Guitar Hero Live Reviews
You just need to buy the game and the streaming library is at your fingertips. But they've also added the offline Live mode, and gone above and beyond in creating an extremely unique way to live out your rockstar fantasies. Add in the brilliant new game mechanics that come from the reconfigured guitar controller, and combining our old love of rhythm games with the modern way we consume music, and Guitar Hero Live is the worthwhile reunion of an old favorite that we've all been waiting for.
Gil Scott-Heron had it wrong, at least when it came to music: The revolution most certainly will be televised.
Guitar Hero Live adds some new ideas to the plastic instrument-driven music game genre, but it makes too many mistakes to overlook.
The return of Guitar Hero is a very welcome renovation of the series. Guitar Hero Live and its new television-like mode are a great help to the feeling of immersion and the design of the new guitar are great additions to a formula which was getting saturated. While the multiplayer mode could be more ambitious, Guitar Hero Live is a very recommended title for fans of music games.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
After years of incremental to non-existent progress that led to the scuttling of the franchise, Guitar Hero Live resurrects the series with new controls and a new look to boot. Yes, you'll want to slap your cheesy bandmates sometimes — perhaps even a lot. Folks used to the old controls might also find the new button layout maddening while content gating can be a bummer. The added interaction combined with some new fun modes, however, make this a promising reboot for the franchise.
Guitar Hero Live is quite fun.
As long as they're running and updating Guitar Hero TV, I'll carve out time for this game. It may not be the party machine that Rock Band 4 is, but it offers something no other game, and really, no other TV station, currently does: a powerful combo of play, nostalgia and discovery. I mean, I'd never buy a Darwin Deez record, but I'm glad I've seen that video, you know?
Guitar Hero Live is maybe a change too far for the Guitar Hero revival. It's two facets, Guitar Hero Live and Guitar Hero TV, are wonderfully crafted and superbly engaging, but the fun factor seems to have been zapped from it somewhat. Maybe it's a little too serious, maybe it's hard to accept change, but that spark that we felt when we played Guitar Hero II for the first time… it's just not there.
A bold experiment that pays off, Guitar Hero Live moves in a new direction that's vibrant, exciting and contemporary.
While there's still trepidation due the fact that much of its appeal rests on unproven promises and its currency system is needlessly complicated, the idea of new songs being added on a weekly basis could render Guitar Hero Live into a persistent experience for rhythm and music lovers alike. Time will ultimately tell how Guitar Hero Live shapes up, but it's alluring enough to once again raise your plastic axe to the sky and rejoin the virtual rock god army.
Guitar Hero Live is a wonderful evolution of the music genre. Everything from presentation, to mechanics, to the new controller was an advancement for the better. Whether or not this picks up steam with the gaming crowd is left to be seen, but the effort on both FreeStyle Games and Activision is apparent.
A great evolution to the controller, but lacks the fun of the originals.
If it wasn't for some questionable design choices with the game's most important element, it could have been a flawless experience.
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.
Though I was a bit disappointed by the Guitar Hero Live portion of the game, Guitar Hero TV is onto something special with a lot of potential longevity. I've scored the full game just under a "must buy" because players who mostly enjoy a beefy single-player campaign will find it lacking. However, I encourage fans of Guitar Hero to check out this package for Guitar Hero TV. It's both a blast from the past days of music videos on television, and a step into the future of interactive entertainment. I'm looking forward to seeing where Activision and FreeStyle take GHTV in the future – things like a more formal vocal competition or user-curated channels are all possibilities for this new format. I'll be watching and waiting to strum along.
I dunno, in the end it feels like Guitar Hero Live is a job, and not the party the previous games were.
The Guitar Hero for people who got bored of Guitar Hero
It's been five years since we've had an effective Guitar Hero release to tell us that the series is relevant again – especially one that doesn't have Gene Simmons delivering a hammy performance on why we should care about rock gods.
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.
A brave and successful reinvention. Guitar Hero lives!