Firstly I must apologize for the quality of the video, the poor lighting required me to up the brightness so things are visible which has caused everything to become rather pixelated like a computer game, and the audio has an echo due to the noise removal technique and amplification required to eliminated the crowd noises, which is why when I am not directly facing the camera some of my audio becomes non existent.
Guitar hero live is a change in direction for the usually cartoon sprite based game, where instead of watching computer characters perform on stage in the background while you play along to the tune instead behind the familiar riff line is a live stage and support band who react based upon how well you are playing the track.
Other significant changes to the game are the actual way you play, which involves a dual 3 button strip with black and white controls, helpfully hinted at on screen with up and down buttons om case you forget which side is which. With a little adapting this seems a lot easier to use than the 5 button system, so even though you are essentially playing with extra buttons this will feel like less.
I do like the new style and the new opportunities it could provide but I think they really missed out by not having a full 8 button swing to utilize all 4 fingers, or even having the duplicated 5 buttons players will be use to but with a dual line system in place allowing for some very difficult routines to be established. Gone is however the tap strumming bar some players will have adapted to which provided a fun way of playing the game along with extra manipulation of the sounds, and activating star power becomes more difficult with the higher positioning of the buttons on the neck of the controller. Sure there is a button to activate star power but this is never the most effective way to use the power, and it isn’t in a convenient location.
Further changes to the game are the facts that it is planned that any further releases will not require a purchase of another game and instead will come as purchasable or rent-able content providing access to any new tunes in a variety of genre’s for example without having to purchase a “Metallica” special guitar hero game. Also for those who wish to compete live there will be a guitar hero live channel where people at home can play along with other players worldwide on the same live track, at present there have been no plans to include a live leaderboard however I think this would be the ideal social situation to provide live results for all players partaking in the live track and provide the ultimate bragging rights topping the live leaderboard broadcast to everyone currently watching that channel.
The game itself will have made up bands playing actual songs so you will always feel like part of the band, and the audience will react to your playing prowess, if you’re doing well they will cheer for more whilst terrible play will result in objects being thrown at you as you play with boo’s and jeers.
I think this is an interesting direction and some good improvements to the genre as actually feeling like you’re on stage and playing adds to the immersion of the game, perhaps having a more transparent riff bar could make things better as the audience and band are obscured a lot of the time.
Little is known about the competitive aspects of the game as yet, as often the same track gets chosen in competitions where the longest possible track provides the best score and is repeated by every single team, a change to this system competitively might make things more fun, perhaps requiring a mini set of 3 short songs to feel more like a proper band and completely eliminating all ridiculously long songs from competitions, or even having all songs have a similar point limit perhaps boosted with freestyle flourishes enabled via star power at the appropriate times, I have no idea how star power works in the game as I could not get the controller to trigger this despite vertically lifting the guitar at any time.
Another interesting aspect for scoring might be if the accelerometers in the controller responded to how you flourished and moved about on stage to incorporate “stage presence” into the scoring system to provide those truly representing on stage and not just playing the tunes the biggest and best scores, but this could always be something to consider for future releases.
As it stands I would definitely recommend a purchase for any guitar hero fan as all of the changes are definitive improvements and go beyond simply releasing further tracks with a whole new play style to master.
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