guitar hero game reviews
Guitar Hero Live, towards a new era of rhythm playing?While Rock Band 4 started a few days ago the return of accessory rhythm games, its eternal rival Guitar Hero could not help but follow suit. However, while there was a time when the two licenses were positioned in the same niche by offering the same gameplay, the two franchises no longer offer the same approach today and the title of Activision intends to completely overhaul known mechanics to provide a more immersive music playing experience. Successful bet ?
You should forget what you'd expect if you thought you knew everything about Guitar Hero. Activision and Freestyle responded to this rather daring gamble by investing more in a new concept than in repeating past mechanics. It remains to be seen whether their baby is a must.
THE 6 FRETTES GUITAR, THE TRUE STAR OF THE GAME
Instead of a plastic scraper with colored frets on the same row, GH Live offers a different instrument. Instead of reciting codes that we thought were well known, GH preferred to rethink his controller to give the player sensations closer to a real guitar. Thus, replacing the color codes to which we were accustomed, we find ourselves in possession of a joystick with 3 upper keys and three lower keys. The associated colors inevitably change and it will now be necessary to press the upper frets when black notes appear on the screen, the lower frets when white notes arrive.If we could fault one thing about this new guitar, it would be its noise. The mediator clicks with each press and this can become particularly annoying, especially in duet, when two players play at a different level of difficulty. It can indeed be very disturbing to hear your stage partner playing at a rhythm opposite to yours and you will undoubtedly sometimes find yourself feeling destabilized rhythmically speaking. We would have preferred a quieter instrument to allow everyone to play without an excruciating permanent clicking noise.
But what does it matter since if there is indeed a force in this GH Live, it is that of his guitar which totally reinvents the way you approach the rhythm game.
Beyond its imperfections, the 6-fret guitar offers excellent sensations. Depending on your level of difficulty, you will have to play strikethrough, power chords which will be played on two frets at the same time, further reinforcing the immersion. GH Live has greatly reinvented its equipment to give the player the feeling of finally rediscovering the rhythm game.
Certainly, in the lowest difficulty levels you will only play on the keys of the lower row, not very interesting, but switch to normal mode and you will discover a new way of approaching a song. If these 6 frets make the game more accessible to beginners, it does not erase the very steep progression curve inherent in games of this type between advanced mode and expert mode. Only the most relentless and willing will manage to master the most devious songs on high difficulty, the others will quickly see a wall quite impassable with notes and chords scrolling too fast to be played properly.
It is not, however, frankly dramatic. The tablatures are skilfully written, and as soon as you take the trouble to master the guitar / controller, the pleasure is increased tenfold, especially since the positions of your fingers are closer and closer to those that we would pose on the strings of a very real guitar. The advanced mode offers its share of challenges without being completely insurmountable. In short, the 6 frets is undoubtedly a success and should reconcile you with the license if you had abandoned it.
= GH LIVE, SENSATIONS ... PURE?
After initiation, GH Live invites you to play shows which have the particularity of being shot like real concerts. A great point of communication on the part of Activision, the Live concerts allow you to experience a subjective view of certain festivals, each consisting of 3 or even 4 songs.So you are immersed in the skin of a guitarist responsible for setting the stage for a festival. Before going on stage you will see yourself trembling at the idea of facing the public in small cut scenes which are supposed to represent the backstage of a terribly decent rock / metal group. Anyone who has ever been behind the scenes of rock concerts will never have seen groups as politically correct as those you will see in GH Live, the whole giving a somewhat kitschy content and general public however easily excusable.
The subjective view presents in the first place what is interesting that it allows you to feel like a rock star, adrenaline less. You go on stage and you perform your song in front of a crazy audience. It must be recognized that on this point, GH Live is doing an exemplary job. If you take the trouble to watch what scrolls on the screen, you will get a pretty believable feeling of what it can feel when playing in front of an audience all committed to your cause. Be aware that the set is not scripted and that overcoming the different proposed scenes will only allow you to access the unlocking of the titles for a multi or solo part.
In addition, the public reacts in real time during these sessions. In short, if you are not able to play a song properly, your subjective view will become blurred, allowing the members of your group and your audience to pass indifferently from the status of enthusiastic crowd to that of mass jaded in a fraction of a second. . The set certainly works well but is not synonymous with Game Over so far, since you can quite continue your song by chaining the breads, regardless of the difficulty mode chosen.
In addition to approaching festivals in the shoes of a guitarist (comments after concert are doubled by the French voice of Randy Marsh - a big blow to credibility), it is above all by the speed with which we’re coming to grips with the whole scary game tracklist. 42 songs, picking as much in dubstep as in metalcore will enhance your fast parts that you can play at leisure, alone or accompanied by a second guitar and a microphone. The more patient among you will be able to try to gather a maximum of stars by songs, unlocking by the way photo galleries and making-of videos of the game. Nothing very transcendent on this side there and it is not in the live section that you will spend most of your time, the campaign mode being reduced to its simplest form. Because yes, the additional songs will be found elsewhere in GH Live and will require a little money for lack of a little involvement.
GH TV: A REAL GOOD IDEA ...
Teased from a pay, it must be recognized that ultimately, nobody had understood what Guitar Hero TV was. Having experienced it for hours and hours, it is time to explain how it works. Between micro-transaction, tracklist and music on demand, it is difficult to navigate when we ask the question of which titles we will have access to once the game and the guitar in hand.You can access this famous GH TV at the touch of a button. Designed as a music channel, it broadcasts two playlists articulated around major musical themes every half hour: metal, country, folk, pop ... whatever time you join GH TV, you will always have something to play. Access is very simple: if a song is being broadcast, hear the broadcast of the artist's clip, you can join it at any time and play the guitar, alone or in pairs, in order to gain a little of experience. In addition, the program being displayed in advance, you can plan your next playing sessions if you want to play one genre of music over another.
Indeed, GH TV offers a progression system: the better you play, the more you will be paid in coins and in status points. At the same time, around 200 songs will be available on demand. So much for the organization.
... DONE BY THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF PURCHASING A SONG
In reality, things are a little more complicated. Indeed, do not expect to be able to definitively acquire one of the songs offered by GH TV. If you were hoping, for example, to master a very difficult song like Ghost Walking from Lamb of God, you would have to spend a Token for each try. So, if you run out of chips, impossible for you to loop a piece, you will have to try to accumulate the precious currency again. It remains to be seen whether or not this system requires the player's active involvement to the point of becoming disturbing, or even worse, it is necessary to go to the cashier to play his favorite pieces.
SEVERAL COINS, SEVERAL WAYS TO WIN
There are several ways to earn tokens. The first of them is done quite naturally. In addition to the small welcome gift offering you a certain amount of tokens during your first session of GH TV, it is then for each level gain that you will get 3 on average. The progression between each level is quite fast and is conditioned by your performance when you join a broadcast channel. Of course, they will determine the amount of experience received, although it must be recognized that the compensation criteria remain particularly vague, as well as the allocation of the number of coins that you will use to buy additional tokens.On average, and within the framework of a game of play in advanced mode and oscillating between 3 and 5 stars by pieces, I benefited from a remuneration in pieces ranging between 130 and 180 units approximately. Once you have accumulated enough coins, you just have to pop into the shop directly integrated into the GH TV to realize that 10 tokens will be awarded to you in exchange for 6,000 coins. If the proportion may seem unreasonable, be aware that Guitar Hero Live offers you to pay yourself a certain amount of this currency every day, the amount of which will increase if you make a daily visit to musical channels. In short, and without thinking too much about it, money is rising fast enough and I have had the opportunity to buy tokens several times during my gaming sessions.
Last way to get tokens: that of the checkout. If unfortunately we were unable to obtain the prices charged by the store allowing you to obtain Hero Cash (which can then be exchanged for tokens), we sincerely hope that Activision will not have had the eyes more bigger than the stomach. So certainly, it is indeed possible to never spend a penny to access the entire catalog of GH TV. However, this fact will depend a lot on your practice.
A regular practice of the game without excessive objectives should be more than enough to accumulate enough chips to never have a feeling of restriction of access, it will probably be different for the most complete of you who will seek to train again and still in order to switch their favorite song to 100% in expert mode. This therefore makes it very questionable, given the fact that the economic model of GH TV is after all reasonable for occasional and even recurring players, but will quickly become limited for the most perfectionists.
However, you have to keep in mind that each song being listed by genre, you just have to go regularly to the free channels and watch for the arrival of your favorite musical genre to be able to play a corresponding title, without necessarily have the certainty that it will be broadcast during your playing session. That said, if the economic model is balanced enough, the fact that you cannot acquire a piece is frankly deplorable, which will cost precious points to Guitar Hero Live.
A LIFE FULL OF PROMISE
Beyond these considerations, it must be recognized that the GH TV system works particularly well and that it quickly becomes addictive. This propensity to return there again and again should also be confirmed if Activision keeps its promise of regularly adding new content in clips and artists. The set should also go through GH Premium content which, for the hour for 3 tokens or a certain amount of Hero Points, allows you to access content not currently listed in the catalog and you granting in the event of correct performance small bonuses of relatively insignificant coins or options for personalizing your profile. It is therefore a safe bet that new songs will first appear in this form before joining the free distribution channels.The notes
+ Positive points
The new controller offering excellent sensations
Live concerts, nice, fun, but funny
The Guitar Hero TV, a real good idea, addictive to perfection
Huge and varied GH TV tracklist (200 songs at the moment)
Remuneration in parts and recurrent experience
Real money not essential for the patient player ...
Negative points
... significantly less for the most relentless
Can't definitely buy a song
Career mode that is frankly dispensable
Less user-friendly in multi than the competition
Compensation conditions in rather vague currency
If you want to discover rhythm games in a new light, it's hard not to recommend (warmly) Guitar Hero Live which boldly reinvents the approach we have to the genre. With its 6-fret controller offering excellent sensations and its frankly addictive Guitar Hero TV offering 200 songs and which should grow steadily, that is to say that long hours of music are already available to you. However, we will deplore the fact that no matter how much money you spend on the TV catalog, you will never get a piece for good. If the occasional and even regular player will not have to go to the cashier to play regularly and without ever restricting himself, the most eager players wishing to turn everything into an expert have a good chance of swapping their patience for hard cash. . Anyway, know that during our long playing sessions, nothing came to tarnish our enthusiasm to practice the title, without restricting ourselves to spending chips to play our favorite songs. We bet that it will be the same in the very long term.
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