Customer Reviews

Band Hero featuring Taylor Swift - Stand Alone Software

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Though Band Hero is similar to Guitar Hero 5 in term of gameplay, it still had a lot to offer. Guitar Hero 5 is said to be "extremely diverse" that players will find that there are songs that they like and there are also songs that they will never even touch. Band Hero done a great job in making the songs to be more specific to pop-oriented tracks.

In my opinion, the game is great in bringing family and friends together. There are a lot of more familiar songs to everyone like Love Story by Taylor Swift, She Will Be Loved by Maroon 5, Beautiful Soul by Jesse McCartney and more. The guitar and drum notes are relatively easy compared to Guitar Hero, so it will be more accessible to everyone especially beginners and not-so-hardcore gamers. The Sing-Along feature is a great addition to make the game more karaoke-like as multiple player can sing simultaneously on one song.

To conclude, you can enjoy this game at it fullest when you bring along your family and friends to play. It is more easy and the songs are more specific and mostly well-known to all. If you are a Guitar Hero expert wanting for challenge, then this is game is certainly not for you. I am giving 5 stars because I can finally enjoy my favorite game with my friends.

Edited 06:20 PM 12/12/09

Pros
- A good game for beginners and those who want to have fun together
- Sing-along karaoke mode is great for party
- Many known pop songs
- You still can transfer songs from other Guitar Hero games (DLC, World Tour, Smash Hits and 5) and vice-versa
- Party play is a blast

Cons
- For experienced Guitar Hero players, this game will be too easy
- It is basically the same as Guitar Hero 5
- May not be suitable for every Guitar Hero hardcore

****in general*****

Band Hero: Featuring Taylor swift is Guitar Hero's answer to the "Rock Band" series. It is highly entertaining and fun with a lot of song choices that's bound to please almost anyone from easy listening to punk/indie to rock. From eras of the 60's to current(early 2010ish, of course, if you read this review 10 years from now, it won't be current anymore. LOL). The game play is fun and addicting and works with the "Rock Band" instruments (guitar and drums and microphone). Replay value is high and has a Karaoke function that is very cool for younger kids that love to sing.

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***in detail***

1) Game Play:

Band Hero is a branch out from the "Guitar Hero" franchise to include more of a "band" play vs. just a few guitars strumming. If anyone has played the drums on other Band Hero or Rock Band games they would probably agree that THAT is the instrument that everyone covets. The game play on Band Hero is very smooth and easy to learn especially if one is already experienced with the other Guitar Hero/Rock Band games.

The Guitar chords are nice, the drum buttons work well. If I do have to complain about one thing, that is the bass bar on the drums are almost invisible and can be missed if one is not paying attention to it. And when compared to the Rock Band drum bass bar, the Band Hero drum bass bar is a lot less noticeable.

The Guitar part, we prefer the Band Hero Guitar play over Rock Bands much more.

At our age and level, we are comfortable at a medium level in Band Hero and sometimes will try the Hard or even expert levels (My wife and I are in our late 40's to 50's). The medium level in Rock Band is pretty "easy" but when we would switch to "hard" in Rock Band, it becomes really hard...there doesn't seem to be a "medium" level in Rock Band and their easy is almost kindergarten like(not to insulat any kindergarteners out there. LOL).

The Microphone control is pretty good and on par.

We also enjoy creating our own bands and that is a nice option to have.

We haven't tried importing other games yet.

we enjoyed the Karaoke in the game play.

There are also a couple of interesting things in Band Hero that we really liked.

in earlier Guitar Hero and Rock Band series. The singers and the band players would pretty much do the same things over and over again no matter what song was sang. In Band Hero, each song was given individual vocals as well as synchronization of the lip movements to the music as well as more unique band members playing with their instruments. While this is NOT a big deal, if one has played Rock Band: Beatles(which we also own). Seeing the Beatles using the same video over and over again with the different songs made us felt a bit "ripped off" as we thought that for the money we'd paid, we'd liked to see them do more with the Fab Four's videos/graphics to make us feel more like we ARE the Beatles.

The other improvement of Band Hero is the ability to earn synchronization of the "Band Moment". Sure, it is just a game, but if we don't work together, it still don't sound "good" and it is fun to get those "band moments" and work as a team. When we would play some of our friends sometimes. Some of them would just hit buttons without really trying. While we understand that there is no pressure, it also made us feel like that they weren't having as much fun as we were because we were trying really hard to sync the buttons and the chords..

the overall game play of Band Hero is top notch when we compare it to eariler versions of Guitar Hero and Rock Band that we own...

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2) Song Choices:

The earlier Guitar Hero games are more alternative/hard rock thus using more guitar chords and beats...let's face it, it wouldn't be too much fun to play guitar chords to say, "We've Only Just Begun" by the Carpenters. It would simply be too soft and boring to play. To play "GUITAR HERO" the stress on the "Guitar" play is utmost important. And most indie rocks/alternative rocks/hard rocks fit that bill for great Guitar fun.

We love the Beatles and we enjoyed the Beatles Rock Band, but the game play can get a bit boring after a couple of songs as the Beatles, while their songs are great, are known more for their harmonius, smooth sounds than their guitar playing abilities...

in Playing Band Hero, we wondered if the guitar play would become less fun. Surprisingly, it wasn't..it is still great fun and there were actually some songs that surprised us at how difficult and challenging the songs were.

So, the song choices were really good for this game. It isn't just more alternative rock or hard rock anymore but a nice selection of the 60's-current, and smooth and easy American Pie (our least favorite) to the fast and fun "Dirty Little Secrets"; the funky 70's "YMCA" to the odd and weird 80's such as "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me" or "Rio"; from classic favorties such as "Mr. Roboto" and "every Rose Has Its Thorn" to Taylor Swift's new generations country Rock of "You Belong To Me" and "Love Story".

This Band Hero seems to offer something for everyone...

a hard core Guitar Hero fan will probably raise their eyebrows at the choice of songs. But let me just say that my brother, who almost listens to heavy metal and alternative rocks exclusively, enjoyed playing this game with us. There are songs in this game to please everyone during a family gathering or event. Probably not for someone who is addicted to getting GOOD or GREAT at Guitar Hero games. But we are not die hard fans of the game. We just like to play it for fun and med range challenge. We never thought about getting to the expert level or wanting to form our own bands...we just love living a little bit of our youthful dreams, to join a band, and play the guitar or drum, and sing a little tune, even off key...and in the meantime, sharing good times and laughter with friends and family...

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Overall, we highly recommend this game for anyone who enjoys a good time, always wanted to play guitar but probably never will(but might get inspired to), want to sing some songs and smile and laugh, and live some of those fantasy of joining a band and live the life of a rocker...

We own Guitar Hero World Tour which was pretty fun and Guitar Hero 5 Which I didn't care for but Band Hero is the best in my opinion. My family knows and likes most of the songs in Band Hero and we like the popular pop songs instead of a bunch of songs that you have never heard of like on Guitar Hero 5. We also like the new characters like Taylor Swift and Adam Levine from Maroon 5. This game is just a blast to play with a group of people.

I got this game mainly to add more songs for my family and I to play using the guitar hero world tour band set that we have and I was pretty impressed with how fun it is. I have all the guitar hero games from 1 up to 5 and this is definitely one of the easiest ones, so if you are looking for a challenge you might want to reconsider. There are also a lot of goofy songs on the game, but the majority of it is modern (from the 90's and 2000's) and there are none of the metal songs or classic rock that you see in the other games. With all that said, the graphics are great and sounds quality is great. It follows an almost identical set-up to guitar hero 5 and allows you to import a big collection of the songs from gh5 and ghwt for a few dollars each. This game is perfect for people with kids or that just want to play more guitar hero. Because of my personal taste in music, I prefer it to gh5, but I think that the set-list will either make or break the game for most people (make sure and google it).

The gameplay for Band Hero is at least as good as Guitar Hero 5 and it's nice to have songs that are more kid-friendly (there is an option to temporarily hide downloadable content and content from previous versions, too). Guitar Hero's main problem now that there is substantially more music that transfers from one game to the next is that with hundreds of songs they need to look at sorting and listing options like Rock Band currently uses. Because of the difficulty in navigating through the playlist, I only give 4 stars.

This is for all practical purposes another guitar hero game, except it is more pop oriented. So why should someone look at this vs guitar hero 5 or world tour. This offers the advantage of party play like GH5, but also during the tour mode has some specific challenges that require you to do specific things, like sing for a microphone sponsor ect... The characters have the same names, but are polished and slick, like Dawson's creek folks. The songs are family friendly and come from all eras of pop classics. I am fairly impressed with the selection, even though the "featured" artist is taylor swift, even though my preffered genre is metal. Overall, well worth purchasing, and I would recommend it over GH5.

This game looks like its got a lot of good songs

I got two other rock band games so I found this one to play with my friends as well

I dont remember now, but there was like 50 songs, i think. Good bands, but just 2 - 3 well known songs. Why they dont choose the best songs? I dont know... but that makes this game a "just ok"...

We love this game, the songs are so much fun and we love actually being able to sing along! Some of the other games have songs that aren't as familiar so that is what made us decide on this game. The graphics are great and the music is fun, even with company of all ages!

I like this game the songs are girlie but is good to play, you can have alot of hour of fun playing this game