Review: Guitar Hero: Greatest Hits (360)

The game plays exactly the same as all the others in the series. A grid representing a guitar fretboard with coloured notes scrolls down the screen. The more consecutive notes you hit, the higher your multiplier and bigger your score is. Harder difficulty levels introduce more and more notes, and Greatest Hits also contains the new "expert plus" difficulty level which adds in a second bass drum pedal. While the basic gameplay formula is solid and perfectly fine, it has been noticeably different ever since the departure of Harmonix after Guitar Hero 2 when Neversoft (of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater fame) took over the reigns. There's just something odd about the way the notes are charted at times and, whether that was an intentional gameplay design feature or not, it often makes playing more difficult than it should. It can often feel imprecise and inaccurate when compared to Rock Band. Of course, these types of games are at their best when playing local multiplayer and Greatest Hits is no different. Getting together as a band with a group of friends and working your way through the setlist is still one of the best multiplayer experiences around.

The career mode will be familiar to fans of the series. It's once again presented as a story in which a fictional band is convinced to get back together to play at concerts based around the wonders of the world. You create a character and new clothes and accessories are also unlocked as you progress through the setlist. The songs are grouped into different tiers depending on their difficulty from easiest to hardest. You are awarded up to five stars based on your performance when you complete a song, and you can progress onto the next tier once you reach a specific amount of total stars in each section. One nice touch is that all the songs are unlocked from the start in the quick play mode, which is something that should really be a standard in any music game.

The overall presentation of the Guitar Hero games seems to be gradually getting worse with every game, and here is no different. The menu interface, while not confusing, just looks like a complete mess. The characters animation is stiff and the character creation itself is pretty mediocre somewhat lacking in features - it''s almost impossible to make a rocker without a massive lantern jaw. One of the major gripes with the presentation is with the actual fretboard and notes during songs. It can often become cluttered and confusing, especially when star-power notes begin appearing, and some of the selectable fretboard patterns just end up making things more awkward than they need to be. The visuals do have their moments though, the animated cartoon cutscenes fit with the style of the game, and the set designs of the wonders of the world are particularly inspired.

The problem with producing a greatest hits package is that you can't please everyone when it comes to the song choice - peoples opinions on the songs are entirely subjective. The vast majority of the songs have been taken from the first two Guitar Hero games as a move to let Wii and PS3 owners play songs they missed out on. All of the 40+ songs are master recordings, which is an obvious improvement over the cover versions from previous games. It must be noted that, as a result of this, many of the note charts have changed from what they were previously. Many of the big hitters that you would expect are present such as Iron Maiden, Ozzy Osbourne and Queens of the Stone Age. There is certainly a broad selection of styles, but with perhaps a few cult favourites noticeably absent. Unfortunately the game doesn't support any of the DLC at all, which is a glaring omission. However, it does contain the same "GHTunes " feature from World Tour which allows for custom songs (minus vocals) to be created, shared and downloaded amongst the community. While this is a welcome addition, it sadly hasn't taken off as well as many hope it would and remains slightly underwhelming

Never one to miss the opportunity to milk a franchise, Activision seem intent on bleeding Guitar Hero fans dry. As well as the next main entry in the series this year, we have seen the release of the Aerosmith and Metallica spin-offs - then there is the impending release a Van Halen edition towards the end of the year. The songs and venues in Greatest Hits could have easily just been made available as DLC but why do that when you can release it as a full-price retail game?

While not a bad game, Guitar Hero: Greatest Hits just feels like an easy cash-in among the other music games flooding the market. While the introduction of new instruments to play in old songs is tempting, it's ultimately an unnecessary package in these days of downloadable content. If you are a fan of the series then you probably own it already. If not, then there are certainly better options out there.

Rating: 6 / 10

Words by Matthew Francis