Guitar Hero Live Hands-On Preview

Like a lot of people, I was surprised to hear that after such a spectacular fall from grace a few years back, the music game, in the form of Guitar Hero Live and Rock Band 4, would be storming a new generation of fans' living rooms this fall. And also like a lot of people, I couldn't really see myself getting as excited about a new music game or games as I once did; the plastic instruments have all but taken permanent residence in the game room closet and the clicks of the guitar strum bar haven't been heard around here in quite some time. While I can't speak for Rock Band 4, Guitar Hero Live is aiming straight those of us who feel like they've seen and played it all and, with a new guitar and a completely new take on the same old, same old.

During a hands-on event, I was able to play through a portion of the new game, both online and off. Of course, the thing most people want to know about is the new guitar controller. For the first time in franchise history, the guitar has been completely redesigned, replacing the familiar five colored buttons with a six-button panel at the neck of the controller. The buttons are arranged in two rows of three, meaning you'll no longer need to slide your hand up and down the neck to hit the green or orange note. You might think this makes the game easier, and you'd be wrong. Retraining your grip and hand placement is difficult at first (though someone who has never played a music game would probably be able to pick it up and go), but once you've got a feel for the buttons you'll see how much more complex the new controller makes the game. Combinations of different black and white notes, notes that require you to either strum without holding any buttons or holding two vertically matched buttons of different colors add up to an experience that retains the fun of the original controller while making the game more realistic and somehow more fun to just play.

The changes from Guitar Hero's of old don't stop there. Instead of choosing a cartoon rocker as your avatar, Guitar Hero Live takes a totally different route on what you see going on behind the note trails. Players will see dynamic shots of a massive concert crowd that reacts to how you are doing in the song. Screw up and the fans get pissed. Shred and they freak out. Seeing this in action is pretty awesome in offline single player mode, but what they did with Guitar Hero TV is even better ' you get to watch the actual music videos of the songs you play. I've always wondered why they didn't do this in the past, so I'm happy to see it here.

I mentioned Guitar Hero TV, and you're probably asking yourself 'What's that?' It is an ambitious mode that exists as half of the whole Guitar Hero Live experience (the other half being the classic offline modes), allowing players to hop in and out of whatever song is playing at the moment. In less confusing terms, it is a 24/7 MTV that lets you play Guitar Hero over the top of the videos. If you're old enough to remember the feeling of MTV finally playing the video you wanted to see, you'll be happy to know Guitar Hero TV stirs up all those same emotions to the nth degree.

I walked into the hands-on event with little intention of purchasing the game when it releases in October. I left the event and had already added it to my 'must buy' list; the new Guitar Hero game and controller are just that good. But it isn't all sunshine and roses. My main complaint with the build we were allowed to play was the track list. While it isn't Elite Beat Agents, in which every song is progressively worse than the last, I wasn't all that jazzed about any of the songs, really. For every song I saw, I either didn't know the band, didn't like the band, or said, 'Why is Carrie Underwood on here?' Obviously, DLC, a finished game and Guitar Hero TV will help add some decent tunes (here's hoping), but from what we were shown, the song list wasn't anything to write home about. Luckily, the gameplay is fun enough that you won't mind whatever indie group of whiners or angsty metalhead teenagers that you're being forced to listen to.

Aside from the track list, Guitar Hero Live is exactly what the music game genre needed. It keeps the main idea in place while dragging the series into the here and now. The new controller is a huge amount of fun to learn and master and Guitar Hero TV looks like it is going to be something really special. I can't wait to get my hands on the final product in October.