Guitar Hero (video game)
Guitar Hero | ||
---|---|---|
Director(s) Greg LoPiccolo | | |
Series | Guitar Hero | |
Platform(s) | PlayStation 2 | |
Release | ||
Genre(s) | Rhythm | |
Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
Guitar Hero is a 2005
The game features a guitar-shaped controller (resembling a miniature Gibson SG) that the player uses to simulate playing rock music. The gameplay is similar to GuitarFreaks, in that the player presses buttons on the guitar controller in time with musical notes that scroll on the game screen. The game features covers of 30 popular rock songs spanning five decades of rock, from the 1960s up through 2005, in addition to bonus tracks. Guitar Hero became a surprise hit, earning critical acclaim and winning many awards from major video game publications, and is considered one of the most influential games of its decade. The game's success launched the Guitar Hero franchise, which has earned more than $2 billion in sales, spawning several sequels, expansions, and other game-related products.
Gameplay
The gameplay is similar to other music and rhythm video games, in that the player must press buttons on a
The player is awarded points for correctly hitting notes,
Modes and other features
Guitar Hero's main mode of play is Career Mode, where the player and in-game band travel between various fictional performance arenas and perform sets of four or five songs. Completing songs in this mode unlocks the songs for play within the other game modes. Players can choose their on-stage character and their guitar; these elements have no effect on gameplay but affect the visuals during the performance. In Career Mode, players can earn money from their performances that is redeemable at the in-game store, where bonus content, such as additional songs, guitars and finishes, can be unlocked.[1] Quick Play mode allows players to play any unlocked track, selecting the difficulty, the character, venue and guitar.[1] After successfully completing a song in either Career or Quick Play mode, players are given a score and a rating from three to five stars, depending on their overall performance.[1]
Multiplayer mode offers two players the chance to compete against each other on the same song. Two fret boards will appear on screen, one for each player, as they alternate playing sections of the song in a dueling manner. The player with the highest score at the end of the song wins.[1]
The four difficulty levels for each song provide players with a learning curve in order to help them progress in skill. The first difficulty level, Easy, only focuses on the first three fret buttons while displaying a significantly reduced amount of notes for the player to play. Medium introduces a fourth fret button while adding more notes, and Hard includes the final fret button while adding additional notes. Expert does not introduce any other frets to learn, but adds more notes in a manner designed to challenge the player.[1]
Development
According to Rob Kay, the game's Lead Designer, the idea of Guitar Hero was directly inspired by
The team quickly recognized that "the controller really was the kind of magic sauce for what we wanted to do".
"Gem tracks", the pattern of notes for a song, were developed by a team in Harmonix, taking usually a day to develop the tracks for one song.[3] Tracks were designed to include key notes to "make [the player] feel as if [he is] a brilliant musician".[3] Software algorithms were used to assess the difficulty of the tracks, and the quality assurance team helped to rebalance the tracks for accuracy and difficulty. The software also allowed Harmonix to quickly make changes to the set list or to recreate the tracks for a song to make sure the overall difficulty of the game was appropriate.[3] Harmonix' past games Frequency and Amplitude aided in designing the visual interface for these gem tracks, such as how big to make the gems and how fast they should move on screen.[10]
At the onset of development, the team did not have any idea of what songs would be present in the final game. Kay noted that "We wanted 30 or 40 songs for the game and put a hundred on our wish list."
Guitar Hero started with "super-basic Pong-style graphics" for the game display.[3] The final game art was led by Ryan Lesser, using the art team's involvement in the music scene. Based on the experience from Frequency and Amplitude, the team realized that "people don't necessarily relate to really abstract visuals", and included the depictions of live performances as previously used in Karaoke Revolution.[3] The PlayStation 2 was also limited so that they could not do photorealistic graphics. These limitations led to the exaggerated rock art style used in the game.[10] House of Moves were used to assist in creation motion capture for the on-screen animations.[16] The appearance of Star Power was made to resemble electricity, both to reflect the use of the electric guitar as well to conceptually demonstrate the excitement of the performance and the virtual audience.[17]
Guitar Hero was initially released to retail stores in a bundle that packaged the game disc and a Gibson SG guitar controller, priced at $69.99.
Soundtrack
Guitar Hero features 47 playable songs, 30 of which are "main setlist" tracks that are
Reception
Aggregator | Score |
---|---|
1Up.com | A+[25] |
Eurogamer | 8/10[26] |
GameSpot | 9.0/10[27] |
GameSpy | [28] |
IGN | 9.2/10[2] |
Play | 10/10[29] |
Guitar Hero received critical acclaim upon release. It received a score of 91.96% on GameRankings[23] and 91/100 on Metacritic.[24] IGN praised the "fantastic soundtrack" and "great peripheral",[2] further commenting that mini-Gibson SG controller "is what makes Guitar Hero, rather than what breaks it".[30] GameSpot echoed these sentiments, stating Guitar Hero had a "great guitar controller" and "killer soundtrack" and was possibly the "best rhythm game ever made".[27] Many reviews praised the game's gradual learning curve and difficulty approach through the song tier progression and the difficulty setting for each song.[25][26][27] Play said the game "gives bedroom air guitarists a chance to live out their rock 'n' roll fantasies".[29] GameSpy's review commented on the length of the songs, in that "once you hit the three minute mark or so, things start to feel 'too long'".[28] Eurogamer said, "the lack of international star quality about the roster of songs and the absence of the original artists is perhaps the only thing that may detract from the package from an importer's perspective" and "it would have been truly amazing with a better track list".[26]
Shortly after release, Guitar Hero became an
The game and its sequels have created interest in young adults and children in learning how to play a real guitar,
Awards
Guitar Hero has won several awards. In
References
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