Following the death of rhythmic gaming a few years back, and the recent announcement of a new Rock Band in the works, comes another big development in the saga.
Activison is bringing back Guitar Hero in a brand new game that is intended to immerse would-be guitarists in what it really feels like to be in a rock and roll band.
It's called Guitar Hero Live, and it's being built by FreeStyleGames, the studio best known for creating the DJ Hero games. It features two main game modes, but it's the first one that's likely to grab your attention.
You know how the old Guitar Hero put you in a computer-generated music venue to play at an animated concert? It was fun, but the sense of immersion into the life of a real rock star was way off.
Guitar Hero Live's solution for this is to feature live-action video, with you playing on a real stage in front of a real crowd alongside your very real bandmates.
FreeStyleGames went to the trouble of creating a band specifically for this game, a five-piece group dubbed Broken Tide. The other four are actual musicians who filmed live action bits on various stages, in front of live crowds — and both the band and the crowd react to your playing. If you're good, they'll cheer you on and hoist posters proclaiming that you rock. If you suck, they'll yell insults while your bandmates get angry that you can't pull it together.
Activision says the idea behind GH Live is to create an emotional investment in the player, to make them feel what it truly feels like to be on stage in front of dozens or tens of thousands of screaming fans. The pressure, the excitement, the thrill of rocking out, the crushing weight of failure... It's all there. You start out on smaller stages, with maybe a hundred audience members, but if you help carry Broken Tide to success, you'll move up to a massive, outdoor concert festival with more than one hundred thousand fans in attendance. This is what it's like.
It's a compelling idea, and is sure to drive home the pressures that live performers feel. But we can't help wondering just how much live video was filmed for the game. Gamers who fire up Guitar Hero Live religiously are bound to be watching a lot of the same reaction shots over and over.
The other game mode is called GHTV, which Activision is touting as "the world's first playable live music video network." Think of it as MTV (back when MTV played actual music videos) combined with Guitar Hero. Videos run constantly, twenty-four hours a day, and you can pick up your guitar controller and jump in to play any time. And you're not stuck to a single channel — there are multiple channels that span numerous music genres. Songs will also be playable on-demand, just like old-school Guitar Hero.
Activision and FreeStyleGames promise to continually update GHTV's broadcasts, just like a real station, so it can be a useful tool for discovering new music and always delivering fresh challenges to gamers. You can also team up with a friend and compete against players live, from all over the world.
Of course, no Guitar Hero is complete without its companion guitar controller, and Live aims to offer the best piece of hardware the franchise has ever seen. The new guitar controller is completely redesigned, featuring two rows of three buttons, which Activision says is meant to reflect the way real guitarists play. Noobs can stick to the bottom three buttons for an experience much like the old Guitar Hero, but those looking for a challenge will be able to twist and shape their fingers in combinations that feel like the real thing.
Hundreds of playable songs are promised to gamers, with plenty more downloadable on a regular basis from GHTV. Guitar Hero Live is coming this Fall for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Wii U, tablets and smartphones.
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