket. Don’t expect Crisis Core quality here. The game even has frame rate issues, which are really bad for a game that focuses so much on timing. The controls don’t help much either: it’s too easy to hold a button for too long and skip past the instrument you were aiming for, which messes up the whole song because missing one note usually starts a domino effect of getting to instruments too late to be able to hit a note.

The game could have done with a few months of polish and a slightly better song selection. It’s clear that Harmonix let Backbone Entertainment do all the work on this title since Harmonix usually delivers a higher quality type of game. But aside from that it’s still the most fun I’ve had with my PSP so far. Although this would have been a right moment to have cross platform DLC, buy a song for Rock Band 2 and it becomes available for download on Rock Band: Unplugged too. A real missed opportunity.

Plusses:

+ Refreshing gameplay. Playing all four instruments at the same time is tons of fun.

+ Now you can play Rock Band on the toilet.

Minuses:

- Awful visuals, framerate issues and ugly character models that don’t move to the music you’re playing.

- Unimpressive songlist.

- Sound quality can be a bit iffy sometimes.

- Paying for the same DLC twice.

- No multiplayer.

Guitar Hero: Greatest Hits

Until recently I still owned a copy of Guitar Hero 2 and 3 because sometimes I wanted to play “Free Bird,” and sometimes when I wanted to torture myself I’d even try “Through The Fire And Flames.” What really bugged me was not being able to use my new instruments on them, and clearly the folks over at Activision and Neversoft thought of this dilemma too. So they came up with a solution: Guitar Hero: Greatest Hits, a collection of the best songs from Guitar Hero 1, 2, 3, 80’s and Aerosmith.

Not only have they added drums and vocals but they also updated the notecharts of the Guitar and Bass to include all the new features that have been added to the franchise since then. They also added the double bass that was introduced with Guitar Hero: Metallica and most songs are a lot faster than they were originally. This increases the difficulty significantly but also emphasizes the real speed of the song. Alas the songs that were censored before still have all their naughty bits removed, I guess there will never be a Guitar Hero: Uncensored

The songlist for Greatest Hits with it’s 48 tracks is decent but could also have been more for my liking, after all Guitar Hero: World Tour had over 80 songs and Neversoft has even stated that Guitar Hero 5 will have a 100 songs, so they could have added at least more than fifty for this.  All the songs in Greatest Hits are master recordings and this is a big improvement because a lot of these songs were just horrible covers in the previous Guitar Hero games.

Now I understand that a lot of people will think that this is just milking the Guitar Hero series, but as I said most of these songs are improved versions of what was previously featured, and it’s also an ideal way for latecomers to the series to catch up on these great songs. In the end both Greatest Hits and Metallica are just big song-packs and if you look at how much you would pay for each individual song (which is usually $/€ 1,50)  you would pay much more in the end.

I hope Guitar Hero 5 will introduce a way to import all these songs into it just like Harmonix did for Rock Band 1 with Rock Band 2, because swapping discs gets really tedious in the end. Same goes for importing your created characters. In fact, it would be even cooler if you would get special clothing from these titles that you could use on your character in the big Guitar Hero games. I hope Activision and Neversoft realize this in the near future. If they really want Guitar Hero to be a gaming platform vs. a game then they have to find a way to link all these games together apart from the title.

Pluses:

+ Free Bird.

+ Beast And The Harlot.

+ Raining Blood.

+ The Trooper.

Minuses:

- Not enough songs!

- I know these games are played by kids and all but please stop censoring songs like Killing In The Name.

- Franz Ferdinand.

In the end both Guitar Hero: Metallica and Greatest Hits are nothing but big songpacks and Rock Band: Unplugged is nothing more than a portable Rock Band: Greatest Hits. That is what you should think of them, nothing more but also nothing less. It’s real fun to play the Metallica songs and to replay all the classics from the pre- World Tour games. Because if you love music rhythm games as much as I do then all three of these games are for you.