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Band Hero Review
PlayStation 3 Xbox 360 Review by Keza MacDonald
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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.
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.
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Latest Features
Latest Videos
The EGTV Show: The Saturdays vs. Band Hero [17] 12 November, 2009
Band Hero - Adam Levine in game [0] 20 October, 2009
Latest News
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No Doubt suing over Band Hero avatars [44]
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Band Hero demo on Xbox Live [16]
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New songs announced for Band Hero [18]
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Band Hero has new instruments [36]
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Band Hero coming to DS too [20]
Latest Screenshots
30 September, 2009 [1]
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Comments: 1-40 of 40 in total
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dominalien
10/11/09 @ 13:56
+2
Someone clearly saw an untapped market here and the game is the result of trying to fill the gap.
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MisterFalseName
10/11/09 @ 14:03
+2
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 1 times,
most recently on 10/11/09 @ 14:03
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TheDudesRug
10/11/09 @ 14:14
+3
My other half likes the songs but she can stick with the beatles for pop i think, the harlet.
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RobotRocker
10/11/09 @ 14:39
+4
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? |
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Mentalist(air)
10/11/09 @ 15:10
+6
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. |
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kangarootoo
10/11/09 @ 15:12
0
"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. |
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SpaceMidget75
10/11/09 @ 15:30
0
"You're also the first person I've heard call him 'Steve' :) "
Haha |
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EarlBassett
10/11/09 @ 16:28
+1
"I don't like this review. The reviewer seem to have decided to be snotty about the theme and tracklist before she began"
+1 My thoughts exactly. Preconceptions that meant the score was written before the first instrument was picked up |
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RobotRocker
10/11/09 @ 17:00
+1
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. |
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Hurleybird
10/11/09 @ 17:52
+1
Any reason this wasn't named "Pop Hero" ? Seems to confuse the already over-saturated rhythm-based game market
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makeamazing
10/11/09 @ 17:53
0
This will be a big failure... this and Sabatouer (sp)... I can feel it in me bones.
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+2
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? |
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RobotRocker
10/11/09 @ 21:10
0
@ 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. |
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aphexstwin
10/11/09 @ 23:33
0
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.
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+1
@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). |
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Lee_Morris
11/11/09 @ 07:48
0
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. |
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0
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. |
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kangarootoo
11/11/09 @ 09:39
0
@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 :) |
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kangarootoo
11/11/09 @ 09:46
+1
@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). |
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0
@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. |
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kangarootoo
11/11/09 @ 10:39
+2
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. |
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kangarootoo
11/11/09 @ 10:42
0
@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 :) |
Comments: 1-40 of 40 in total
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