Guitar Hero 5

So the full instrument set of Guitar Hero World Tour went down to $99 last week, meaning savvy shoppers could have both it and yesterday's new release of GH5 for less than the cost of World Tour's full set last year. I picked up GH4 on Monday and played it for a while until I was satisfied that it was mostly garbage, and then today picked up GH5 and did what any sensible person would do (stay up all night until all the songs and venues are unlocked).

It's pretty great. Set list is nice, the character designs are more or less back under control, and the things that have happened to game play since GH3 are largely positive. Favorite addition to 5 is definitely the challenges that accompany every song, and are rated individually from one to three stars based on how many notes on bass you hit only strumming up, or the amount of time you spend on the whammy bar with the guitar, et cetera. It seems a nice way to encourage people to get good at a song on a specific instrument, and it can also add an extra bit of game to what has become a bit monotonous over the last four years. Also completing these challenges is how new items, characters, and costumes are unlocked (no more money for buying unlockables).

Also nice is how new songs and venues are unlocked. You just need to have a certain number of stars (as in the kind you receive as a rating after a song) to proceed, and except for the last song, it doesn't seem like there's any reason why there's any song you'd HAVE to play to continue just so long as you can get more stars elsewhere. I didn't actually do it, but I'd guess you could even skip a tier if you wanted. Encores are still in the game, but that stupid shit where they come immediately after another song is gone. Instead there are just some songs with a little icon next to it indicating that some wild scripted event will happen during the intro. Nice.

And that's what I learned today.