Guitar Hero 5 Review - Xbox 360

8.5

Gameplay: 8
Graphics: 7
Audio: 9
Multiplayer: 9
Innovation: 7

Guitar Hero 5 brings new gameplay modes and a whole new line-up of award winning artists to the franchise in what Activision are hoping to be the best party game of all time. Play with four guitarists, or four vocalists, play the game however you see fit with your friends, jump in to a song or bail out at any point, and change difficulty levels on the fly. Guitar Hero 5 has so much more packed in to it than the original games in the series, so if you're a die-hard fan, get ready to be overwhelmed with new features and tunes. Could this be the best Guitar Hero game of the series, finally reaching a level of aptness unseen since Guitar Hero 3? Read on to find out.

Gameplay

The Guitar Hero games are constantly adding new gameplay modes and removing ones that don't go over well with the fans (boss battles), but never before were gamers able to use any instrument they want in a band of four. Yep, that's right; you can have four guitarists, four drummers, or four vocalists. Gamers are no longer faced with being forced to play bass due to some smart-arse kid at a party selecting Lead every single time and then whining when you don't know the bass to a song. This new gameplay feature is available in all modes of play, so you can have three guitarists and a singer in online play, or four drummers in career mode the choice is up to you.

Guitar Hero 5 adds such musical talent to the franchise as Kings of Leon, Tom Petty, Vampire Weekend and Bob Dylan, and also has great bands such as Jimmy Eat World and Rammstein returning with more hits. With 85 master tracks, there's a huge range of musical style in this game, possibly more than any previous Guitar Hero title. The most interesting choice of song being 'Play that Funky Music, White Boy" by Wild Cherry.

One of the new gameplay modes in Guitar Hero 5 is called Party Play Mode, which is designed for parties where people can't decide on their difficulty level. You can change your individual difficulty level at any point throughout a song, and you can even quit or join in at any stage throughout a song without causing other band members to suffer. RockFest mode is the other new gameplay mode where Activision have basically decided to put a whole heap of different versus modes into the mix. Choose between six different modes with 4-player offline or 8-player online battles including Momentum, where songs get more difficult or easier depending on your performance, or Elimination where players are eliminated if they are performing the worst throughout each segment of the song. Guitar Hero 5 has really opened the series up to being able to modify the gameplay throughout a song, instead of having to wait until the end of a song to change modes.

Down to the basics now though, as you work through your career mode ...