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Guitar Hero

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Guitar Hero is a music video game for the Playstation 2. The game features a guitar-shaped peripheral (resembling a miniature Gibson SG) as a primary controller to simulate the playing of an electric guitar.

It was developed by Harmonix Music Systems and published by RedOctane, and was released on November 8, 2005 in North America. It is similar to Konami's Guitar Freaks, though Guitar Hero looks and plays somewhat differently, and its controller has five buttons to Guitar Freaks' three.

Guitar Hero has won many awards from most major video game publications; numerous websites and magazines named the title "Music (or Puzzle/Rhythm) Game of the Year", and IGN, GameSpot, and X-Play named it as a runner-up for overall "Game of the Year". [link] [link] Also, EGM magazine placed Guitar Hero as 196th on their The Greatest 200 Videogames of Their Time list.

Contents

Features

The game features 47 playable songs with licensed tracks from bands including Black Sabbath, Motörhead, Red Hot Chili Peppers, ZZ Top, Franz Ferdinand, Queen, Pantera, Sum 41, Megadeth, The Ramones, David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix, and Cream. However, 29 of these tracks are covers of the originals, one is the actual song (Black Label Society's Fire it Up) with the remaining 16 being indie songs as of game release. One of these Indie bands, Drist is scheduled to appear in Guitar Hero II with their song "Arterial Black".

Gameplay

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Guitar Hero is played using the included guitar controller, although a standard PlayStation 2 DualShock controller may be substituted. In addition to the standard start and select buttons, the guitar controller has five colored "fret buttons" on its neck (green, red, yellow, blue, and orange in descending order), a "strum bar," and a whammy bar. Each song is presented on a set of five columns that scroll relentlessly towards the player. The five columns correspond to the five fret buttons and appropriately colored notes appear in these columns. To play a note, the player must hold the correct fret button and press the strum bar. If the player misses a note by strumming early or late or not at all, a three-stage "Rock Meter" will decrease. The Rock Meter is an indication of how well the player is performing and the crowd's general opinion of the set. The meter's stages are colored red, yellow, and green, in order of ascending success. If the meter goes too far into the red, it will begin to blink red as a means of warning. If the meter is totally depleted, the player will fail the song. The meter can be restored little by little by playing notes correctly.

It is worth noting that the musical system is much more interactive than other music games due to its practical concept that notes missed by the player will not be heard in the song. This concept not only gives the player the feeling that he/she is actually playing the song, but it also motivates them to play better in order to hear the song in its entirety.

There are several variations on this concept. Long notes require an initial strum followed by a continued depression of the fret button as long as the note lasts. Chords involve pressing two fret buttons at a time. Additionally, Guitar Hero supports common guitar concepts such as the hammer-on and the pull-off.

An additional feature is Star Power. Star Power is activated by tilting the guitar controller upward, or by pressing the select button. Star Power is accumulated from either successfully playing sequences of special Star Notes or using the whammy bar on long Star Notes. Playing a Star Note sequence correctly will reward the player with a 25% Star Power bonus. If even one note is missed in these sequences, the remaining notes in the sequence will revert to regular notes and the player will not get a Star Power bonus. If a Star Note is a long note, the player can use the whammy bar to extract Star Power from it. However, the player must constantly move the bar to get a bonus, and cannot simply hold it down. The primary use of Star Power is to temporarily double the points each note is worth, but because it restores roughly triple the normal amount recovered on the Rock Meter with each correctly played note during its duration, it can also be used to tackle especially difficult sections of a song to avoid failure, giving Star Power a unique strategic element.

Guitar Hero has four difficulty modes. In easy mode, only the first three fret buttons (green, red, yellow) are used. Medium introduces the blue fret button and hard modes introduce the orange button respectively. Furthermore, higher difficulty levels often introduce a faster scroll and more notes to hit. Expert mode does not introduce any new buttons, but the difficulty and speed of the songs is increased substantially to the point where you are playing every note in the song, albeit with five buttons.

The game has three modes of play: Career mode, Quick Play, and Multiplayer.

In Career mode, the player chooses a difficulty level and unlocks the next set of five songs (see Song List) by completing anywhere from four to five songs in the current set. Reaching these sets on any difficulty unlocks them in quick play mode. As career mode continues, new venues are unlocked and the player receives in-game cash to purchase bonus content (characters, behind-the-scenes videos, guitars, etc).

Quick Play allows the player to select arbitrary songs to play that they have unlocked or bought in career mode. A list of high scores is kept for each song. The four levels of Career mode and of Quick Play each have their own separate high score lists.

Multiplayer is split-screen. In a "dueling guitars" fashion, two players tackle segments of the selected song. Unlike other modes, it is not possible to fail a song in multiplayer, but scoring dictates that one player will generally win.

Scoring

50 points are rewarded for every note hit. Chords count as two notes. Each time that 10 consecutive notes are successfully played, the point multiplier increases by one and the points each note is worth is multiplied by that number, up to a maximum four times the base amount (e.g. after 10 consecutive notes are played, a single note is 100(x2) points, a chord is 200(x2) points). If a note is missed, any active multipliers reset back to x1. Star Power allows the player to temporarily double the score on every note, effectively turning a x4 multiplier into a x8 for its duration. If no multipliers are in effect when the player uses Star Power, a x2 multiplier is granted for Star Power's duration.

The final score, along with overall accuracy percentage and longest note streak, are reported at the end of a song. It is not uncommon for a song to contain 400-600 notes or more.

Song list

All tracks except bonus tracks are credited on screen with the phrase "as made famous by": for example, "I Wanna Be Sedated, as made famous by The Ramones". The odd phrasing was used because the actual songs could not be used in the game, and the songs had to be "re-recorded" by working musicians, some of which work for RedOctane themselves. Thus, the tracks in the game are not "by" said artist, but "made famous by" said artist and re-recorded for licensing and programming reasons.

1. Opening Licks

2. Axe-Grinders

3. Thrash And Burn

4. Return of the Shred

5. Fret-Burners

6. Face-Melters

Bonus Tracks

Unused songs

Two unused songs have been found on the game disc, "*Trippolette" and "Graveyard Shift."

"*Trippolette" is also known as "Adv Harmony," is by Andrew Buch, and is unlockable using any Playstation 2 cheat device. Codes can be found at [link].

"Graveyard Shift" is the other secret song in the game, and likewise can also be unlocked using a Playstation 2 cheat device. Codes can be found at [forum.guitarherogame.com]

Characters

In the game there are 8 characters, each with his or her own style. While the first six can be used at any time, the last two have to be purchased from the unlock shop.

Clive Winston-

Xavier Stone- Johnny Napalm- Judy Nails Axel Steel Pandora

Secret Characters

Izzy Sparks

Grim Ripper

Guitar Hero II

Main article: Guitar Hero II
On April 17 2006, RedOctane confirmed that Guitar Hero II would arrive in stores on the PlayStation 2 this November. The sequel will include 55 (40 of them being licensed, 15 being independent or bonus) as yet unannounced tracks, as well as a new multiplayer co-op mode that will let players collaborate by playing lead, rhythm, or bass guitar parts together. [link]

On May 4 2006 an article was posted on IGN [link] listing eight confirmed tracks for the sequel:

External links

 

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