Guitar Hero: Rock the 80s impressions

[carlcarlson]

Sucks.


Ok, that might not be entirely accurate, but that is my impression right now. My buddy picked it up and we have played 22 of the 30 songs so far. Of those 22 there were maybe 7 or 8 that I would want to go back and play. A majority the songs were just plain boring. It seems like a majority of the songs have long sustains or breaks where you don't get to play. It feels like you aren't actually playing nearly as much as you do in GH2. It also feels much sloppier for some reason. Some of the songs don't seem to be mastered as well, and some of the notes seem off. Many of the song choices are also pretty puzzling. There are a number of songs that just plod and put you to sleep, only to wake you up with an insane solo, then put you right back to sleep by going into the same old thing again. I'm wondering if this is just Harmonix getting this out of the way so they can work on Rock Band full time? It's also very annoying that they reused pretty much everything from GH2. No new guitars, not even new finishes. No new venues, just some different colors. Also, there are only 4 (maybe 5) playable character, and the only unlockable is the grim ripper. And all of this for $50! Sure it's $40 at Best Buy, but even that feels like a rip off. No new content, and only 30 songs. I'm glad it was my buddy that bought it and not me!

[NE146]

I knew it sucked the instant we started getting hints of the songs. They sure did a crappy job selecting 80's guitar tunes.

Guitar Hero is only as good as the songs it makes you play the game to, and I mean, it's the 80's! Tons of monster guitar to pick from.. and they picked a load of crap. :roll:

[norkusa]

Yeah, I was playing it over the weekend and didn't think it was that good either. Songs are too easy and just not that fun to play. Recycled graphics and only 30 songs total don't help things either.

I give it a 6.5/10

[misfits859]

Oh, for me this lineup is much better than GHII and I'll probably play this till my fingers bleed. I'm not very good beyond the hard level, but I am having a great time playing some of my favorites (Metal Health, Wrathchild, Police Truck, Shakin lol). Great game!

[walrusmonger]

My guitar was giving me problems with the tilt sensor, my star power would keep going off.

I ended up breaking the guitar and am selling my copy on ebay now. There goes $20 or so down the drain! (Ebay copies are going for around $30 or so.

[The Batman]

not enough thrash!!!

[Red Warrior]

At $20, it'd be a good game. At $50, it loses its appeal VERY quickly. Activision really screwed everyone with that price.

[Slate]

So do you think this one will lose it's value quickly? I'm thinking that if it drops, It'll drop to $40 and stay there for awhile.

[FlufflePuff]

I'm really enjoying the song selection actually. Only a few stinkers in the lot. I will say that the difficulty seems lacking though. I've played through almost all the songs on Expert and only failed 2 on the first try. It helps that I know most of them, but the difficulty seems toned down from GH2. I'd say that even at $50, its a definate buy. It also won't drop in price soon, at least at retail. These games hold their value for a loooong time.

[ssjlance]

I looked at the name and thought it had potential. 1980's had some amazing thrash metal and I couldn't wait. Then I saw the tracklist. Ugh, only Thrash to make an appearance is Anthrax's Caught In A Mosh. Minus that and Wrathchild, most others are mediocre to plain bad.

P.S. I just got a PS2 two days ago with GHII, so I'm kind of new to all of this. Really, I only got it because my mom felt bad for making me miss a date with my girlfriend 2 days in a row. So, she took me to Wal-Mart and asked if there was anything I wanted. I (semi)jokingly suggested a PS3, and she told me I must've been out of my damn mind. She looked at Guitar Hero and said it looked like something I would like, and I told her I didn't have a PS2. So, she bought me the game and system. Yay.

[rbudrick]

I looked at the name and thought it had potential. 1980's had some amazing thrash metal and I couldn't wait. Then I saw the tracklist. Ugh, only Thrash to make an appearance is Anthrax's Caught In A Mosh. Minus that and Wrathchild, most others are mediocre to plain bad.

P.S. I just got a PS2 two days ago with GHII, so I'm kind of new to all of this. Really, I only got it because my mom felt bad for making me miss a date with my girlfriend 2 days in a row. So, she took me to Wal-Mart and asked if there was anything I wanted. I (semi)jokingly suggested a PS3, and she told me I must've been out of my damn mind. She looked at Guitar Hero and said it looked like something I would like, and I told her I didn't have a PS2. So, she bought me the game and system. Yay.

Now she can keep little Junior home forEV4R!!!!!!!11 Dare ye not corrupt your youthful mind with the wicked ways of said mistresses. Only Jesus and Guitar Hero can save you now.

-Rob

[mEgAsHoT]

In my opinion the game has been great! All of the tracks are awesome, even if there isn't a lot of them. Why is everyone hating on this game so much? Personally, I enjoy it, as Guitar Hero 2 was getting a little bit old for me anyways. It's nice to have a bunch of new songs to play with. Plus, there isn't really a song I absolutely hate ("Yes We Can") in there; all of the songs are great length, too. Most of the songs range out at about 5-6 minutes, which is a nice change of pace from GH 2, which had some songs lasting almost 7-8 minutes! The 80's songs are fun and challenging. I will definitely be playing this for a long time like the other Guitar Hero games. 9/10 for me. :) (Seriously, you really just need to give this game a chance. They can't put EVERY single top hit on there, anyways. Most of the songs are ones I have heard before anyways, like "Turning Japanese" and "Holy Diver".)

[carlcarlson]

alright, I've played the game more now and it's gotten better. The last two tiers are much better than the first couple. It is still a rip-off at $50, but it's not as bad as I originally thought. It is pretty easy though. My friend and I have been playing co-op and have gotten five stars on every song so far (20/30) except for one (Anthrax). That's including the last song. there are some fun ones to be sure, but if we can five star these songs on the first try there isn't much replayability there.

[djbeatmongrel]

due to lack of cash this week (had an amazing weekend that left me with 15$ for the rest of the damn week) i wont be able to get my copy till friday. i did play it a little at my friends shop though. i really an not a stickler for tracklistings as long as its fun, plus i am open to different stuff. for example in GH2 i HATE the song laid to rest but its fun as hell to play, same with beast and the harlot. It does seems like they put less effort into making this one though.

[Half Cab Leroy]

I like most of the songs on it, but it is definitely lacking in difficulty.

[pacmanhat]

For a game that's by and large about the music, I'm fairly satisfied. Lots of interesting songs...a few duds, but it's generally solid. It would've been nice to see some other features, but I prefer to view games for what they are instead of what they're not.

[ProgrammingAce]

_____|\____\o/__

Jumped the ASCII shark...

[gepeto]

Is this the next tony hawk?

[PentiumMMX]

I rented this from Blockbuster. It's not too bad, but some of the songs suck (We Got The Beat). However, there are some good songs on there.

A good rentail, but it's a bit of a rip-off at $50. If it was only $20, then it would be worth buying.

[Nirvana]

It's $40 at Best Buy.

And my opinion on this game?

DON'T NEED NOTHIN, BUT A GOOD TIME

This game is worth it alone for Poison.

[kingpong]

Got it for $25 (the Best Buy $40 + $15GC deal) and even at that price it wasn't worth it. I never got a perfect score on GH1 or GH2 - I played 7 of 30 perfectly on Medium on the first attempt with this one. Probably another dozen where I missed one note. A handful of songs I had no chance of playing perfectly due to the inexcusable slowdown.

The song selection is even worse than the list looked. Many of the songs could be good, but the fingerings are generally awful. As others have mentioned, too frequently the song is very boring and easy, only to have a random mess of notes solo thrown in. Also far too much reliance on annoying note combos - some combos just aren't fun to execute.

Best part of the game is the Activision logo on startup. I chuckled at that. It was all downhill from there.

[Oobgarm]

Gave this a shot over the weekend (thanks, internet), and I'm pretty happy with it. Definitely overpriced, lacking in difficulty(and too many 'breaks' without any guitar playing), and some of the songs do suck hard, but it's Guitar Hero with new tracks, so I can't complain too loudly.

It's obvious that Harmonix phoned this one in. They could have done much more with it.

[Perkar]

Gave this a shot over the weekend (thanks, internet), and I'm pretty happy with it. Definitely overpriced, lacking in difficulty(and too many 'breaks' without any guitar playing), and some of the songs do suck hard, but it's Guitar Hero with new tracks, so I can't complain too loudly.

It's obvious that Harmonix phoned this one in. They could have done much more with it.

oob pretty much summed it up.

sure there could be more and/or better songs. sure it's sort of obvious that these were all cheap licenses. but it's still new songs of wonderful, blissful guitar hero.

[Gemini-Phoenix]

You have to consider that Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock is due soon as well, so if they included all the best the 80's had to offer, there would be none of the good stuff for GH3. I am expecting GH3 to be the best GH game to date, with Rock Band topping that!

Saying that, if they had've taken all the best tracks from all those games in the first place, they could've made one massive "Be all or end all" game to top every game ever made. Ever. They should've just made Rock Band with all the best tracks from the start

[Perkar]

so, has anyone beat the Extreme song on expert yet? best i've done is 93% ... it hurts my hands. a lot.

[djbeatmongrel]

so, has anyone beat the Extreme song on expert yet? best i've done is 93% ... it hurts my hands. a lot.

i did, was hard as hell but i did :^D

dont ask me to 5 star it though

[Perkar]

i did, was hard as hell but i did :^D

dont ask me to 5 star it though



gave it a night's rest and tried it again. beat after 3 attempts. 3 star 102,596. dunno if i'll be able to do it again. heh

[Slate]

Darn, I was expecting it to be so much better. There aren't that many good songs and the ones that are decent are boring to play!

I rate it 3 out of 5 stars.

[pacmanhat]

I can 5-star everything on Expert except "Play With Me"...good lord the ending is nuts. That leaves me with, I think, 8 songs over the 3 GH games that I haven't 5-starred on Expert.

[kainemaxwell]

Played GH for the first time yesterday. Damn do I suck, but it was fun!

[eggwolio]

I'm a little surprised that this hasn't been mentioned, but I felt like a lot of the covers in this one were downright TERRIBLE compared to the previous games. Holy Diver sounds like it's being covered by Styx for crying out loud.

[Sothy]

its good for "turning japanese" thats it.

50$ badly spent.

[MrRoboto19XX]

I'm a little surprised that this hasn't been mentioned, but I felt like a lot of the covers in this one were downright TERRIBLE compared to the previous games. Holy Diver sounds like it's being covered by Styx for crying out loud.

If only...

[Slate]

its good for "turning japanese" thats it.

50$ badly spent.

That is the only song in GH:80s that I liked. I thought that I ran was playable and that LA song was OK, Even though in that song there are two singers - A Guy and a girl, And in the game there is only a girl singing it onstage..

[eggwolio]

I am also just a little disappointed that they didn't get the Harmonix bands that we see in every game like Honest Bob and Freezepop to cover '80s songs for unlockables. That would have been a small undertaking and would have done wonders for making the game worth the price.

[Neil Koch]

I'm a little surprised that this hasn't been mentioned, but I felt like a lot of the covers in this one were downright TERRIBLE compared to the previous games. Holy Diver sounds like it's being covered by Styx for crying out loud.

Exactly why I haven't gotten the game yet. It was obviously rushed out so as to not compete with GH3/Rock Band. If it had been only $30 (which would be reasonable since it's really just a GH2 expansion pack) I wouldn't have an issue with it, but for $50, I expect higher quality.

[Kroogah]

The $50 price tag, 30 songs, easiness of the game (98% five stars first try on Police Truck Expert, one of the final songs) and crappy covers make the game seem like Harmonix's FUCK YOU to the Guitar Hero brand.

Still, when it gets low enough, I'm buying it for Caught In A Mosh and Play With Me. The solo in Play With Me is addictive as Hell.

[MadPixelz15]

i think the game is lame, looking forward to rock band personally.