Guitar Hero Live Reviews
Guitar Hero Live's lavish reboot feels like a solid foundation, but it falls just short of feeling like the finished article just yet.
Guitar Hero Live's new guitar helps bring something fresh to the genre, and offers a new challenge for both beginners and veterans alike. GH Live is fun, though a little cheesy, but it's in GHTV where the game's most interesting aspect is found. If this continues to be built out as Activision has promised, it should deliver long-term appeal - and a great way to discover new music.
[T]his reboot captures the score-chasing and self-improvement of the early Guitar Hero games and puts them into a thoroughly modern spin. The commitment to its ideas makes Live a confident, bold and stylish game. History will tell if the decisions it has made are the right ones, but for now, Freestyle has started down an exciting new path for the genre.
All of Guitar Hero Live's numerous changes result in a mixed bag of a revival, but one that rhythm game fans should still try out.
A smartly redesigned controller and addictive song streaming makes Guitar Hero Live a largely enjoyable music game.
Guitar Hero Live surpasses Rock Band 4 in terms of track list and replayability, but sadly lacks the party appeal that Harmonix's latest provides. Though Guitar Hero TV is an excellent addition to the series that really makes the game, the microtransactions ruin it for us. There's no kidding that Guitar Hero Live is a very fun game, it just feels like it cares more about the money than it does about the fans.
After seeing what Freestyle Games has done, Rock Band's enormous library, and the promise of making it available across releases feels like a crutch by comparison, tying that franchise to its established model. I'll still hop back to Rock Band to play drums, but right now, Guitar Hero Live is where you'll find me clanking away, waiting for the next time I get to perform Ida Maria's "I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked."
Guitar Hero Live rejuvenates a tired franchise from top to bottom, making broad changes to its gameplay and presentation that largely work for the better.
If it wasn't for some questionable design choices with the game's most important element, it could have been a flawless experience.
I dunno, in the end it feels like Guitar Hero Live is a job, and not the party the previous games were.
A brave and successful reinvention. Guitar Hero lives!
The most impressive thing to me about Guitar Hero Live is the way the developers have breathed new life into a series that became notorious for doing the same thing over and over again. Guitar Hero Live manages to recapture that essence of playing a beloved instrument, crafting a familiar experience. However, by taking a handful of chances, the series feels different enough to want to invest in it again.
Guitar Hero Live brings Activision's former fan-favorite franchise back to the fold in new and impressive ways.
GHTV is a game-changer, pure and simple. With an already sizeable library that's set to grow further, it's a title that pretty much demands repeated play. All it needs now is 'Freebird' adding to the set list and it will be perfect… Rock on!
In theory it sounds terrible, but Guitar Hero: Live's approximation of old-school music TV programming, coupled with the excellent hardware, makes it a winner.
Even with the disappointing Live mode, Guitar Hero Live is a refreshing take on controller-based rhythm games. The streaming focus in GHTV works extremely well despite some technical hiccups, and as long Activision keeps rolling out new songs to the library, this is the kind of game I'll be regularly playing for a long time. This is a fantastic start to a new era of Guitar Hero games.
Guitar Hero Live ushers in a new era for the music game genre. It's bold, innovative, but it won't be a hit with everyone.
If skill challenge is your motivation, Guitar Hero Live will demand much more of you by default. If you're looking for a party game consider the regulars on your guest list and their level of frustration tolerance.
This is definitely a game you need to own if you enjoyed the previous Guitar Hero games, the new layout is really player friendly and easier to get used to than you'd think. Guitar Hero Live is cheesy but a good offline experience whereas GHTV is super addictive and you'll find yourself just playing through songs thinking to yourself "Oh yeah I've totally heard this one before" unless you already know the song and are already singing along to it."
It's good to have this franchise back and Guitar Hero Live successfully tweaks the gameplay by giving gamers a more fulfilling experience that is closer to playing a real guitar then the previous last-gen console versions. More importantly, the guitar works well and if you're familiar with the previous game, you will need to re-learn the mechanics again but once you put the time and effort into this, you'll soon become a rock god. The only slight gripe I have with this release is the campaign mode is a little cheesy but thankfully the streaming "TV" mode which boasts some awesome music plus video clips really puts some unpredictability into the game and more than makes up for this clichéd oversight.