Band Hero

As evidenced by the surprisingly acceptable sales performance of some of the recent knock-off music game ventures, there definitely exists a sizable niche of those who wish to play Guitar Hero and Rock Band, but who either disapprove of the off-color lyrical nature of some of the included tracks or, uh, just don’t really like guitar or rock music. To date, however, we’ve yet to encounter even a single game of comparable quality to the industry leaders which caters to this growing segment of the market. Now, Activision seeks to break this trend with Band Hero, which embodies a big-budget migration of the wildly popular genre of videogames into the pop genre of music. (It might have been more accurate under the circumstances to label it Pop Hero, but perhaps that name isn’t quite so catchy.)

All things considered, Band Hero is basically Guitar Hero 5 with a shorter (by 25%) track list, a much milder tone and presentation, and a wider variety of popular music. That makes it a more appealing choice for mothers looking to jam with their youngsters or people who don’t appreciate a lot of genuine rock—but can it live up to the standards set by its predecessors?

5% Taylor Swift

Loading up the software, the biggest and most evident change from the outset is a reworked interface. It’s still as simple as ever, but now it’s considerably… er, girlier, with purplish-pink tones lining the menus and any hint of sacrilegious graffiti conspicuously absent. It’s immediately obvious that the focus of this game has shifted, though the menu items will be familiar to anyone who spent time with Guitar Hero 5. On that note, the same great innovations that earned 5 its near-universal critical acceptance are inherited here, with every song (of the 65 total) in the game immediately available for play and plenty of cheats and other options openly provided with no need for silly button combinations and repeated visits to GameFAQs.

Speaking of songs, as you’ve already discerned, the song list is truly the biggest change worth mentioning in Band Hero. Whether or not it suits you, then, should be the first issue you address when considering a purchase. While there’s still a reasonable selection of older music on the track list, as well as plenty of genre diversity (to include a mentionable degree of rock music regardless—songs from Poison, Tonic, Everclear, and 3 Doors Down, among a short list of other popular rock artists, are included), the major difference between this and previous releases is the overall mitigation of rock influence (and near-eradication of anything classifying as hard rock or metal) in context with the total package.

Thus, if you fancy the likes of Taylor Swift, Hilary Duff, Fall Out Boy, Maroon 5, and any other variety of recent pop stars, Band Hero is for you. The song list is also specifically formulated to provide a more family-friendly experience—with very few (though still some) lyrical vulgarities of any type—so if you’re a mother searching for a Guitar Hero/Rock Band you can guiltlessly share with your preteens, Band Hero fits the bill. On the other hand, whether or not you can appreciate rocking out to tunes which so prominently rely on such artificiality and heavily-produced qualities of sound is something worth investigating. (What’s strange is the fact that the Nintendo DS version of the game, featuring just 30 songs total, arguably carries a stronger song list than this console-based counterpart.) Unless you fall squarely within the niche targeted by Band Hero’s formula, you’ll likely find the experience lacking the same sense of authenticity and grandeur typical of Band Hero’s pedigree.

{hwdvs-player}920{/hwdvs-player}

Guitar Hero 5, just less guitar

Everything else is practically equivalent to Guitar Hero 5, and while that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it does pretty firmly establish Band Hero as a parallel branch of the Hero series rather than an evolution of the series. If you’ve yet to experience the refinements that were introduced in 5, you’ll appreciate them in Band Hero. The general philosophy is a move toward greater simplicity and accessibility—a focus on fun over all else—and that same philosophy permeates Band Hero’s design as well. As previously mentioned, all songs and a plethora of options and cheats are available right from the beginning, making it easy to pick up a copy of the game and start partying. The unlockable content, meanwhile, has been repopulated with additional outfits and characters and the like in exchange for anything pivotal to multiplayer enjoyment (such as songs).

Keep in mind that the move toward diminished rock influence also logically affects the gameplay. For starters, you’ll find yourself playing quasi-guitar parts more than ever before—keyboards, synth, and so on frequently substitute. On the whole, even on expert difficulty, the guitar parts are notably easier than in previous series installments, providing yet another reason for hesitation if you’re a franchise veteran.

But functionally, again, this is the same package. All the same game modes apply, which have been covered plenty of times before. Regardless, here’s a quick enumeration of the basic features:

• Quickplay

• Career – The basic run through the songs in the game separated by a series of venues. Here’s where you’ll find plenty of unlockable supplemental content such as the aforementioned characters and outfits. The additional gold/platinum/diamond one-per-song challenges that were made popular in Guitar Hero 5 (“Score X number of points”, “Hit X number of yellow note s”) serve as a fun extension to the usual hit-as-many-notes-as-possible gameplay.

• Music Store – You can also transfer 69 of the Guitar Hero 5 songs to Band Hero.

• GH Studio – Better than ever before, this is where you can create your own tunes (though it takes ages) and then upload them to the public server for others to download and rate. Of course, you can always just download songs that others have spent the time to make, which is fun—though the MIDI instruments don’t come close to approximating the quality of anything recorded live, of course. Some UI-related annoyances apply, such as the inability to search for a phrase within a song’s title (for instance, Zelda only reveals songs that start with the word), but it’s still leaps and bounds ahead of any sort of customization offered by competing games.

• Leaderboards

• Rock Star Creator

• Training

• Competitive – Again, offering the same impressive breadth of options available to owners of Guitar Hero 5

Everything listed above is functionally identical to its Guitar Hero 5 counterpart, which probably isn’t too surprising considering that it’s only been two months since.

All things considered

This amounts to over a dozen different Guitar Hero titles in just around two and a half years, so one has to question whether or not the series has reached its saturation point. Even with all of the welcomed refinements of Guitar Hero 5 in hand along with the couple of additional features mentioned above, this is ultimately little more than a glorified Guitar Hero 5 song pack which just so happens to transcend the usual musical genre of the series. The fact that it’s selling at full price in spite of this is probably the biggest issue at hand here. However, this is truly the first franchise entry to date which is targeted directly at the pop/top 40/family-oriented niche audience—so that certainly counts for something.

Of course, this isn’t the only game on the block that’s attempted to fill this hole in the market. Releasing parallel to Band Hero is the equally unoffensive Lego Rock Band, but Lego includes still fewer overall songs and retains the genre-centric rock focus which has defined nearly all popular games of this type to date—so it’s really a different style of product. There’s also a thin selection of second-rate offerings from other companies seeking a piece of the plastic musical instrument pie, but none of those approaches the same level of quality as either the Rock Band or Guitar Hero series of games.

So, all things considered, if you’re in the market for a pop-centric concert simulation music game targeted at young teens or families looking to jam, Band Hero is your current best option. It isn’t perfect, and it certainly isn’t revolutionary, but it is the first and only fully-featured fusion of the popular formula with the top 40 format.