Official Website

Platform: PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii

Genre: Music

Number of Players: 1 - 4

Support: HD 720p, Headset Compatible, Leaderboards, Downloadable Content, PlayStation Network Compatible

Rhythm games have become the new trend that everyone feels the need to try and cash in on. This phenomenon might not have taken nearly as long as it did had Nintendo actually done something with the Power Pad for the NES, but the small library of eleven titles just didn’t do enough to generate interest. It wouldn’t be until Dance Dance Revolution would hit home consoles that the craze would really begin but the reality is that while the game is tremendously popular, not everyone wants to sit in their living rooms and dance the night away. Along came RedOctane to offer up a different type of rhythm game and anyone who had doubts about if Guitar Hero would be a successful game soon find out how wrong they were.

The Guitar Hero series has seen challengers over the years, some of which did do exceptionally well like Rock Revolution whereas something like Rock Band soon had RedOctane rethinking their own title. The release of Guitar Hero: World Tour finally added in what many had been wanting from the series; other instruments aside from just bass and guitar. The problem with that however is that this means the older games that you might still own and continue to play don’t have the same luxury of allowing you to perform the vocals on Heart Shaped Box or sing Thunder Kiss ’65.

Guitar Hero: Smash Hits is what Guitar Hero: Encore was to the PlayStation 2, though there are some major differences. The first being that this isn’t an all-new collection of songs but instead of “best of” tracks that have appeared from the original Guitar Hero, Legends of Rock and everything in between. Guitar Hero: World Tour wasn’t just the first game in the series to offer players the chance to select different instruments but it also marked a change in the way content was presented by including the master recordings by the artists instead of just cover songs or a few of the originals. Apparently those in the music industry came to understand the relevance of the game as well.

Smash Hits brings you 48 tracks from the Guitar Hero games, now presented as master recordings. No more listening to bad cover versions of Ozzy Osbourne or Heart but instead you’ll get the glory of the tracks as they should have been presented. As usual there isn’t much to the career mode. You simply choose the instrument you’d like to perform with, or put together a band with your friends, and then start at the bottom of the industry and try and work your way to the top by unlocking different venues. Like with Guitar Hero: Metallica you will need to earn a certain number of stars in order to advance to the next level which gives you the chance to play tracks in pervious venues if you’d like. The game goes with the usual approach of fictional locations ranging from the Grand Canyon to the polar ice caps, even the rainforests of the Amazon and Atlantis. The fictional settings have never been a favorite part of the game for me and while they do tend to fit the feeling, I would much rather see Guitar Hero grow to include some real venues and events. Adding in places like the now defunct CBGB, the Whisky a Go Go or even the Wacken Open Air Festival would be a nice touch to the game.

By now, everyone should now exactly how to play Guitar Hero so there’s really not much need in going over the game play mechanics as Smash Hits is utilizing the same system seen with World Tour. The game still allows you to customize your characters, make changes to your instruments, and you’ll win sponsorships from various real world companies which still don’t make any real difference during gameplay. You can still create your own tracks to share with other players though hopefully this is an aspect of the game that will be improved at some point. While I would expect that the rudimentary sequencer is only going to allow for so much I think that having the option to download sound patches at some point would add greatly to what this element of the game can accomplish. If RedOctane can partner with Ernie Ball and other companies, I wouldn’t see why it would be out of the question to work in a variation of something like Reason to allow gamers to compose with.

There are some who have stated that Smash Hits would have been better left as being downloadable content, but I really have more of a preference with these tracks being released as a disc. Hard drives will only accommodate so much space and even though it would have been simple to lump some tracks together, "Cowboys from Hell," “Bark at the Moon” and "Electric Eye" as a metal pack or ‘Shout at the Devil,” “Cherry Pie” and "Nothin' but a Good Time" in a hair metal pack, Smash Hits is at least offering some different venues to play in . . . not that those couldn’t have been done as DLC as well. Plus, given the fact that most single song downloads are $1.99, if we do the math really quickly with 48 tracks, you’re looking at almost $100 to download all of them. If they are made cheaper of course then we get people who complain about it so the reality is that no matter what approach Activision and RedOctane would have taken, there would be someone who just wasn’t happy about it. The next cry I’m sure would be to lower the price of DLC, but the licensing needs to be paid for as well, and I’m sure that the list of arguments, concerns and overall bitches would just go on from there.

Even though Smash Hits doesn’t offer anything new to the Guitar Hero franchise, it does bring back some favorites from the previous titles as they were meant to be included in the game as well as with the new instrument gameplay features. While it’s more of an add-on, it’s still a good one and has a very well rounded selection of tracks. Even if you don’t like Lynyrd Skynyrd or Queen, you’ve got Slayer and Pantera, or whatever bands you happen to like, and Smash Hits in reality is a cost effective means to bring these tracks back into the game and make them worth playing.

-mike-