Given Activision's love of releasing ten billion Guitar Hero games a month, it's somewhat surprising that the evil publisher has taken so long to wrap its tendrils around iTunes. Titles like Tap Tap Revenge have already demonstrated a healthy portable music game market, while rivals such as Rock Band and Guitar Rock Tour have already settled into the market.
Still, better late than never. Guitar Hero has finally
stamped its boot into the iTunes market, with a little help from Vicarious
Visions. The question, of course, is how well Guitar Hero translates to the
iPhone, and how does it compare to the music games already available to Apple
thralls? Well, that's what this review is for, stupid!
Guitar Hero (iPhone)
Developer: Vicarious Visions
Publisher: Activision
Released: June 7, 2010
MSRP: $2.99
From the outset, Guitar Hero doesn't deviate from the well
worn path, featuring a setup familiar to those who have played Rock Band or
Guitar Rock Tour. Notes fall down the screen in typical Guitar Hero fashion,
while the player taps the "buttons" at the bottom when notes align.
Fundamentally, it's nothing that hasn't been done before, but the
implementation is what makes Guitar Hero stand out.
For a start, Guitar Hero works better than either Rock Band
or Guitar Rock Tour do on the touch screen. In those prior games, I always felt
the interface wasn't responsive enough, and it was very easy to miss notes or
play the wrong ones due to how bunched together the interactive parts of the
screen felt. While Guitar Hero looks no different from those other games, the
interface feels much more responsive and efficient. Unlike Rock Band, where it
was easy to mess up notes with a misplaced finger, Guitar Hero seems to clearly
interpret the borders between its "buttons" and make sure that the
area you want to tap is the area that works.
Guitar Hero spices things up a bit with a "strum"
gimmick designed for the iPhone's touch screen. Simply put, it's a case of
touching a note and then sliding to the left or right while keeping the finger
held down. It's a very simple thing, but it does enough to change the way the
game feels, especially when your fingers are slaloming across the iPhone during
a particularly tricky solo. Star Power also makes its obligatory appearance,
and its activation requires the pressing of a bar just above the note "buttons".
The only problem with the Star Power is the fact that getting a breather
between notes to activate it can be tricky, although it's far easier to use
than Guitar Rock Tour's version, which stuck it far away from the notes.
To keep things interesting, the game also has a set of
challenges (Achievements, basically) and a rank progression system, which are
used to unlock various costumes and items so players can customize their
avatars. Community leaderboards and Facebook integration are also thrown in to
keep competitive players interested.
As you'll notice, Guitar Hero is currently $2.99 on iTunes,
which may strike you are very cheap for an Activision game. That's because
you're essentially buying a platform as opposed to a fully fledged title. The
standalone package only provides you with six songs for the money, while
further song packs can be bought for $1.99 apiece. Essentially, it's a
fiendishly clever way to ensure people get into the game for a pittance, but
keep paying into it in order to extend the initial experience. Like a crack
dealer, ostensibly. It's actually not too shabby an idea, either. For $2.99,
you get what essentially amounts to two song packs, and you can expand the
library at your leisure. Some may dislike the business model, but I happen to
enjoy it.
Despite being a really well put together game, Guitar Hero
does suffer from an unfortunate slowdown bug at the moment. The game can
randomly dip in its framerate and everything onscreen begins to stutter, which
of course is no good for a game where timing and precision is important. It's
not a huge issue since it appears infrequently and only temporarily, but some
people may wish to wait for an update before jumping in.
That one issue aside, Guitar Hero is quite possibly the best
music game of this nature on the iPhone. With a nice variety of starter songs,
a solid interface, and a great aesthetic, not to mention extra challenges and
avatar customization, Guitar Hero for the iPhone is a great little music game,
and worthy of your attention.
Score: 8.0 -- Great (8s are impressive efforts with a few
noticeable problems holding them back. Won't astound everyone, but is worth
your time and cash.)
