I haven't played a Guitar Hero game since the third one. I was a little annoyed with the excess attention at it and Rock Band and all the other crappy rip-offs being sent out. Since the third entry, I only have played the Rock Band games with the friends who were suckered in buying the entire band sets for them. They were fun but the change from guitar anthems and hard rock to a variety of different genres were worrying me. With Guitar Hero World Tour, the series went the same path and seemed from the sidelines to be losing its luster.
With Guitar Hero 5, Activision has made certainly the worst entry of the series. It is entirely forgettable and has nothing to make it stand out. Even the signature characters and surreal storylines for career mode are toned way down. The arenas look largely the same except with different promotional plugs to corporate products. And, more importantly, the music includes too many mellow and unknown acts to the average consumer.
The core gameplay is still the same, with the player hitting the frets and chords at the right time. However, everything around the game has changed and not for the better. All the songs are unlocked at the start, thus losing any achievement in advancing through the career. The currency system has been taken out so players have to win certain challenges for specific songs to get special features. It may help replayability, but players like myself who have none of the other instruments or can't get others to play will be annoyed with the inability to get them. The career mode for the guitar has been butchered for hardcore fans; Throughout my exploration in Medium difficulty (I can play higher but I simply don't care about being better or high scores), I never failed a song or had any difficulty with the songs except towards the very end. And, since the song list is terrible overall, my play experience had me wearing a dull face throughout.
Criticizing the song library does rely entirely on my personal opinion and everyone is entitled to theirs. However, even the diehard fans for certain artists will complain that they don't and shouldn't be in a Guitar Hero game. Why is Coldplay, Bob Dylan, and Beck in this? I like them and their songs included are good to listen but playing them loses their flavor and brilliance. Though there is some good old-school songs to play ranging from Wild Cherry, T. Rex, and Thin Lizzy, the rest are songs are more recent fare and many have just came out last year. The few songs that I enjoyed playing over again weren't exactly masterpieces and came from bands with dumb names such as Attack! Attack! and Scars on Broadway. They are generic and have no real value, but they get the job done and fun to play. Even Rammenstein and Perfect Circle can't help the mediocrity in this installment.
I could continue this tirade on the other songs, but I will end it discussing in some length on two: Rush's "The Spirit of Radio" and Peter Frampton's "Do You Feel Like We Do?". Both are live pieces, which simply don't work in musical video games and both go way too long. "Do You Feel..." was my most hated song in this game; It is a good song to listen to but the game ruins any fun to be had with it. After a strong opening, the player will simply have to wait for a very long time until playing a brief section and then wait some more. And since the live song is so long, you'll just stand there begging for any note to come down. Rush's song is the last to play to beat the campaign and its the worst to have as the finale. While the previous games had classic and hard songs to get through like "Freebird", "The Spirit of Radio" is simply a boring chore with so much pretentiousness. And, after this anti-climax, the song playing over the credits is a bummer to play as well. Dragonforce it isn't.
As for my comment on the inclusion of Kurt Cobain? I don't really care or have any negative thoughts about it. How come people aren't complaining that I can have Johnny Cash sing a Blink-182 song or have Carlos Santana play the drums? People are just making a hissy fit out of nothing. At least with its inclusion, Cobain and his music can reach younger listeners much larger than radio or MTV. Shouldn't you complain that the singer from Garbage is in it for no real purpose?
Though the game wasn't the worst of this year and I had some fun with some songs, the imbalance of taste and frustration with changes made Guitar Hero 5 a lame addition. This is stricly a rent through and through. Oh, and the box art is the laziest I have seen for a big release.
FINAL REVIEW: 2 / 5
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