Even Skrillex’s energetic “Bangarang” isn't a song you want to play on guitar. Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats,” One Republic’s “Counting Stars,” Avril Levigne’s “Here’s to Never Growing Up,” The Lumineers’ “Hey Ho,” and Charli XCX’s “Famous” are fine but in no way memorable for guitarists. Gone are the Guitar Hero II days of killer guitar songs like “Carry on my Wayward Son,” “Last Child” and “Hangar 18,” replaced instead with songs in which the guitar is an afterthought. It’s not that the 42 songs you’re forced to hammer through in Guitar Hero Live’s single-player mode are bad so much as a bad fit for a game primarily about being a great guitarist. It’s hard to feel like a rock star - or even concentrate on hitting notes - when you sort of hate every person within 200 yards of the video game stage (though it was kind of awesome watching the fictional over-bearded hippie band Portland Cloud Orchestra get angry and yell at me when I mangled my way through Mumford and Son’s “I Will Wait.”) It's ridiculous, and it draws you out of the experience. Their attitudes shift back and forth frequently, especially if you struggle with certain song parts but excel at others. “STOP BLOWING IT, MATE!” your singer chides, while the groupie in the front row, who seconds before was throwing you appreciative devil horns, suddenly shakes her head and screams “OFF! OFF!” to shame you off the stage. “GOOD JOB! YOU ARE PLAYING GREAT!” your singer says with his happy face and very un-rocking thumbs-up. Hit lots of notes and play well and everyone will cheer you on. And worse, how little it makes you feel like an actual rock star, which is sort of the point of the entire game.įor instance, the crowd is obsessed with your performance. You experience this from a first-person view - you ARE the guitarist - which makes it feel like a cheesy early 1990s full-motion video game, but instead of celebrating the cheese factor, it’s uncomfortably unaware of how lame it is. You play in front of massive crowds filled with actors holding up signs that say things like “Excited” and “Whoops” and “Fresh” and “Tonight Is Epic,” because those are exactly the sorts of signs people hold up at real rock concerts, according to a 250-page report someone at Activision compiled about the Behavior of Music Fans at Outdoor Concerts. You’re the guitarist in a variety of fictional bands your band mates are anonymous, real-world musicians doing their best rock star impersonations. This mode takes you through two giant outdoor festivals in the U.S. Take, for example, the “Live” single-player campaign. Unfortunately, some of Guitar Hero Live’s other changes don’t fare so well.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |