Shortly after Harmonix announced Rock Band would be making a return with Rock Band 4, Activision announced that Guitar Hero would be getting a reboot as well with Guitar Hero LIVE hitting PC, Xbox One, and PS4 in October 2015. We got to go hands on with the new title at E3 and we walked away incredibly impressed with what Activision have done with the title.
Developed by FreeStyleGames, Guitar Hero LIVE is a complete reinvention of the hit series. While Harmonix opted to keep the same core experience for Rock Band 4 with 5 colored gems scrolling across the screen in the usual pattern, Guitar Hero LIVE turned the music/rhythm genre on its head by completely re-inventing their guitar and gem system. The new guitar controller features three black and three white buttons along the top and bottom of the guitar’s neck. You use these buttons in combination with the notes displayed on screen to play the song(s) of your choice.
With the reinvention of the guitar, I was worried that it would ruin the experience that I had come to love over the past 5 titles. I am pleased to report that this was not the case at all. In fact, I enjoyed this version of Guitar Hero more than I have any other title before it.
The new guitar and the way they structure the notes is more like a “real” guitar than ever before, with the ability to add shapes and notes like power and bar chords would be on an actual guitar. The new frets did take some time to get used to, but once I got the hang of it, I was flying down the music note highway with ease and rocking out with the best of them.
The guitar and note highway was not the only thing FreeStyleGames changed for Guitar Hero this time around, the entire game got a huge visual overhaul as well. Instead of playing with CGI characters and watching the band play along in the background, Guitar Hero LIVE puts you in the shoes of a guitar player of a real rock band. Using pre-recorded footage of both a band and audience reactions, the game is incredibly dynamic. If you’re doing well, your band mates and the crowd are cheering and praising you, with the roar of the crowd almost deafening at times. When you do poorly, however, the crowd boos you and throws items like food and beer cans at you, while your band mates try to get you back on track.
The other newest feature I got to test out was Guitar Hero TV, Activision's answer to DLC and other music content. Guitar Hero TV is a 24 hour music “channel” that will have hundreds of songs you can play through in varying categories and styles on launch. Navigating the menu is incredibly simple; you choose the playlist or style of music you want to play and within seconds, you’re playing a song at the push of a button. Not liking what you’re playing? Want to change up the style of music or change the song? Simply press the menu button built into the guitar controller and choose a new playlist, style, or song, and you’re off. There are no loading screens to go through, no complicated menus, and no loading screens. Its all seamlessly integrated together and it blew me away. I went from playing Los Lonely Boys to Green Day in seconds flat.
The best part of the whole experience was the reveal of the pricing model for Guitar Hero LIVE. $99 gets you the Guitar Hero controller plus the full game which includes the LIVE portion of the game as well as all of the Guitar Hero TV content including all songs, playlists, and modes of GH TV for one price. There is no DLC to buy or anything to unlock behind a paywall. It’s an incredibly impressive business model and one that shocked me when I first heard about it.
Guitar Hero LIVE launches on October 20th, 2015 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, Wii U, Xbox 360, iOS. We will have more Guitar Hero news as we get it in the coming months before launch.