Guitar Hero: Greatest Hits Review

Written by: Steve Martin Posted: 8th July 2009

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W rock to some Guitar Hero classics.

Guitar Hero: Greatest Hits Details:

Goto Guitar Hero: Greatest Hits Game Page

	Music
	PlayStation 3/Xbox 360/Nintendo Wii
	Red Octane
	Activision

12+

Out Now

1-4

The latest release in the Guitar Hero range may give some fans a feeling of deja-vu. This is because the set list is compiled entirely from the previous Guitar Hero games, including the 80's and Aerosmith, however they now have the full band experience with a drum and vocal tracks added.

As far as gameplay goes, there are only a few alterations to note, the guitar track has changed to incorporate the new neck slider, but they’ve added in a lot of pull-offs and hammer-ons as well, which I’m not a big fan of personally. The career mode has been changed from the gig-like set-up, seen in World Tour, back to the more tradition set-list approach with the next set of songs becoming available once you collect a certain number of stars, which you earn depending on how well you complete the song. The only other note-worthy new addition is that you now have a meter that fills up as you earn more stars, up to the maximum 5 star rating. This has been directly ripped from the Rock Band series, but is a welcome addition nonetheless.

Everything else is business as usual, there are the usual multiplayer options and online modes, and the music studio returns from World Tour along with the Create a Rocker mode too. A lot of the game feels recycled which may make fans feel a little cheated.

Thankfully though, the song selection lives up to the Greatest Hits tagline, all the songs are master tracks, and it’s great to see the likes of Free Bird back again with full drum and vocal tracks added. Although the number of songs is lower than World Tour (48 in total, if I’m not mistaken) it’s still a strong showing. I also found it to be more challenging than World Tour, with some of the final songs on Medium proving to be quite difficult, but this is probably to reflect the fact that the older games were actually harder than the more accessible newer versions.

Graphically, there seems to be little progression from the last Guitar Hero games on the Xbox360 or PS3. It’s still well presented, with cartoon interludes between set lists and with some interesting new venues based on the 7 wonders of the world, which surprising includes London’s sewer system!

All the songs are professionally mastered and make up a really good soundtrack spanning across genres and decades. The instrument sounds are still spot on and hearing the computer generated audience singing along helps to improve the atmosphere of the game.

Whether you decide to buy this game depends on your previous experience with Guitar Hero, if you’re relatively new (World Tour or Metallica band bundle) then this is highly recommended as a great addition to your collection. However, if you own the previous versions (such as I do) then you’ve got to weigh up whether it’s worth the expenditure just to play the tracks with the full band or not. I personally don’t think it’s worthwhile, especially seeing as you can download most of the tracks online, which means you, can get the songs you want and ignore the ones you don’t want. For the hardcore fans, the recycled taste can be a bitter pill to swallow, especially paying out twice for the same songs, but for newcomers this is a good compilation of the previous Guitar Hero games.