Guitar Hero (series)

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The controller that shipped with the original Guitar Hero for PlayStation 2. It is an approximately 3/4 scale reproduction of a Gibson SG.

Guitar Hero is a popular series of music video games published by RedOctane. The series is notable for its use of a guitar-shaped peripheral to simulate the playing of rock music.

The creation of the series could be based somewhat on the popularity of rival company Konami's popular Guitar Freaks line of Bemani games. It should be noted that the Guitar Freaks series of video games have not been released in the United States until the release of Guitar Revolution, slated to debut in 2007.

The series was developed by Harmonix Music Systems from 2005 to 2007. The title Guitar Hero III will be developed by Neversoft. It is currently slated for release during the 2008 fiscal year.

[edit] Common gameplay elements

The core gameplay of the Guitar Hero games is a rhythm game similar to Harmonix's previous music games such as Frequency and Amplitude. The guitar controller that can be obtained along with the game or through third-party manufacturers is highly recommended for play, though one can use the PlayStation 2 Dualshock controller buttons instead. An extended guitar neck is shown vertically on the screen, and as the song progresses, colored markers indicating notes travel down the screen towards a fret line in time with the music; the note colors and positions match those of the five fret keys on the guitar controller. At this point, the player must play the indicated note by holding down the correct fret button(s) and hitting the strumming bar as to score points, or otherwise miss the note. Success or failure will cause a performance meter on screen to change to show how well the player is doing. Should the performance meter drop to zero (indicated by an on-screen meter), the song will automatically be over, with the player booed off the stage by the audience. Successful note hits will add to the player's score, and by hitting a long series of consecutive successful note hits, the player can increase their score multiplier.

Notes can be a single note, or comprised of two or three notes (a chord). Both single notes and chords can also be sustained, indicated by a colored line following the note marker; the player must hold the sustained note(s) keys down for the entire length to be successful. During a sustained note, a player may use the whammy bar on the guitar to alter the tone of the note. In addition, the games support virtual implementations of "hammer downs" and "pull-offs" that are used to successfully play a fast series of notes by only changing the fingering on the fret buttons without having to strum each note.

Selected special segments of the song will have glowing notes outlined by stars: successfully hitting all notes in this series will fill the "Star Power Meter". The Star Power Meter can also be filled by using the whammy bar during sustained notes within these segments. Once the Star Power Meter is at least half full, the player can activate "Star Power" by lifting the guitar into a vertical position for a moment. When Star Power is activated, the scoring multiplier is doubled while the Star Power Meter is depleted, and the Star Power ends when the Meter is completely empty.

The player can either play the game in career mode, where the player and in-game band travel between various fictional performance arenas and perform sets of four or five songs, or in quick play by just selecting a song and a difficulty level. After successfully completing a song, the player given a score and a rating based on 5 stars depending on their overall performance. During career mode play, the player can then earn money to be used at the in-game store to unlock bonus songs and additional content.

In most cases, all of the songs on the main career mode set lists are covers of the original song; for example, a song may be presented as '"Free Bird" as made famous by Lynryd Skynyrd'. Many of the unlockable bonus songs, on the other hand, are songs performed by the original artist for the game.

[edit] History

[edit] 2005-2007, Harmonix era

The original Guitar Hero was released on the PlayStation 2 during 2005 and was developed by Harmonix. Harmonix had been previously known for developing music video games such as Frequency and Amplitude for the PlayStation 2, both of which were praised for enabling players to perform and create music using a DualShock controller as if it were a musical instrument.

Guitar Hero is unique in that, rather than using the console's DualShock controller, it came packaged with a guitar peripheral. Playing the game with the guitar controller simulates playing an actual guitar, albeit with five colored "fret buttons" and a "strum bar" rather than several frets and six individual strings.

Guitar Hero won numerous awards for its innovation and its soundtrack, which was comprised of 47 playable rock songs, most of which were cover versions of popular standards from artists such as Deep Purple, The Ramones, David Bowie, DETHKLOK, Strong Bad, and Black Sabbath, among others.

The popularity of the series increased dramatically with the release of Guitar Hero II for the PlayStation 2 in 2006. Featuring improved multiplayer gameplay and 64 songs, it became the fifth best-selling video game of 2006.^[1] The game is currently slated for release on April 3, 2007 for the Xbox 360 with an additional 10 songs, among other features.

Both RedOctane and Harmonix were experiencing changes in 2006. RedOctane was bought by Activision in June while it was announced in September that Harmonix would be purchased by MTV Networks. As a result of the two purchases, Harmonix would no longer develop future games in the Guitar Hero series. Instead, developing would go to Neversoft, a subsidiary of Activision known for developing the Tony Hawk's series of skateboarding games. Neversoft is currently slated to develop Guitar Hero III.^[2][3]

The last game in the series to be developed by Harmonix will be Guitar Hero: 80's Edition for the PlayStation 2, expected for release in 2007.^[4]

[edit] 2007 onwards, Neversoft era

RedOctane has voiced plans to bring Guitar Hero to "all significant consoles". In addition to Xbox 360, it was announced that the series would be ported to Nintendo's Wii and Somewhere between 2007 and 2008.^[5] Activision and RedOctane have also trademarked the titles "Guitar Villain" and "Drum Villain" as well as "Keyboard Hero", "Drum Hero" and "Band Hero".^[6]

[edit] Installments

[edit] Current installments

• Guitar Hero, 2005 (PlayStation 2)
• Guitar Hero II, 2006 (PlayStation 2)

[edit] Future installments

• Guitar Hero II, 2007 (Xbox 360)
• Guitar Hero: 80's Edition, 2007 (PlayStation 2)
• Guitar Hero III, 2008 fiscal year (consoles to be determined)

[edit] See also

• GuitarFreaks, a 1998 arcade game series created by Konami that also uses a guitar perhipheral.
• Frets on Fire, a free software/open source clone of Guitar Hero for Microsoft Windows , Linux and Mac OS X.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• RedOctane, publisher of the Guitar Hero series
• Neversoft, developer of the Guitar Hero series (2007-present)
• Harmonix, developer of the Guitar Hero series (2005-2007)