Customer Reviews

Guitar Hero 5 Stand Alone Software

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a great game, and deserves far more credit than it is getting. I own both Rock Band 1 and 2 for Wii as well, and LOVED both of those games far more than any previous entry in the Guitar Hero series. This newest iteration however, is really something special, ESPECIALLY if you play on Wii. Here are some great things about this game:

On ALL Consoles:
*Soundtrack: Several reviews have bashed the soundtrack for this game, and I really don't understand why. The song selection is GREAT. Granted, I imported all of the available songs from Guitar Hero: World Tour and Smash Hits, so maybe that improves the setlist... and I also have lots of downloadable songs. But, that said, the tracks on the disk are great. Please, before you take these reviews at face value, check out the track listing for this game... there are some really great songs. Granted, I honestly do like the Rock Band 2 track list better (but I have over 150 downloadable songs in Rock Band 2... and honestly, several songs that are on GH5 are also on Rock Band...)... so just check out the setlist for yourself before you judge this game!!!

*Party Play Mode - This is a REALLY great feature, and with some tweaking in future games, could be AMAZING. Essentially, as soon as the game starts up, rather than selecting a game mode, selecting a song, players, etc... you click one of the fret buttons and are launched directly into whatever song is playing in the background. You can select a rocker, etc... but are essentially launched directly into playing a song! If you don't like the song, you can opt to skip to the next or another song. The gameplay mechanic for Party Play mode is IDEAL for parties (DUH!). If you have ever had friends over to play Rock Band or Guitar Hero, you know what a pain it can be to actually get into playing.... everyone takes FOREVER choosing a song, which rocker they want to play as, etc.... this is a quick and easy way to get right into playing with your friends. They can drop in and out as they please (without affecting anyone else playing), so it is ideal for groups of friends. When one gets tired or wants to grab a beer, he can jump out, and someone else can take his place! Also, there is no fail in this mode, and there is even a BEGINNER difficulty (more on that later)...

*Beginner Difficulty - FINALLY! A mode where even a toddler can play! Literally! When you are playing in quick play, party play (and some of the other modes I would assume), there is a difficulty level even lower than Easy called Beginner. There are no fret colors to worry about... you simply strum at the right time. This is a really great feature. I have had some friends, as well as kids, that have a hard time grasping the concept of holding the correct fret button(s) and strumming simultaneously. Beginner mode is idiot proof! =) Yesterday, I was jamming along with a 4 year old!! And he actually won over the crowd to save me when I failed out on Expert Drums!!! This is a really nice added touch.

*Song Imports: You can import some (and eventually MOST) of the on-disk songs from Guitar Hero: World Tour and Guitar Hero:Smash Hits for next to nothing (cost me like $6 to import all of the songs). So, the day I brought GH:5 home I imported all of the available songs, and my library instantly grew to around 160 songs. This plus future dlc means this game is going to be a nice compliment to my already expansive Rock Band library!

Nintendo Wii-Specific features:

*Expanded SD Card functionality: Guitar Hero 5 is the first Wii game to make use of the expanded SD functionality added to Wii. What does that mean? With games like Rock Band 2, you were limited to only using standard SD cards (maximum size of 2GB) for storing downloadable songs. With this being the case, Rock Band (as well as Guitar Hero World Tour) lowered the quality of the downloadable songs and removed the album art to decrease the file size so as to maximize the number songs songs we could download. Starting with GH5 however, we can use high-capacity SD cards up to 32GB. Long story short: Guitar Hero 5 is the first game available on the Wii that takes advantage of these large sd cards, effectively adding a "hard drive" to the Wii. You no longer have to swap 2gb sd cards back and forth (before, I had one 2gb card for virtual console and wiiware games, and a separate 2gb sd card that stored rock band downloadable songs). The process is elegant and seamless.... and just plain works! THE ONLY complaint I have is that you can't preview songs that you have stored on the SD card... so when you are selecting a song to play, when you highlight songs that are on the disk, a brief preview plays. If the song is stored on your sd card, it doesn't preview. But, I can live with that, considering the fact that I can easily store 800+ downloadable songs on a single 32gb sd card now!!!

*Roadie Battle Mode - Long story short, this mode allows a friend that owns a Nintendo DS to act as your "roadie" and sabotage other players in this mode. I dont own a DS, but from what I have heard, this mode is FUN, and easily one of the best features of the game. Check it out!

This is a really great game, and I am glad that I didnt listen to all of the negative reviews (I almost passed on it!). I am a loyal Rock Band fan, but with Guitar Hero being the first music game on Wii to adopt the use of the high-capacity SD cards, as well as allowing the import of GH:WT and SH... AND giving away Guitar Hero: Van Halen (which has an AWESOME soundtrack!!!!!!!)...buying this game was a no-brainer. Great songs. Fun and well-done gameplay. Impressive party play and co-op features. If you own a Wii, you should own this game...period.

My review scores:
Gameplay: 10/10
Difficulty: Varied (Anyone from grandma to seasoned hardcore guitar hero veterans can get loads of value out of this game)
Presentation: 9/10
Lasting Value: 10/10
Overall: 9.5/10

Guitar Hero 5 Stand Alone Software song list is comprised of classic rock, heavy metal as well as some contemporary hits. I was disappointed with their previous release, Guitar Hero Smash Hits, the songs were compiled from previous GH games. Guitar Hero 5 to me is just is another disappointment. Sure there are some new features such as Party Play and Rockfest mode where you can play min-games against your friends, but I like playing the game for it's songs.

One good thing however is that all the songs are available to play from the beginning so no need to unlock any songs. Graphics are still pretty much the same with some new venues, but nothing to blow you out of your seat. Game play has a few changes which I believe makes it much more user-friendly. Star power is individual and the note buttons look a little bigger in single play mode. I do like how one player can pause their instrument and the game continues for the other players and how you can switch instruments and difficulties at any moment. Everyone can also chose to play the same instrument instead of fighting who plays what.

You can also import songs from both Guitar Hero World Tour and Smash Hits, that is if you don't already own them like I do, which then makes it a waste of your time. At least Acitvision is seeing the importance of the downloadable media library and I believe they will continue to improve on this. There were also changes made, but I guess I was expecting something "new" from Activision for Guitar Hero, but sadly this is just another GH game with a few little tweaks. You will be pleased with the new interface changes but if you enjoy playing the games for it's song list, you will be disappointed. Activision needs to find the "rock' roots Guitar Hero was first constructed of. Just like another review mentioned before, next time a new GH game comes out, I will have to be a little more picky before making an "impulse" purchase because it is a new GH game.

I'm only about a quarter thru the game so far, and I love it. The track listing is far superior to other games - they've pulled older (meaning early 2000s, 90s, 80s, etc.) songs that I actually recognize, which is a HUGE plus. Love the format and the new multi-player features.

The only complaint I have so far is that where you're at as far as star power is kind of hard to determine, but I'm sure I'll figure it out.

Me - I'm a 31-year old married woman that isn't a die-hard GH player - I have yet to get past Medium - but I have fun with it. But I do like this game, and think that others in a similar mindset will think the same.

I think this game is more refined than any of the other Guitar Hero versions I've ever played, however, the music is, as a rule, unknown and rather undesirable, at least by my tastes. There are maybe 10 songs that I like, and maybe a total of 20 that I recognize.

This game is fun, my girlfriend and I played it for a few hours, and we haven't touched it since. Meanwhile we are still playing Rockband 2 almost every weekend and I've owned that for most of a year.

GH5 has some good songs, there are some challenges which were lacking from GH Metallica and GH Van Halen and other games. It takes an hour or so to unlock all the songs and play all the venues, but longer for all the challenges. It has some of the same songs as RB2, but the notes are different so it's not boring, and I like how GH uses a lot of notes after a sustained note, that is much more realistic. I also much prefer the GH guitar over the RB2 guitar. At first the clicking of the strumming drove me nuts, but now I live by it and use that guitar in RB2. I also like how there are more hardness settings and the transition from one setting isn't as jarring, like it is in RB2 where Easy and Medium are complete cake and I could get 100%, but then Hard on some of the same songs would result in me failing after the first 30 second with maybe 6%.

However, there are some drawbacks. For starters, it's hard for me to tell which notes need to be strummed and and which do not as the notes look almost exactly the same and the graphics are a lot smaller that in RB2, and I have better that 20/20 vision. In fact, the graphics are so small that my girlfriend had to move the drum set much closer to the TV in order to see the notes coming. It's a 53" TV, by the way, expertly calibrated and converged, not some small, blurry set. She got so frustrated with it that she didn't want to play anymore, and I haven't put the game back in since, and that was about 2 months ago.

i bought band hero bundle for my kids for christmas and they enjoyed it a lot as well as our guests. i thought that buying guitar hero 5 would be even more fun. boy was i wrong. my 13 year old daughter stayed away from it only after a few songs. my 15 year old son played the guitar part but soon lost interest. i like to play the drums but it's no fun without the kids. there are only a handful of songs that we recognize. the rest is all junk. sure GH5 has 85 songs but even i'm getting tired of it and all the venues haven't even been opened yet. make sure you look at the song list and then decide if you want to hear these songs played. if you don't know them, it won't be enjoyable and waste your money.

With the release of Guitar Hero 5 I'm left to wonder if the Guitar Hero franchise may finally lose the battle to Rock Band. As graphics go it easily outdoes Rockband but where it counts, song list, Guitar Hero falls short. The entire 85 songs are a collection of B side songs by less than stellar groups. The actual hits on Hero 5 are few and far between. I understand that a set list will never please everyone but when a game like Rockband secures licensing for a group as big as the Beatles, then you expect Hero to seek out the same level of rock star status for their release. Hero 5 feels more like a stop gap between World Tour and the upcoming Band Hero rather than a legitimate bar raising release. It's easy to see why Activision decided to throw in the VanHalen pack for free. This game simply does not live up to the previous Hero releases. Let's hope Band Hero makes up for the disappointment of Guitar Hero 5.

This is a really fun game franchise and this game is one of the most versatile. Being able to pick up and play in party mode is great! No body has to wait or quite a song early so others can play. 4 guitars at once is so legit too! Another bonus is that you can play any songs you have previously downloaded without having to swap disks!

Don't buy this from Apricoti. They will not send it to you. And they won't reply to any emails about it.

This game was (by far) my favorite Guitar Hero Software out there. The selection and variety of songs is excellent.