Band Hero Review

Written by: Darren Cartledge Posted: 17th December 2009

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Looking for a new music "Hero?"

Band Hero Details:

	Music
	PlayStation 3/Xbox 360/Nintendo Wii/Nintendo DS
	Neversoft
	Activision

12+

Out Now

1-4

Activision has enjoyed a good amount of success with its Guitar Hero games, allowing wannabe rock stars the chance to jam along to their favourite songs by some of the world's greatest rock stars. But rock music doesn't appeal to everyone's taste does it? So in order to open up their plastic instruments to as wide an audience as possible, Activision has come up with Band Hero, a game like Guitar Hero except full of "the music everyone knows and loves".

Functionally, Band Hero is exactly the same as the recently released Guitar Hero 5, all the same modes we’ve come to know return, such as the new Party mode allowing you to play the game with friends using any combination of instruments. The only real difference between the two games is the songs. So you may be wondering what the point of releasing two similar games, so close to each other is. The answer! To open up the “Hero” franchise to a whole new audience because unlike Guitar Hero, that has its track listing populated with alternative and rock tracks, Band Hero’s set list is made up of mainstream pop and chart hits from the likes of Lilly Allen, Taylor Swift, Maroon 5 and No Doubt. The game features 65 songs in total, and despite many of them being known as one hit wonders or being from top artists, there are quite a few fairly obscure tracks many of the games intended audience probably won’t have heard of, something of a strange selection when you consider the games box art boasts to feature the “the music everyone knows and loves”.

Just like the Guitar Hero games, Band Hero features many likenesses of the featured artists as playable characters in the game. These include Adam Levine of Maroon 5, Gwen Stefani and No Doubt and Taylor Swift to name a few. The caricatures of the featured artists are fairly authentic and recognizable. Visually Band Hero shares a very similar look to the Guitar Hero games as you would expect, but due to the nature of the music the game seems to have a more vibrant and glitzy appearance.

As I’ve already touched on Band Hero features all the same modes as Guitar Hero 5 and these together with the track list make for a pretty cohesive gaming experience. However, there is one mode that comes over from the Guitar Hero games that doesn’t seem to quite fit with the more casual feel of Band Hero. That is the GH:Studio which allows you to create your own tracks. As with GH5 the GH:Studio is fairly difficult to use and I can’t see it as a feature that will be used much or appeal to the more casual audience Band Hero is aimed at.

Overall Band Hero is basically everything we’ve already seen from Guitar Hero 5, however the music featured in the game opens the franchise up to a whole new audience of wannabe pop stars. Band Hero isn’t the most refreshing music game, and it may not appeal to fans of Guitar Hero but if musical taste is the only thing that has previously stopped you picking up a plastic controller and strumming along to music then Band Hero may just be the introduction to rhythm based action for you.