Customer Reviews

Guitar Hero 5 Stand Alone Software

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I rented this game from Blockbuster before purchasing because I wanted to be 100% sure that it was compatible with my Rock Band guitars and mic, as well as the ION drums. The good news is that the game works 100% on my PS3 with all my existing equipment!

Pros: Lots of new songs to play, new features such as party play let you jump in & out (very nice) and multiple instrument play (ex: 4 guitars).

Cons: The Bass Drum indicator is gray, unlike Rock Band, which is orange. It's difficult to see because the normal measure separators are also gray; the bass drum ones are only slightly thicker. My son typically scores in the high 90's on Expert and is totally turned off by this.

Overall, this game is a hit and should provide many hours of rocking!

The fact that there's no real story to this game, and that all songs are unlocked from the beginning, basically makes this a massive track pack for GH-World Tour.

So, what do you get from this game?
- 80+ songs
- Ability to have multiple people playing vocals, guitars, bass, and/or drums (which is a first). In effect, you get the best of Karaoke Revolution and GH-World Tour.
- If you order before October 1, 2009, the free GH-Van Halen (via mail-in/internet offer, no shipping fees, so only thing you pay is that one first class postage for the form, sticker, and receipt that you have to send in), good for another 40+ songs.

What don't you get?
- Rock Band's great format of playing different venues in different cities around the world, with a better character design feature (but that's a bit subjective!!!)

So, if you consider this to be mostly a big track pack, and especially if you get to take advantage of the free GH-Van Halen offer, this is a great deal.

Now, with regard to the gameplay and the changes from previous versions of GH, the big plus for me is the immediate availability of all songs. I play GH mostly as a party game, so having all the songs from the outset is great. Also having the option to have multiple vocals and multiple guitars and bass is great (I have over 4 mics and over 4 guitar controllers from all the other GH and RB games I've bought over the years), because this means people get to play what they WANT to play, not what positions are left over. A shame we don't have multiple drum sets (we have one GH-WT and one RB drum set each), but that's okay, since that's the least favorite instrument, as well as the most tiring, so people tend to trade off the use of that instrument.

So, with all this, what would have made this a 5 star product in my opinion? Better characters and better modification of characters. For one thing, the characters all look white, all the girls are skinny. If you're not white, and you don't fit those modes, you can't change accordingly. If they had an easier medium difficulty (but using 4 frets) for the guitar/bass, that would be nice.

Overall, I strongly recommend this item, especially if you can take advantage of the free GH-Van Halen offer. In terms of fun, I'd give this 4 stars. In terms of value, definitely 5 stars.

I am a huge fan of this franchise, so when this game came out, I had to have it. Prior to actually playing the game, I had only seen partial notes on what the setlist would be, and what I saw was fair, but now that I have played the game enough, I find most of the tracks unknown to me from bands that I don't know, or less than popular tracks from the bands I do know. I like the idea of giving fledgling bands a start on this format, and also for broadening the older bands audience by going into the deeper cuts, but part of my facination with this game was to be able to play popular songs and escape into the story of being on stage with band playing the songs we know. I do give the game folks kudos for tracks like "Du Hast" by Rammstein, and "Sweating Bullets" by Megadeth, as well as resonable selections by The Police, Screaming Trees, and Peter Frampton, but most of the other tracks just don't connect for me. The fun factor is here with the new "Party mode" where you can have 2 guitarists and 2 bassists if you wish, or 3 vocals and 1 drummer, and folks can jump in and out, but overall this game just doesn't stand out and almost feels stale. Overall, the setlist flow of GHIII, World Tour, and even Smash hits was better. I would recommend starting with the older games before graduating to this version.

My first exposure to instrument playing games was Rock Band 2, so that is what I am used to.

This was my first Guitar Hero purchase. I think the game playing layout on Rock Band is better than Guitar Hero. Note multiplying factor, differentiating energy strings, hammer on notes, and just note shape in general (bars vs. circles) is better represented in Rock band.

I play the games on a PS3 in my home theater on a 92" screen with 5.1 surround sound. I just cannot get the same sound mix from GH that I get from RB. I've tried switching from pro logic to dolby digital on my processor and the different audio outputs in the game itself, but I just can't get it to sound as good as RB. Even adjusting the mix within the game (mixing down crowd noise and sound effects levels, mixing up instrument and voice levels) doesn't help. I cannot hear the clicking of the guitar strums in RB, but distractingly audible in GH. You would think turning up the volume would take care of it. somehow, it doesn't. Maybe there is a menu setting that I have not corrected for. I don't know.

But my biggest complaint about the game that REALLY irks me is how the screen shakes every time you miss a note. It really messes up my concentration. So much so that I'd much rather play the songs that I've played a hundred times on RB than play brand new songs on GH. Which is the whole reason I bought GH5, for the different songs. I've tried to find a way to turn that "feature" off, but to no avail.

I think I'll be sticking to Rock Band products in the future.

This is the best one in the series yet. A lot of complaints again about the instruments. I just ordered the game because I already have all the instruments i need. I never had any problems with the drums or guitars (other than I wish they made a left handed guitar so the buttons and whammy bar were flipped). The party mode is great. No need to unlock songs. No failing. Just fun. Also no more earning money to get things which is nice. When playing career mode you have different individual challenges for each song: get so many points, or a note string so long, or keep you multiplier at +4 for so long, or hit sustains or chords, or even hit so many notes only strumming up or alternating. There are also group goals such as get so many points or have an avg. multiplier. These all add an extra challenge to playing the songs. The ability to play with any combination of instruments is a good idea. On top of all these improvements the graphics (which to me are not important) are greatly improved. It is good to see that they are not just cranking out games but are still improving on this genre and I look forward to even more improvements with others.

Let me preface this by saying that I started out as a very anti-Rock Band gamer, as I didn't think that a family oriented music game would work as well as Guitar Hero. And at first, I didn't see any compelling reasons to change. Rock Band 1 was ok, but it wasn't as fun or versatile as GH was. As time went by, however, the momentum shifted for me due to a very simple reason: DLC. While GH remained a better game (gameplay and character customization wise), there came a a tipping point with Rock Band 2 where the sheer number of playable tracks turned the tide for me. GH was simply over way too fast, and RB kept on chugging with weekly song updates.

I took a break from GH after World Tour, but decided to give it another shot with GH5. For the first few nights, it was great. Snappy graphics, great gameplay, some outstanding tracks...and then, I beat the game. Just like that, the magic was over. Where Rock Band has a number of great game options that let you extend the experience, GH5 just....ends. It's a shame, too, because it's without doubt the best version so far and in many ways it's superior to RB.

But once again, it's the content.

Rock Band is just too far ahead of Guitar Hero is getting music out, and unless that imbalance coupled with more game options is fixed, I just can't see GH going on much longer. Great example of the gameplay difference is the way the venues are handled. GH has one venue, with one set of tracks to be played. Rock Band, by comparison, offers anywhere from 3 to 5 locations PER VENUE and each has 3 - 7 challenges within. GH just can't win against that.

In fairness, GH plays better. The difficulty is more balanced in challenging you, and the game is not afraid to force you to improve your play to advance, which is a good thing. The graphics are also superior, and the licensed singers look and play great. The customization is far and away better, with a true range of options to make your character a good representation of you. Some of the venues have fantastic design, and they actually change as you play more songs in them.

The above good stuff, though, is not enough. Once I beat this game, I immediately started looking to trade it in. I guess that's the best review summary I can give for it.

I don't really like many of the songs in this game, but that is personal preference. The presentation of this game is nice though, and you have the ability to port over songs from world tour and metallica, so that's cool.

Lots of songs on this one but not all ones that you'd know. Still, being able to use the full instrument set I have from Band Hero (which uses Guitar Hero World Tour instruments) is a big plus.
It's nice to have a whole bunch more songs to try to sing or play drums to instead of just guitar parts.
Great addition to the GH set!

Guitar Hero 5 es un buen juego, pero después de jugar Guitar Hero Metallica es difícil compararlo, Metallica para mi es el mejor que han sacado.

La cancion que mas me gusto de Guitar Hero 5 es "Blur - Song 2", me recordó a mis días de Fifa 98, esa fue la primera vez que escuche la canción en ese juego. pero en fin, baje algunas canciones de la playstation network, como el álbum Death Magnetic y otras, el juego es relativamente bueno, lo recomiendo, mas aun si importan canciones de otros guitar hero.

Purchased for son. Looked for this game for months and finally found it here! Awesome game, great shape!! Many thanks!!