Band Hero Review

That's not to say that the entire setlist comes from current pop radio. You still have rock classics like "Bad Reputation" from Joan Jett and '90s hits like "Two Princes" from The Spin Doctors. But the special appearances in this game are decidedly more modern, with Taylor Swift and Adam Levine instead of Johnny Cash and Carlos Santana. The stages, clothes, and characters are more pop-infused as well, but I've never found the backgrounds and characters themselves to be the focus of these types of music games. Unless you're watching someone else play, the most important part of a music game is its playability.

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Gameplay-wise, everything in Band Hero is the same as in GH5. You can still immediately jump into any song that's playing on the start screen. Every track is available in Quickplay without any codes or tedious unlocking. You can play a song with any mix of instruments you want. (Four lead guitars? No problem!) The career progression is a quick trip through increasingly more difficult songs without any repeats. Band Hero even includes all the same, varied multiplayer options from GH5. It's the same framework, so everything that GH5 did well, Band Hero also does excellently.

But that also means Band Hero contains the same niggling problems as GH5. The vocals are a little too hard to gauge pitch on. And, as a Hero game, even the lower difficulties are a little too punishing, which stands out even more in an increasingly casual-oriented franchise like this. I have friends who were frustrated by Band Hero's Medium setting, but who can competently play through Rock Band's games on Hard. It's not really a problem, but Band Hero also has 20 fewer songs on its tracklist (65 versus GH5's 85).

Band Hero proves that Activision is finally treating their Hero franchise as a music platform and not a series of unrelated titles. And in this case, you get to choose which graphical skin you like: "Top 40" Band Hero or "Hard Rock" GH5. Just move the songs over to your preferred stage (you can import 69 of GH5's songs into Band Hero or import 61 of Band Hero's tracks into GH5).

While some people might complain about being fatigued by the seemingly endless stream of similar music games, when they're tied to each other like Band Hero is tied to GH5, I see that as a positive direction for Activision's franchise. It's one of the strongest points of the Rock Band series, and is a very smart move for Hero as well.

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