This is the start of something special.
I remember the day I saw this on Gametrailers. A normal day, nothing to do and dead bored out of my mind looking for something interesting and fresh and then I found something, something that changed it all. I saw the review and I was stunned, completely stunned. It was nothing I've ever seen before or played before so I begged my mother and father to buy this this game. At Christmas, I got the game and I never looked back.
Guitar Hero since the days of 2005 has become a cultural phenomenon and with good reason. For creating this, I rank Guitar Hero a classic.
Graphics:
Even though everyone just cares about the songs and rocking out, every review needs to talk about graphics. The graphics were for it's time great although not that much from a technical standpoint (except for the animation) but defiantly from an artistic standpoint. The characters are all wacky and unique with them all having there personality stand out. For example Axel Steel as a typical jock metalhead while Pandora is a goth.
Despite this, it's the animation and venues that really display this game. Thanks to motion capture, the funny and authentic animation makes the characters truly come alive. The venues are just a joy to look at. To the detailed, random and police lights ( yes you see police lights outside the small window) of the basement to the huge stage with a dragon fighting a viking, the venues are always fun and improves the games graphics dramatically.
8/10
Gameplay:
Innovation at it's best! There is nothing like this game at the time so it's a completely a breath of fresh air in the gaming world. You're presented with a track, notes move from the top of the screen to the bottom, and you need to nail the notes as they reach the marker. You hit the notes by holding the corresponding Fret Button and then strumming on the Strum Bar. Some notes need to be held, and you can gain bonus points (and star power) by wailing on the Whammy Bar while holding a note. If you it a streak of 10 notes in a row, you will gain a multiplier to increase your score. Furthermore the multiplier will increase until X4 (X8 with star power).
There are notes that are stars: hit them and you gain star power. When your Star Power is half way at least, you can turn the guitar so that it points up to activate Star Power, slowly draining the bar, doubling your score and extra gain for the rock meter. Rock meter shows the audience's reaction to your performance. To beat a song, you must play it from start to finish while making sure the Rock meter does not sink too far into the red. Simple and yet so additive. If you play it once, you will play it again, and again, and again until you realise it's 3 A.M in the morning so you need some damn SLEEP!!!
However the engine of the game sucks. Why, well HAMMER ONS DO NOT WORK!. Basically hammer ons are shaded notes that you didn't have to strum. This system fails in GH1 since they were completely unresponsive so they just didn't work at all which is a terrible thing on expert since they make it a lot easier. At least the difficultly curve is outstanding. There's a tutorial for newcomers to get right at home and then there are four difficulty's to over come. Easy will only present you with 3 different note types to keep track of, but you cannot earn cash to unlock things such as songs and extra characters.
Medium will give you 4 different types of notes, and is a decent challenge. Hard will give you 5 different note types, and is a challenge, and Expert will go faster than any of the earlier difficulties and really test your skill. The only problem is if your hit a brick wall in difficultly, you hit one hard. Since there is no practice mode of some sort you have to keep playing the song and failing furthermore if there a very hard solo at the end of a song for example, you have to play the whole song just to practice the solo which is very annoying.
Lastly gamemodes, there are only three. Career mode is you playing though the eight setlists in the game unlocking and getting money to unlock things such as extra guitars though out the career. Quickplay is just playing the songs you have unlocked and Face-Off which is two players the chance to compete against each other on the same song. Two fret boards will appear on screen, one for each player, as they alternate playing sections of the song in a dueling manner. The player with the highest score at the end of the song wins. Trust me, get friends around is so much fun it's insane. With all this, replay value shouldn't be a problem.
9/10
Setlist:
What's a Guitar hero game with a terrible track list, well luckily this game has a amazing one. Classic rock songs like "Ace of Spades", "Sharp Dressed Man" and "Smoke on the Water" taking up most of the setlist up, you really can't go wrong. Sure the bonus songs are just plain bad but you can't argue that the GH setlist is just that it should be, rock/metal songs rocking out your PS2. Personal faves: "No One Knows" by Queens of the Stone Age, "Symphony of Destruction" by Megadeth
and the insanely hard (back then anyway even though they still pack a punch today) "Bark at the Moon" by Ozzy Osbourne and "Cowboys from Hell" Pantera The main complaint I have with the setlist is that it's to short. I'm sorry but in my opinion only 47 songs (17 being dreadful bonus songs expect for "Cheat on the Church" and "Fire It Up") isn't enough. Also since the career is only 30 songs long, the career is short which hurts the replay value a bit.
8/10
So overall for being original, hard and the most fun I've had on the PS2, this game is a must buy: 9/10