The model is almost entirely different, as you would expect. When you get tired of being booed off stage because you got bored midway through Mumford and Sons (a band so repellent they may as well be fronted by Idi Amin), you’ll inevitably check out the TV portion of Guitar Hero: Live, which houses the old-style MTV networks and has music videos accompanying songs (instead of braying idiots). It’s incredibly off-putting, and doesn’t help when you’re switching up a level, especially as the jump from regular to advanced difficulty is a bit too far. The fucking keyboard player, which on the evolutionary rung is one below particularly fetid dog shit. The sound drops out, the crowd starts booing, and the camera swings round to show the lead singer getting in your face, the drummer snarling, the keyboard player expressing disgust. But play badly – and by that I mean miss a few notes – and they round on you like YouTube commenters on, well, anything. There’s no denying watching the crowd respond well to your performance is good for the ego, even if they’re a bit suspiciously good-looking and clean for a gig where most people will be on so many drugs they could open their own Boots. Sadly, developer Freestyle Games (which made DJ Hero) has gone a bit overboard with the crowd and band’s reactions to your playing. But they’re surprisingly professional in how they’re lit and shot, and it gives the whole ‘playing a plastic guitar and pretending it’s real’ an even more absurd edge. The scenes are overacted – there’s a roadie at the start who gives you the (overlong) tutorial and spends most of his time talking to you as if you were a child – and some song intros go overboard, with you huddling up and then walking on stage. It sounds fucking terrible, but it works. It’s closest to the trad GH/RB model, and it’s here where the aforementioned full motion video comes in: as you’re playing, you see the crowd, your band, and the backstage elements as if you were there. Live sees you play a series of sets as different fictional bands: finishing the sets unlocks songs for quickplay. Separated into two main categories – Live and TV – each is distinct in its rules and presentation. While the core of Guitar Hero remains the same – play notes as they descend down a ‘highway’, don’t fuck it up – there are big changes to the framework of how and when you play songs. ![]() Guitar Hero: Live’s combination of forms innovates while Rock Band stagnates, and the result is one of the best rhythm action games ever made. Teaming the tired franchise with FMV and 90s-style music television stations sounds like the sort of thing you’d pitch before you left via a window, but it works. ![]() Perhaps the most interesting thing about Guitar Hero: Live is that it combines three outdated ideas to create something which feels utterly fresh.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |