Reviewed: July 2, 2010
Reviewed by: Mark Smith

Publisher
Activision

Developer
Vicarious Visions

Released: June 7, 2010
Genre: Music
Players: 1

9
8
9
5
8.4

Game Info:

I’d like to get one issue out of the way up front. I found this game extremely difficult to play on the iPhone native format. This may be entirely my fault as I had initially been playing it for a solid four days on my iPad in 2x mode before syncing it to my smaller phone. Sure, the graphics look better, more colorful and crisp, but the smaller screen size combined with my larger fingers created severe issues with accurately playing the guitar. So, if you have an iPad (and fat fingers) then you definitely want to play the game on that system versus the iPhone, and I’m still hoping Vicarious Visions make a native iPad version with HD quality graphics.

As far as gameplay, Vicarious, as always, has made the most of the platform. Regardless of the chosen difficulty level (Easy, Medium, Hard, or Expert) you will be working with a stream of notes coming down one of four colored lanes on the “highway”. As in typical Guitar Hero fashion you have standard notes, sustains, and special notes that fill your Star Power that can be triggered by tapping on the blue bar. On the more advanced difficulty settings you will have to strum notes from one lane to another and possible hold those notes, tap out a no-note strum on a yellow bar and even whammy. These added nuances to the core game mechanic make this one of the best Guitar Hero games you can play without an actual guitar in your hands.

Visually, Guitar Hero is fantastic in the gameplay, but when it comes to all the menus and character creation and modifications the game shows its PS2 roots. Personally, I don’t care about all the dress-up parts of the game. I’m here to play music, so it doesn’t bother me as much as those who might like to play with all of the clothing and instrument mods. And if you are one of those people then you will love the Facebook integration and the Photo Booth features that let you pose and snap pictures of your virtual rock star then share them with friends.

Guitar Hero has always been about the music and your initial purchase nets you six free songs including; Queen - We Are The Champions, Rise Against – Savior, The Rolling Stones - Paint It Black, The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army, Weezer - Say It Ain't So, and Vampire Weekend – Cousins. I agree – it’s a bit thin and I only liked about half those songs, but the game does have its own Music Store for in-game purchases just like the console versions.

Sadly though, even after a month, the Music Store isn’t getting as many updates as I would like to see. It’s mostly a bunch of obscure bands and relatively unknown songs – at least for me. I would think that with the huge stable of songs in the Activision library (even if you just used the DS songs) that there would be dozens if not a hundred or more songs available. I’m still playing the original six plus the Queen tracks I downloaded at launch. The game will analyze the stored music on your device and make recommendations from the Music Store, which is pretty nifty.

Unless the Music Store gets some good songs (or at least some songs I know) available soon I fear this game is doomed to be forgotten, which is a shame because the gameplay is fantastic and the music and sound quality is outstanding, especially with some good headphones or ear buds. You have an experience system that levels you up and a scoring system with leaderboards that track the best players in the world per instrument, per song, and per difficulty level. You even have song-specific challenges and the choice of guitar and bass to extend the basic gameplay. We just need MORE MUSIC...and a native iPad version.

Guitar Hero is really no different than Tap Tap Revenge or any of those other music games in its approach to marketing. The price of admission is reasonable and once they have you it’s all about the additional content. That’s where the real money is to be made but until that content starts to flow, I can only give a cautionary recommendation for Guitar Hero. It is without a doubt one of the best mobile music games out there. I’m just not sure how long it will last.