Guitar Hero 5 for Xbox 360

After the departure of HARMONIX, Activision's Guitar Hero franchise has slowly fallen. I have been a big Guitar Hero fanatic in past years, playing in tournaments and showing off to friends. Guitar Hero II, Xbox360's first GH title, was one of my personal favorites mainly because of the song selection and that it was enjoyable and exciting to play through. However after titles of GH3, GH: World Tour, GH: Aerosmith, GH: Metallica, and GH: Smash Hits I feel like the song selection has been poor with many songs having a repetitive guitar riff. However this is in a Guitar Heroist's perspective. Mainly due to my disliking of the new titles is that it's primary focus is not on guitar difficulty and variety but instead having themed Guitar Hero games (Aerosmith, Metallica, and TBA) and the incorporation of the band, which I will go into depth later. Playing Guitar Hero with yourself is just too repetitive now and lacks a challenge.

However besides all my criticism towards Guitar Hero 5, it can still be a fun game to play with friends. There are also many options to go through. Like Guitar Hero: World Tour, it too has the full band setting with drums, vocals, and bass. All these are majorly improved from some of the faults that World Tour had. As you may have alreadly caught on, this is a music-franchise in which you take a form of a rock-star and attempt to "pass" songs by playing above the minimal performance.

GUITAR/BASS:
Guitar is the most common instrument played for Guitar Hero...obviously. The guitar controller resembles a real guitar with 5 buttons (Green, Red, Yellow, Blue, Orange) that corresponds to frets on a guitar. Each note corresponds to an actual note played in the song. However, pressing the button down will not play anything unless strummed using the strum bar. Advanced techniques include hammer-ons/pull-offs and slider notes. Hammer-ons and pull-offs are basically the same concept in which the first note in the phrase must be strummed and then the other notes can just be pressed down in sync with the note highway. (Glossary on bottom). However slider notes which is only for guitar do not require any strums at all, just button pressing.

DRUMS:
The difficulty ranges from Beginner- Expert+. Expert+ is just Expert with the incorporation of the double bass pedal which can be purchased seperately. This drumset consists of three "drums" and a high-hat and cymbal and bass pedal. Basically what an actual drum set looks like. The drumset is a little easier to figure out but hard to master for rhythmically challenged people. Instead of strumming you just hit the drum pad with drum sticks once the corresponding note falls in the corresponding circle. The sensors on the drum can sometimes be frustrating to deal with as it won't always read your hits.

VOCALS:
You can either have this a karaoke style or scrolling style. Basically, for vocals, you must sing the right pitch for the right amount of time. Lyrics are just optional, but HIGHLY RECOMMENDED as it's no fun humming along. It's easier to become familiar with the vocals of the song before playing it as you'll know what to expect to sing. 

SOME FEATURES: 
Guitar Hero 5 has over 80 songs from 80 artists and with the full band, you can experience each song from a different perspective. In addition to the 80 songs, you can upload songs from Guitar Hero: World Tour (assuming you have the game) for a small fee (apprx. $5) and increase your song total. For beginners, there is also a tutorial which is somewhat effective in teaching the very basics. Also, like GH:WT but significantly improved, is the "Create a Song" option that the player will correspond button patterns with the notes of their choice (C, D, E, F,...) Plus, an easier way to do this, but not as detailed is the new "Jam Session" where you can pick a genre and then strum notes to it. (Trust me, its actually pretty impressive). You may also create your own character or upload your XBox360 Avatar onto the game. Apart from all of this is the famed Career mode that you will play through in whatever difficulty of your choice (Beginner, Easy, Medium, Hard, Expert, (Expert+ for drums)). The Quickplay mode is just a "quicker" way of playing the song of your choice.

ONLINE PLAY:
Now, apart from all the offline play is the online play. Previous to this title, there was only Pro Face-Off, Face-Off, and Battle. Now there is Momentum, Precision, and other various ones. In Pro Face-Off and Face-Off, the winner was solely determine on who had more points from hitting notes in combos. Battle Mode was a new incorporation in GH3, in which players hit notes for a special power-up that can be activated to mess up the opponent, hopefully causing him/her to fail the song. In these new game modes, players must hit a higher % of notes in a section to recieve points, or hits notes to move up a difficulty, thus recieving more points. In addition to this, the new GH server can hold up to 8 players in a free-for-all competition.

GRAPHICS:
For a game that graphics isn't the main target, they are actually very impressive. Comparing this to Guitar Hero II, the 3-D Art is much more realistic and defined. The animation is also very impressive as the character onscreen looks like he/she is actually playing the song. Although, I wouldn't judge a music/rhythm game on its graphics too much, they are very good, very impressive.

SINGLE-PLAYER:
Going back to Career Mode, there are around 15 venues in which you can advance through either in solo or band play. To advance to the next venue, recieving a minimum number of "stars" are required. These stars judge how well you performed your song ranging from
3-6. Now, in addition, each song has a certain "challenge" that can be in any of the band instruments or as a band (2-4 players). These challenges are held on a specified instrument and require you to score a certain number of points, fill your star power meter a number of times, achieve a certain note streak, or "whammy" for a number of seconds. These bonus stars (1-3) can give you unlockables that can be used for character customization.

SONGS:
There is a wide variety of songs to choose from, the most common artists being Nirvana, Coldplay, 3 Doors Down, King Crimson, Rush, Children of Bodom, Iron Maiden, Tom Petty and seventy others. Every genre of music is practically covered in this wide variety. You are highly guaranteed to find at least one song that you wouldn't mind playing over and over.

FINAL SAY:
In conclusion, this game may be worth buying for a grandson or a more recreational type user, but for any hardcore Guitar Heroers, this game may dissapoint you very much. But, to prevent losing any hard-earned bucks, I highly recommend that you rent the game or borrow it from a friend before using money on this game. The main reason for my dissaproval of this game is that it simply lacks challenging songs that would be fun to play over and over. However, besides the lacking of challenging songs, the game is very well-made and very expansive.

GLOSSARY
Highway- contains Green, Red, Yellow, Blue, Orange notes that should be strummed before passing the five colored circles near the bottom of the screen. (You'll know what I mean when you play/demo it)

Star Power- A bonus mode that is awarded through playing all notes correctly in a phrase that's notes are in shape of a star.

Whammy- the bar below the strum bar that is caused for pitch changes in long notes. Can also be used to achieve more star power