Guitar Hero 5 (XBOX 360)

Gamecow’s Price	RRP $89.95     Save $40.00 $49.95
Availability
Genre	Party Games
Platform	XBOX 360
Release Date	16/09/2009
Rated

Guitar Hero 5 (XBOX 360) Product Information

Living room legends will rock any way they want in Guitar Hero® 5. The entire set list is at your fingertips from the start, featuring genre-defining hits from some of the biggest rock artists and bands of all time, including The Rolling Stones, The White Stripes, Kings of Leon, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Santana, and Vampire Weekend. Take complete control, personalize and customize how you experience music by choosing any in-game instrument combination —multiple vocalists, guitarists, bassists, and drummers, in any game mode. Elevating the Guitar Hero series to new heights with unmatched social game-play, an enhanced style, new in-game artists, and more rock legends, Guitar Hero 5 features new surprises and challenges to fire up long-time fret board fanatics and create a new generation of enthusiasts.

FEATURES:

• Play as your Avatar: Import your Xbox 360 Avatar, choose your instrument, and play along with your personalized characters rocking out to any track on the epic 85-song set list. Mix and match your Avatars with Guitar Hero favourites like Judy Nails, Axel Steel, and Lars Ümlaüt.
• Party Play mode: Jump in/jump out of songs at any time in the all-new Party Play mode.
• Any instrument you choose: Shred with four guitars or any combination of instruments.
• Rockfest: New Rockfest mode tests your skills against four players locally or up to eight players online.
• Play all your downloads: Import your Guitar Hero World Tour songs straight into Guitar Hero 5.
• Create and share your own music: Compose your own songs or download thousands to expand your music library with GH™ Studio, GH™ Mix 2.0, and GH™ Jam.

Guitar Hero 5 (XBOX 360) Review

If you’ve been living under a rock or deep inside the ravines of an abyss and have no idea what Guitar Hero is, we’ll sum it up for you. You have a plastic instrument, whether it be drums, bass, guitar or a microphone, and the point of the game is to hit the right colour coded notes that are appearing on-screen at the right time. Vocals are a little different, where it focuses on pitch control, but the game-play overall is simple to get the hang of, and can become inhumanly addictive, particularly when you’re playing your favourite tracks with a bunch of friends.

Guitar Hero 5 does all this, just like the games before it, however it adds a few new neat features which lead to a more casual and accessible level of appeal. The first and arguably best feature added is the Party Play Mode, which literally lets you start playing at the press of a button. It runs something like a screensaver, where a random song from the set of 85 is played in the background, and with the press of a button you can join in and play it with any instrument from the get go. This works with all instruments, so instead of sitting there sifting through all the setup options, you literally sit down and begin playing right away. It’s a very nice addition to the game, as essentially the game is aimed much towards social gatherings and parties, so an addition such as this makes life and partying with Guitar Hero 5 much more streamlined. Difficulty levels can also be adjusted on the fly by pressing start, so minimal customisation is present and everything is easy to access.

Assembling your band is now not just locked to one guitarist, drummer, bassist and vocalist either, with the ability to customise exactly what instruments your band is using. As an example, if all your friends want to play guitar, you can assemble the entire band to only guitar, so everyone can play the same note tracks in a song. This further enhances the accessibility of the game as now you don’t have to fight over who gets drums or guitar anymore. The only thing required though is multiple instruments, which can be a little tricky and expensive to handle, especially when it comes to drums.

Guitar Hero 5 is pretty much what one would expect out of Activision’s giant franchise, which is a consistent and solid sequel to a successful series of party titles. Guitar Hero 5 however is easily the most accessible of the bunch, with the inclusion of things such as Party Play mode and Band Assembly, making partying with the rocking title much easier. GHTunes and GHStudio have also made a return and are much easier to navigate, with a new mode following them named GHJam, which lets you jam to custom songs with trippy visualisations in the background. There’s also the career mode which is standard in the series, and quick play, which now gives you all 85 songs to play with from the get-go. We could go on, but if you’re any kind of Guitar Hero fan, you’d know what to expect. There’s a ton of content to be seen and heard in Guitar Hero 5, and whether you’re a newcomer or veteran to the series, it’s certainly a title worth spending your hard-earned on.

Full review PALGN