DLC on a Disc. Need I say more?
Well, Activision and Neversoft were listening to that tiny voice in the crowd and released Guitar Hero: Smash Hits. Or is it Greatest Hits? No, it's just Hits. No, wait... Argh. Sorry, it's just that the game suffers from a bit of an identity crisis. At one point the game is called Guitar Hero: Hits, then when the game loads it become Guitar Hero: Greatest Hits, while the box cover on Gamespot and the official name on the website beforehand has Guitar Hero: Smash Hits written on it. It does not affect the game itself, but if you happen to be slightly paranoid at little niggles, then it will get to you.
Starting off with graphics, you notice that there is not a major difference between World Tour and this DLC on a disc. In fact, there is no difference at all between the two games, except for some more cutscenes that Neversoft have been putting into games for a while now. Let's face it though, they did not really add anything to Guitar Hero 3 or World Tour in the first place, they do not really matter. They do, however, contribute to one of the games many glitches which you come across.
To elaborate more on these glitches, here is a sample: In Career mode, after you have just unlocked a new location with more songs available, you may want to continue playing through the set list you are currently on, and after choosing the song, you may decide that you would prefer to play in the new venue you have unlocked. However, before gaining access to this area, you would have to watch an animated cutscene. However, because you chose a song that is not on the set list for this venue, you hear the cutscene for the venue play, but does not display properly. You are then treated to the loading screen, followed by a black screen, which actually turns out to be where the Highway you play off of is supposed to appear. Oh sure, the song title appears, but nothing else. Not even the animations of your band rocking out behind the Highway appear. It is a bit of an issue, and when you choose to play a song you received in an encore, instead of being taken to a venue of your choice, you go back to the venue that the encore took place at. These are minor issues, but if you happen to try essentially what is described above, then you may be in for a surprise glitch wise.
Gameplay really depends on the way you play the game. As the display box and advertisements have tried to tell us, you can play some of the greatest hits in the Guitar Hero series, and for the most part it's a decent set list. It spans back to the first Guitar Hero game to Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, so you'll be playing classic songs that include Carry on Wayward Son by Kansas, Freebird by Lynyrd Skynyrd, Beast and the Harlot by Avenged Sevenfold and so on. Most gamers may find the set list to be a bit of a drag, but Guitar Hero was never meant to be a gamer's game. It's meant to be a party game, and in terms of that most of the songs suit what the game is meant for well.
However, party goers who have played the previous instalments may find that some of the notes in songs have been changed for this game. For example, Through the Fire and Flames by Dragonforce is quite possibly the most notoriously hard song to ever grace the genre, and gamers would spend night and day playing Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock trying to perfect it. Well, those gamers can be slightly disappointed, as the notes for Expert mode have been altered, so unless you have Guitar Hero 3 lying around, don't expect it to be the same challenge. What I'm guessing is that the changes have been made to make the game more accessible to newbies.
One final change made to the gameplay comes in the form of a new point-scoring system. You still collect points and Star Power like you usually would in the other Guitar Hero games, but there is also a separate area which has a bar that slowly fills over time when you hit the notes. That's actually showing you on the HUD how many stars your performance is earning, and it fills up quicker if you play perfectly from the beginning of the song or every time you activate Star Power during a song. It's not a dramatic change, but to people who have played Guitar Hero in the beginning it's like a fly buzzing around the screen. It's just noticeable.
Considering the price normal downloadable songs are on Playstation Network and Xbox Live, you do happen to get your value for money unless you have all of the previous instalments. You can play with the new peripherals as well but to get the best value out of it you have to buy Guitar Hero: World Tour first, as not only is it a good game in itself, but it ought to be set cheaper with all of the peripherals included instead of probably paying a higher price for the peripherals and what is essentially a DLC on a disc. It should also go without saying that it is much cheaper than going back and buying all of the previous instalments of Guitar Hero games just to play some of the best songs in the series. It's really a case of taking what you can get.
All in all, Guitar Hero: Smash Hits (Or whatever it wants to be called) is a decent package if you are interested in playing some of the classics available in previous instalments, its good value for money and it does not feel any different from Guitar Hero: World Tour (If you like that sort of thing), despite the glitches and different bugs. You should only consider this if you began your Guitar Hero collection with Guitar Hero: World Tour, but for people who have the previous games, it's not really worth the money to buy this. Plug in the old PS2 instead and use the rattly old guitars instead.