| Guitar Hero Smash Hits Hands-On
Sing along or bang the drums with some classic tracks.
April 9, 2009 - Guitar Hero IV took a giant leap for Activision and brought one of the best-selling franchises from merely guitar twiddling to full band. But before Guitar Hero IV, there were several guitar-only offerings. In earlier versions, gamers couldn't sing or play drums along with their favorite songs. Someone very smart at Activision realized that enabling such actions would be a good idea. And so was born Guitar Hero Smash Hits, which takes tracks from the first three numbered Guitar Hero games and Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s and updates them for full band play.
Those who pick up a copy of Smash Hits this June won't get any revolutionary new gameplay additions. Everything here comes from either Guitar Hero IV or the newly released Guitar Hero: Metallica. That means a full-fledged character creation system, single-player and band career modes, online eight-player Battle of the Bands, Expert+ difficulty and the Music Studio are all included.
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Smash Hits uses only master recordings, which means that the cover versions used in the original Guitar Hero have been replaced. Of course, Guitar Hero has changed quite a bit over the years in terms of how the guitar chord progressions are charted and so adjustments have been made. If you think you know Queen's "Killer Queen" by heart, you're in for a surprise. And every song has undergone a change at bass guitar, because Activision rewrote the rules of Hard and Expert bass playing with GH IV. You now have open chords to play on bass, which definitely adds a bit more challenge to some of the easier Guitar Hero songs of the past.
Of course the biggest change is the addition of drums and vocals. Finally, you can hear your best friend butcher Heart's "Barracuda"! If you've played GHIV or Metallica, then you have nothing new really to discover in terms of gameplay. Playing with a band is no different than in those games. Only the songs have changed. That's not a bad thing,
Speaking of the songs, there are 48 in total. Activision is going to be revealing these slowly over the next month. The preview build includes the following eight tracks:
- Heart "Barracuda" - GHIII
- Joan Jett and the Blackhearts "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" - GH
- Twisted Sister "I Wanna Rock" - GH 80s
- Queen "Killer Queen" - GH
- Rage Against the Machine "Killing in the Name" - GHII
- Poison "Nothing but a Good Time" - GH 80s
- Alice in Chains "Them Bones" - GHII
- DragonForce "Through the Fire and Flames" - GHIII
With a few exceptions (DragonForce, I'm looking at you) the songs on GH: Smash Hits are of the party favorite variety. Who doesn't want to play Poison at their Rock of Love Bus viewing party or Twisted Sister the next time they're over at Dee Snider's house? Personally, I could live without ever hearing Joan Jett again, but I'm sure many will have fun lovin' rock 'n' roll this summer.
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Now you can rock out with your whatever-you-have out.
Playing in a full band for these songs is a lot of fun, even if Activision isn't trying to reinvent the wheel. The only bummer is that any tracks you downloaded for use in Guitar Hero IV aren't playable with Guitar Hero Smash Hits.
I'd love to say more about Smash Hits, but really, what else is there to say? If you like Guitar Hero IV and you want more songs to play, then you'll like Smash Hits. The real test of Smash Hits' quality will be the reveal of the remaining 40 tracks. If the majority of those are top notch, then Smash Hits will be a welcome addition to the Guitar Hero library.
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