Band Hero Review

By Keza MacDonald Published 10 November, 2009

Rock bland.

Version tested: PlayStation 3

If you're still wondering what Band Hero actually is - and I certainly was until about two months ago, when Activision started giving demonstrations - it's a pop-centric, family-friendly reskin of the excellent Guitar Hero 5. It's presumably been given a different name so that it doesn't encroach upon GH5's already-vast audience, or the image of the brand, because it's a bit like an evil twin - it's got all the features and all the technical quality of its sibling, but none of the soul.

It puts all of Guitar Hero 5's best and most time-saving features on proud display. Jump-in, jump-out Party Play is still in effect, and you can still create your own playlists for it. The game still remembers everyone's instrument, difficulty level and preferred character so that you barely have to spend any time in menus. The unified career is still structured around different arenas, opening up five or six songs at a time to try your hand. There are still Challenges that motivate you to play all the different instruments rather than sticking to one, and to experiment with your technique.

Good as all these features are, though, and as crucial as they are to the Guitar Hero 5's enjoyability and integrity, they make rather less impact second time around. Band Hero brings absolutely nothing new to the table save a rather perplexing makeover. The menus are all enveloped in neon pinks and purples, bright and clean-looking without so much as a smear of Guitar Hero's likeable scuzz. At the end of a song, YOU ROCK flashes up in diamanté. It's so plainly For Girls that it's faintly embarrassing - as if women who haven't picked up a plastic guitar before are going to be convinced that the idea isn't so ridiculous after all thanks to a change in colour scheme and the inclusion of Avril Lavigne.

'Band Hero' Screenshot 2

There's a new karaoke lyric option for people who aren't used to the Rock Band/Guitar Hero style of static or scrolling words.

As a by-product of this makeover, the on-stage performances have lost all of their verve. It's quite, quite horrible to watch Judy Nails simpering along to No Doubt in a mall, or Johnny Napalm strumming amiably away to Big Country, mohawkless and emasculated. The dudes on-stage, apart from the singer, do practically nothing except stand there and play instruments; the singer, meanwhile, prances left and right of the mic and makes the occasional hand gesture. It's not as if you'll be exactly mesmerised by the toned-down note charts, either, so you can't help but notice the lack of life.

Activision has craftily packaged Band Hero with the nicest set of plastic instruments yet made. If you want a nice new plastic Strat with a sunburst faceplate, metal pretend tuning pegs and a much-improved tap bar with little grooves to guide your fingers, or a new metal drumkit with a detachable control panel that's much more solid, reliable and aesthetically pleasing than World Tour's, the only way to get them is to buy a Band Hero kit. Asking people to pay upwards of £130 for a band kit they almost certainly don't need just for the sake of improved instruments that can't be bought separately really is taking the piss out of consumers. At least you can access the Guitar Hero: World Tour DLC store.

Probably a good thing, too, since apart from the bundling cynicism, and the questionable style-change, it's the track list that really makes me wince at Band Hero. In teaming Guitar Hero gameplay with this kind of music, Activision seems to have missed the point of rhythm-action games. They're supposed to make you feel superhuman, part of the music, a synaesthesic god creating fantastic lights and noises by interpreting patterns with lightning-fast fingers, all of which is impossible when the drum track you're playing along to is a synthesised beat from a godawful American pop song from 2005. I've spent more hours and money on dreadful music from the SingStore than anyone else in my acquaintance, except perhaps Ellie, and have a keen appreciation for guiltily enjoyable pop, but plastic guitars and the Village People is not a winning combination.

The problem is that everyone except the singer feels somewhat superfluous. The music has to match up to the nature of the gameplay in a successful rhythm game, and 80 per cent of Band Hero's track list is comprised of vocal-centric songs that don't translate well to dancing patterns of light and living-room showmanship. SingStar already exists to give us an outlet for singing along to embarrassing pop, and it has a much bigger, better selection of songs.

'Band Hero' Screenshot 1

The new instruments are an improvement on the World Tour set, so it seems a bit cheap to only offer them with Band Hero and not Guitar Hero 5.

Whether you're capable of enjoying Band Hero comes down to why you play rhythm-action in the first place. If you play for the music or the challenge, there's nothing here for you. If, however, you play socially - as a family, with friends - with people who have little interest in the music and no talent for the plastic instruments, if the thought of breaking out the plastic axes to play Spice Girls doesn't bother you at all and if you've no access to the SingStore, then these are 70-odd tracks you might enjoy set in a rock-solid rhythm-action framework. It's certainly an awful lot better than the other attempts at pop rhythm games that have sprung up on the Wii, with their dreadful karaoke versions of the songs and useless controls and note-charting.

If you love Guitar Hero, on the other hand, the only reason to buy it would be for the improved instruments, and surely nobody has that much money and that little sense of consumer dignity in tandem. Band Hero is a technically solid product pitched at a demographic that does presumably exist - people who don't like Guitar Hero's music, but still want to play along - but it sets a dangerous precedent. Where Guitar Hero 5 hauled the series up to a quality plateau, adding a load of features that fans of the series can really appreciate, Band Hero is nothing more or less than a reskin. And even though it's a reskin of a superb game, the lack of concern for the credibility of the music and presentation can't help but cheapen it.

6 / 10

Read the Eurogamer.net scoring policy
Picture of Keza.

About Keza MacDonald

Read more articles from Keza by visiting the Keza MacDonald archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (39) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Retroid #1 2 years ago

    I still don't quite get the point of this game.

    It just seems a re-skin too many.

  • udat #2 2 years ago

    I'd like to get at some of the songs on here, for when girls come round and play, but the whole thing should either be available to download or on a disc at a budget price.

  • dominalien #3 2 years ago

    Someone clearly saw an untapped market here and the game is the result of trying to fill the gap.

  • MisterFalseName #4 2 years ago

    Am I the only one to find the 'Hero' naming convention completely ridiculous and very annoying?

    Guitar Hero works, just about. Band Hero and DJ Hero just sound ridiculous, and the former is gramatically dubious to boot. I understand they want to keep a strong brand, but surely not at the expense of making the product sound good in the first place?
    Edited by 1 at 10/11/09 @ 14:03

  • Skurmedel #5 2 years ago

    It's still feels less pointless than DJ Hero, but maybe I'm wrong.

  • TheDudesRug #6 2 years ago

    My other half likes the songs but she can stick with the beatles for pop i think, the harlet.

  • Machetazo #7 2 years ago

    Is she, in the picture, asleep at the guitar?

  • RobotRocker #8 2 years ago

    Playing the trumpets for Walking on Sunshine in the demo confirmed that Activision have completely lost the plot. Its even funnier when you see how the selling out includes making bland pop-versions of the Guitar Hero Characters. That's got to hurt the original character designer a lot.

    /Lego Rock Band has you playing guitar all the time to that song BTW
    //Yes you can get Kurt Cobain to do the YMCA dance when you import the tracks into GH5. Just don't tell Courtney
    ///How in the Blue fuck did Band Hero get The Impression that I get first?

  • Monsta #9 2 years ago

    i thought dj hero was pointless until i played a demo unit in the states a couple of weeks ago and now i'm sold

  • Zomoniac #10 2 years ago

    Playing the trumpets for Walking on Sunshine in the demo confirmed that Activision have completely lost the plot.

    I think playing Sympathy For The Devil by the Stones in GH5 confirmed that. 95% of the song on guitar is playing the piano.

    And don't get me started on Superstition.

  • Shinetop #11 2 years ago

    Yes you can get Kurt Cobain to do the YMCA dance when you import the tracks into GH5.

    Please tell me someone made a video of this and put it on youtube.

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #12 2 years ago

    I don't like this review. The reviewer seem to have decided to be snotty about the theme and tracklist before she began. It seems supremely unfair to criticise the game for adding nothing to Guitar Hero 5 when it has come out TWO MONTHS later, and is clearly a product aimed at delivering plastic instrument gameplay to young people who would rather be Geri Halliwell than Slash.

    I wonder what Ellie would have given it.

  • kangarootoo #13 2 years ago

    "Playing the trumpets for Walking on Sunshine in the demo confirmed that Activision have completely lost the plot"

    I agree that demo was uninspiring, but I don't mind one bit playing trumpets. Superstition by Steve Wonder on GH5 is a great track, and you spend about 2/3 of the time following the brass section, with great effect.

  • Zomoniac #14 2 years ago

    I thought Superstition on GH5 was an abomination, and would've been improved a thousand fold by having you actually play the guitar (which is awesome anyway) throughout the song. It's not like there is no guitar part and it's filling a gap.

  • Zomoniac #15 2 years ago

    You're also the first person I've heard call him 'Steve' :)

  • andromeda #16 2 years ago

    great

    can we finally start to see the downfall of this music game crap and get back to nerdy gaming FTW

  • SpaceMidget75 Verified Senior Software Developer, Minerva Computer Services #17 2 years ago

    "You're also the first person I've heard call him 'Steve' :) "

    Haha

  • chessboxer #18 2 years ago

    I wonder when Choir Hero will be announced...

  • jonbwfc #19 2 years ago

    I tell you what, Orchestra Hero is going to be bloody expensive.

  • Putty-Man #20 2 years ago

    Dissing pop music is so cool.

  • dloob #21 2 years ago

    Not a bad track list, I actually recognise most of the songs.
    The guitar ones tend to be a venture into the unknown, who's Tom Morello and why am I having a guitar battle with this homeless guy and where is the bit about white clifs and blue birds in the cliffs of dover.

  • RobotRocker #22 2 years ago

    Dissing pop music is so cool.

    Pop music can be awesome. Its just Activision is trying to be as mainstream as possible and failing spectacularly since the majority of songs have no business being on a instrument game. Lego Rock Band seems to have mix of stuff that actually works with old rock tracks the parents and gamers can dig like Let's Dance, The Final Countdown and The Passenger and poppy stuff like So What?, Ruby and Suddenly I See while rounding it novelty/AWESOME tracks like Kung-Fu Fighting and Ghostbusters. Its undoubtedly a 7/10 game (Watch for the bitching over no online play and the £6-7 import fee with a one use only code. Blaming Ellie already). But they at least tried to cater to the family framework while keeping a respectable list of songs available that are interesting and fit the gameplay.

  • monkey500 #23 2 years ago

    Pah! This game is a great laugh - GHWT and GH5 are fab but it's nice to see more mainstream songs get onto the playlist.

    Where are people's sense of humour?! Jeeeeeeeez - Wannabe after a few glasses of wine is hysterical

  • Hurleybird #24 2 years ago

    Any reason this wasn't named "Pop Hero" ? Seems to confuse the already over-saturated rhythm-based game market

  • makeamazing #25 2 years ago

    This will be a big failure... this and Sabatouer (sp)... I can feel it in me bones.

  • Rack #26 2 years ago

    This is strangely unrelentingly negative, I've got a couple of these songs as DLC on Rock Band to appease the pop audience when we have drunken Rock Band/Sing Star nights and at the very least the reviewer here is remiss for not mentioning Rios stonking Bass and Drum tracks.

  • LR100 #27 2 years ago

    The rubbish censorship of songs has always bugged me in GH/RB games, but the censorship in this is absolutely terrible apparently.

  • j-bo #28 2 years ago

    Dissapointing review - what I loved about Ellie's reviews (see singstar) is the lack of cockish high brow music snobbery.

    Essentially if its GH5, which is great, with a music set aimed at people who don't like GH's music set, why the hell is it being reviewed by someone who clearly loves GH5 and doesn't like mainstream cheesy pop?

    Seriously, you actually went with the 'credibilty of the music' argument here?

  • RobotRocker #29 2 years ago

    @ j-bo

    Its credibility vs format. SingStar is the perfect format for the majority of the tracklist. Band Hero is not.

    Also, it literally is a re-skin of Guitar Hero 5.

  • aphexstwin #30 2 years ago

    after having 5 wt drumkits all have problems, mainly bubbles under the heads making them uber sensitive and yellow pad failures, im very tempted by this 'x-factor hero' game. but only when the kit is stand alone. i like cymbals being cymbals innit.

  • j-bo #31 2 years ago

    @RobotRocker

    I take your point, but essentially you're playing a fake plastic musical instrument here akin to a fisher price toy, regardless of the genre, so I think any discussion of 'credibilty' is ultimately a bit embarrasing. eg if you think because youre playing a plastic guitar and you're playing rock it's somehow more credible, well that's probably exactly while real musicians look on the genre with such scorn.

    Surely its just about fun - enjoying the music and interacting with it based on rythm - the degree to which you do this is ofc dependant on your investment in the music, which comes down to preferance, not credibilty.

    (personally, within the context of fecking around in my living room with some lumps of plastic, the idea of doing this to trashy pop songs seems much more logical then the quasi cringeworthiness of taking it seriously and thinking it's credible because it's rock/whatever).

  • Lee_Morris #32 2 years ago

    I really hope Rock Band 3 implement some GH5 feature such as changing difficulty mid song, remembering my instrument and difficulty level. We're still gonna have to wait a year for them though. RB2 does seem fairly clunky at times, well everything apart from the actual playing of course cause that bloody brill.

    PS3 owners are still waiting on the patch though. It's a shame becuase as soon as they do I'll be diving into Queen and The White Stripes.

  • Zomoniac #33 2 years ago

    who's Tom Morello

    The greatest, most creative guitarist of recent times, and a thousand times the guitarist Slash could ever be. This question was asked a lot, and makes me cry. He's from Rage Against The Machine. Check out the guitar parts to songs like Know Your Enemy. He takes the rather sensible approach of why bother doing the same solos as everyone else but faster, when you could be doing solos that nobody else has ever even dreamed of attempting.

  • kangarootoo #34 2 years ago

    @Zomoniac

    You do play the guitar for some of the song, but it would be damn repetative if that is all you played all the way through.


    P.s. I call him Steve and he calls me Kanga. We go way back :)

  • kangarootoo #35 2 years ago

    @Zomoniac

    And on the subject of Tom Morrello and Slash (or Thomas and Saul as I like to call them over brandy and cigars), they are both great guitarists with different styles. Slash doesn't write the same solo every time, and Tom doesn't avoid doing "proper solos" because he can't (as some have said in the past).

    They are different players, with different tastes, serving different audiences, and they have both fully earned their relative positions in musical history (though I admit Tom could do with wider recognition for his brilliance).

  • Putty-Man #36 2 years ago

    Just to confiirm I was being cirastic when I said dissing pop music was cool.

    I agree with previous posters saying the review shows a lot of musical snobbery.

  • Zomoniac #37 2 years ago

    @Kanga :) (you can call me Zo)

    I probably don't give Slash the credit he deserves, not so much down to him but because of my utter hatred for all GnR's music and Axl "bigger cunt than Bono" Rose. But certainly what playing of his I have heard has been technically great, but doing nothing that a thousand other guitarists haven't already done. There's nothing wrong with his playing per se, but it is just showy-offy generic blues-rock guitar that could easily be by numerous other players. That so few people recognise Morello is a tragedy, as there you have a guitarist who plays a completely unique style and has invented techniques that make for weird and incredible playing (did anyone before Morello come up with the hand-operated pickup killswitch?). I value creativity over technicality, which is why to me Slash will always be a distant second to the likes of Morello and Greenwood, and Peart and Portnoy will always be a distant second to Copeland and Starr, and so on for other instruments, you get the point.

  • kangarootoo #38 2 years ago

    So I played a bit of this recently, and I think the reviewer is off the mark with the comments on the music. I don't particularly like the play list, but then I also felt that the GH5 track list was the worst of the series so far.

    Neither game has a stand out playlist as far as I'm concerned, but that is besides the point. The reviewer is trying to suggest there is some objectivity to music selection, when of course there is nothing of the sort.

    The attempt at objective comment is the suggestion that pop music gives some band members less to do. As a generalism, this is nonsense.

    One thing is clear, there are plenty of songs in GH5 that give one of the band members little to do, and there are also plenty of songs in BH that give each band member plenty of work. The song chosen will affect that outcome, and I would question whether the selection in BH has less to offer than GH5 in that respect (there are plenty of non-pop songs on BH).

    Mased on my own abservations, I have to agree with those that have suggested BH should get the same score as GH5. There are identical, except for their song selection. And neither song selection is perfect in the sense of giving every band member something interesting to do every time.

  • kangarootoo #39 2 years ago

    @Zomoniac

    Axel Rose is indeed a dick (as I told him last week over a round of canasta).


    I agree that Slash is not carving out new ground, but I do feel that he is one of the best in his class. Its not just his technical ability (which is good and serviceable, but not world beating), but what he writes. Bluesy modern rock solos won't set the world on fire its true, but few write them quite as well as he does.

    I agree that Tom Morello is more inventive, but I just see him as "leagues ahead". I'm splitting hairs though, I realise :)