Guitar Hero Live Review
Make some noise, the music franchise that started it all is back
But the songs on the disk aren’t the end of the selection, and this brings us to Guitar Hero Live’s second gameplay mode, GHTV. Here, there are two music channels at launch, offering a nonstop stream of popular songs – official music videos for each track, from today to back in the day. You simply pick a channel and jump in, starting a song from whatever point it’s currently at. It feels amazing – like MTV is back in full glory, commercial-free and simply playing awesome music videos again. And you can rock out to it. From Bullet for My Valentine, Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers, ZZ Top, and Sum41 all the way to Bruno Mars and Ed Sheeran. There are hundreds of songs available between the two channels, so you’re not likely to run into repeats even if you play for hours. And the best part – it’s all free, and new songs are promised to be added on a continuous basis. There are also Premium Shows in GHTV, which feature special song sets using live concert footage instead of music videos. It's another level of entertainment and immersion that the game can provide.
Having said that, GHTV will be highly divisive. That’s because this new TV-style format replaces traditional DLC. Casual fans will be absolutely in love – you can play a nearly endless amount of diverse music, without spending a penny. But if you want to play a specific song from the extensive catalog, you’ll need to use a “play token”. The token lets you play through a song once, on-demand, at any time. You get a few tokens initially from playing and levelling up your GHTV profile, but after that, you’ll need to spend in-game coins. On average, you can earn enough coins for a 3-pack of “play tokens” after about 10 or 11 songs completed on GHTV. It does feel pretty slow, but it’s enough to satisfy casual fans and let them occasionally play a few songs on demand. Also, if you have friends coming over, a $6 pass will unlock all songs in the GHTV catalog for 24 hours.
Then, there’s the other side. If you have any sort of urge for content ownership or competitive play, the GHTV model will frustrate and seem like a pure cash grab. You can’t ever “own” any songs in a traditional sense – everything is based on a “per play” basis. So if you want to keep playing any of the songs not on disk in GH Live, you’ll need to use a play token each time. They will run out quickly, and grinding for new tokens takes quite a while. So, the game offers the abovementioned 24 hour pass, or you can also buy play tokens with real cash. If you aim to play GHTV tracks like you have in the past Guitar Hero’s, it will become very expensive very quickly, and downright unfeasible. It’s very difficult to recommend Guitar Hero Live to fans who expect to buy songs and play them on demand as much as they want, as they did in the past.
GHTV also features a progression system and a competitive side. Those coins that you earn for play tokens can also be spent on upgrading your guitar – to gain access to new powers during songs, or unlocking new permanent score or multiplier boosts. These upgrades can’t be bought with microtransactions, and they cost quite a bit, so you’ll need to play GHTV for quite a long while to unlock everything. The various powers (except for the basic one) such as making a song easier or increasing your multiplier, all have a limited number of uses and more must be bought with coins. The game tries to help you with the grind by offering daily login coin bonuses.
Each song in GHTV features a dynamic scoreboard, so you’re competing with random players to see who can perform the best. It’s a cool system that gives the mode some edge and a very competitive feel.However, there are design issues with this system. You could finish fourth, 10k points behind the leader, despite hitting 99% of the notes and going on 200+ note streaks. That’s because the game doesn’t seem to sort players into any kind of category – you have no idea about what difficulty, powers, or guitar upgrades the other players are using. Someone could earn more points with just four stars on a song, hitting 95% of the notes, and place above another user who got 99% and five star rating. There’s no real difference on how well you do – the coins awarded depend entirely on your own performance – but it’s frustrating that the playing field isn’t level. It takes away from the competitive spirit of GHTV if the conditions aren’t the same. There are also no friend leaderboards at launch, just random players for now.
The game performs well for the most part. It did take some time getting the audio and video calibration right, and also the game only offers automatic gameplay calibration, unlike past games. Also, it didn’t help that the occasional missed notes were the fault of the controller and not the player. For some odd reason, the game’s audio output is very quiet – we needed to turn up the volume by quite a lot each play session. Some of the sound mixing in GH Live is questionable as well, drowning out either your guitar or the vocals. But on the whole, the experience is smooth; the loading times are quick, both GH Live and GHTV perform without a hitch and the framerate holds up. You can also sing along or play with a second guitar locally, but these features were not tested.
Guitar Hero Live, more than anything, shows the great degree of innovation within FreeStyleGames. This is a new beginning for the franchise – one that actually feels fresh and modern, and not just another sequel or a port. They could have taken the Rock Band route – create a new entry for a new console generation that’s largely the same as before. Instead, we get a new guitar and a whole new way to play. The presentation is excellent, and the gameplay is as immersive and addictive as it’s ever been. The lack of content on disk does disappoint, and the GHTV will feel either revolutionary or a total rip-off, depending on which player camp you fall under. In an age where services like Spotify and Google Music exist, some fans may find GHTV exactly what they wanted from an evolution in the DLC model. Others, meanwhile, will be very upset that they can't just fire up their favorite tracks on a weekend and play as long or as often as they want. On the whole, Guitar Hero Live is something new and fun – like DJ Hero was – but not without certain caveats. Check it out, rock out, but be aware of the potential deal breakers.