Guitar Hero Live Reviews
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.
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.
The Guitar Hero for people who got bored of Guitar Hero
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!
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!
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 takes the plastic instrument genre of music rhythm games and modernizes it in a way that feels appropriate of next generation consoles.
A smartly redesigned controller and addictive song streaming makes Guitar Hero Live a largely enjoyable music game.
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.
Guitar Hero Live überzeugt mit der neuen Hardware und doch großteils mit einer sehr guten Tracklist. Die längst notwendigen Innovationen für die Serie, verblassen leider wegen teilweise schlecht gewählten Tracks und dem Free-to-play Ansätzen im Online Modus. Auch im Live Modus konnte die Crowd und die fiktive Band wenig begeistern und lässt uns eher auf einen Nachfolger mit deutlichen Verbesserungen hoffen.
Review in German | Read full review
An exciting new take on the genre hamstrung by a frustrating interaction model for getting and playing the songs you want
FreeStyleGames might have done something smart by redesigning the old Guitar Hero controller, and I like playing with their new version better then my old guitar. But Activision might have done something stupid by requiring consumers to buy new hardware if they want to play.
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 great evolution to the controller, but lacks the fun of the originals.
Guitar Hero Live introduces some really interesting ideas to the stagnant plastic-guitar genre, but the completely baffling refusal to offer piecemeal track/album/pack purchases and a reliance on a free-to-play model with, at best, rentals of songs brings it all to a screeching halt. Rock Band 4 might be more of the same, but it's the same functional, music-filled game we fell in love with. The gutted Guitar Hero Live, on the other hand, is considerably less of the same.
A spirited attempt to reinvent Guitar Hero and the music game genre, but the freemium approach to additional content has its obvious drawbacks.
Tracks are banging, the peripheral's bold and performing feels brilliant, but TV mode is a bust, making you rent songs rather than own them outright.
Though Guitar Hero Live is rough around the corners and may not convince casual Guitar Hero players to return to their guitar-shredding ways, it sets a new standard in technology for peripherals, presentation, and online connectivity.
Rhythm franchise reboot completely reimagines the music game concept, including a tricky new guitar controller