Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Been there, done that"

The Good:

+ Improved Graphics, sound, and motion capture
+ Setlist is mostly at its prime
+ Functionality on LIVE is superb
+ Addicting

The Bad:

- Been there, done that
- Barely any innovation
- Party Play is sort of a disapointment

The Ugly:

-- Band Hero?!

Since this game is older than a couple of month, let me give you my take of the game. First, it is pretty well done when it comes to the camera works, setlist, and customization of the rockers, istruments, and music. However, there isn't a whole not new Guitar Hero 5 is bringing. The music genre is getting weaker by the year, as told by the sales, and the gameplay just getting a tad dull when it comes this game.

So since this is my first mini-review, I like to wrapped this up with you, the reader, know everything about the game. Let's start with the gameplay. The gameplay is significantly improved from its predecessor's, as now you band member can now fail a song, without failing you. Unlike Rock Band 1 and 2, you can save your band member without losing any sacirfice of your Star Power, Overdrive in Rock Band 1 and 2. All you got to do in this installment is just hit as many notes as you can until the Recover Meter, as I call it, can be back in green, and then your friend is back in the game. I personally disliked this because it feels broken at certain songs. Like said, the Recover Meter needs notes to restore your partner, so you got to just hit notes, but sometimes there are parts in songs where there isn't any notes, so the meter will just continue to fall. Nevertheless, it is easier than Rock Band version of Savior.

The setlist is great, but some songs are a bit boring to play. There are more than 80 songs on the disk, however that isn't any big improvement over Rock Band 2's. Pretty soon, buying Guitar Hero and Rock Band games will be dumb because you can just import your songs into the disk, so you can just rent the game, so say Rock Band 3 or Guitar Hero 6, and just import them into your previous version. Hey, once Live is on Guitar Hero 5, what is the point of buying another disk that has same gameplay but different songs on it?

Now the songs are back on being difficult. I am still disapointed in the Guitar Intensity on this version, as songs like Guitar Hero 3 were pretty damn hard. Ever since World Tour, the developers went toward the Rock Band approach and make the songs "semi" realistic on the instruments. To tell you the truth, I don't give a damn because I am just playing a plastic guitar, drum kit, and microphone.

So in conclusion, I would like to say is that don't buy this game. Hell, don't ever buy a musical game for the full 60 dollar price tags. Ever since Rock Band Network has been haivng this side effect of people just "making" their own songs, the "indie arists" they call them are just redistributing songs that are all ready made and just make up their own note charts. Shows how even a normal Xbox Live user can just make up the guitar solo for Painkillier.