Guitar Hero Live Reviews
If it wasn't for some questionable design choices with the game's most important element, it could have been a flawless experience.
Guitar Hero Live adds some new ideas to the plastic instrument-driven music game genre, but it makes too many mistakes to overlook.
Embarrassing acting, questionable songs choices, and unwelcome microtransactions spoil the biggest mechanical improvement to music gaming in years.
Guitar Hero Live was a decent attempt at rebooting the franchise, at first I was impressed with how everything was going. I was impressed early with how the guitar was and how the gameplay felt with the new guitar, but sadly as the game went on I started to notice things that dragged the game down. No practise mode being a huge miss for a game with a totally new control scheme, a freemium mode that is 50% of the game, and a pretty lazy career mode. They are on to something with the new ideas, but overall the game is just lacking in what it needs to make it a perfect reboot for this franchise.
I dunno, in the end it feels like Guitar Hero Live is a job, and not the party the previous games were.
Guitar Hero Live tries to rekindle and re-imagine itself on next gen consoles, but early issues with GHTV failing to save data and the stale approach to background environments results in a once unique charm being usurped by chasing a realistic experience.
Guitar Hero Live's microtransactions aren't necessarily as bad as certain sections of the gaming community would have you believe and the new controller presents a fresh new challenge that Guitar Hero veterans will be hungry to take on. The offline GH Live mode is very cool, albeit short-lived, even if the on-disc track selection is lacklustre, but the real meat in the pie is GHTV. It isn't as fully-featured as we'd have expected it to be off the bat, but being able to jump in and spin through a selection from the 200+ tracks (with lots more to come, we're told) for an hour while earning rewards and upgrades is pure addiction.
Guitar Hero Live takes some chances and is a better game for it. The campaign and local multiplayer offerings are pretty weak, but GHTV's rotating channels are addictive. It's a shame the game's extra songs aren't available as DLC.
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 lot of the issues with GHTV is that it is confusing to understand how it works within the game. Players are used to just buying songs a la carte. The new six button setup will also throw players for a loop. Again, I totally respect the new direction, but the familiar tones of its competitor really draw me to prefer that offering. Plus I can play what songs I want, when I want. I will be interested to see how this game evolves over time, and I hope like Harmonix, they intend it just to be a platform. I don't want to see Guitar Hero Live 2 next year. As it stands though, this is one purchase I am finding a hard time recommending to those that already bought into Rock Band's ecosystem.
The changes made to Guitar Hero: Live go a long way in giving the series its own unique identity, but at the cost of making the game less fun to play than its competitors. An innovative post release content delivery system of streaming music elevates what's otherwise an average and expensive rhythm 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.
Rhythm franchise reboot completely reimagines the music game concept, including a tricky new guitar controller
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.
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.
A spirited attempt to reinvent Guitar Hero and the music game genre, but the freemium approach to additional content has its obvious drawbacks.
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 great evolution to the controller, but lacks the fun of the originals.
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.
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.