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My GH:Live review

 
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ihatebarracuda  





Joined: 29 Jun 2008
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Location: Yakima, WA

PostPosted: Mon Jan 02, 2017 11:27 pm    Post subject: My GH:Live review Reply with quote

Guitar Hero: Live is a good game that is dragged way, way down by a few bad design choices.

The Good

--The new controller layout adds a feeling of freshness to a series that had become stale and unwelcome. This is hands down the best feature of the game, and generally what makes it a good game. +4.5 points

--Song difficulty is more normalized, as opposed to the old games where you usually had 80% of the songs being mind-numbingly boring, 10% being fun/challenging, and 10% being stupidly impossible. Here, even the basic songs offer enough of a challenge to be fun, and the advanced songs don't wander into that "there are 4 people in the world who can FC this" territory. This is a good thing. +1 point

--GHTV. I haven't messed with it much, but it looks like it offers a greater challenge and better setlist if you're looking for more. However, it isn't free and from what I understand you can't really "own" a song, you just have to have enough credit to play it. Maybe with this they can refrain from releasing 12 more games and just add new content to GHTV.

The Bad

There aren't a lot of problems, but the ones that exist are massive.

--Hammer-ons. When a note is a hammer-on it has a blue/green glow to it. Unfortunately, as part of some completely baffling design choice, there are a lot of circumstances where this glow can all but disappear: 1) the note is part of a star power sequence, 2) you've activated star power, or 3) the note will be the 100th, 200th, etc. note in your streak. In all of these cases, the hammer-on glow is overridden by the graphic for the SP/streak note instead. This makes it EXTREMELY difficult to tell which notes are HO/PO's. It is still technically possible to distinguish the hammer-ons, but I've found it's too difficult to do with any section that is even moderately quick. This leads to a lot of unnecessary misses due to not being able to read the chart. You pretty much have to memorize which notes are hammer-ons, which is a lot more difficult than it sounds. I just have to deduct huge points from my rating for this because it's such a dumb and obvious problem. I mean it makes me wonder if anyone even play-tested the game? Just really, really stupid and inexcusable. -2 points

--No practice mode or hyperspeed. I honestly don't even know what to say about this. Why? These have been in every game since GH2, why are they absent here? It's really annoying having to replay a whole 4-5 minute song over and over just to figure out how to hit 1 small section. And lack of hyperspeed is going to be an annoyance to many veteran players, including me. -1 point

--Controller design issues. The buttons are too big for the pockets they rest in and don't always press straight in, so they sometimes get caught up on the sides. Meaning you go to press, but the button doesn't go all the way down, so the note doesn't register. I've missed many times because of this. I've also had off-and-on problems with the 3rd white button on my brand new controller not working at all. I'll give the benefit of the doubt and assume this is just an isolated case of bad luck.

--Terrible setlist. Ugh. Is Guitar Hero marketed toward 13 year old girls now? Katy Perry? Avril Lavigne? I guess I won't dock a point since it's a matter of taste, but I doubt many people interested in this game would disagree with me. This is a game about guitars. Give me rock and metal, not Eminem, Skrillex, and a bunch of crappy pop artists who don't even play instruments. Honestly, there isn't a single song that I really like. A few are OK.


Overall Rating: 2.5/5. Could have been 4.5/5 with just a little bit of attention to some very basic details.

Edit: Revising rating to a big, fat ZERO. See below.
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GingerBraFace  





Joined: 27 Mar 2016
Posts: 340
Location: Santraginus V

PostPosted: Tue Jan 03, 2017 12:36 am    Post subject: Re: My GH:Live review Reply with quote

ihatebarracuda wrote:
--Hammer-ons. When a note is a hammer-on it has a blue/green glow to it. Unfortunately, as part of some completely baffling design choice, there are a lot of circumstances where this glow can all but disappear: 1) the note is part of a star power sequence, 2) you've activated star power, or 3) the note will be the 100th, 200th, etc. note in your streak. In all of these cases, the hammer-on glow is overridden by the graphic for the SP/streak note instead. This makes it EXTREMELY difficult to tell which notes are HO/PO's. It is still technically possible to distinguish the hammer-ons, but I've found it's too difficult to do with any section that is even moderately quick. This leads to a lot of unnecessary misses due to not being able to read the chart. You pretty much have to memorize which notes are hammer-ons, which is a lot more difficult than it sounds. I just have to deduct huge points from my rating for this because it's such a dumb and obvious problem. I mean it makes me wonder if anyone even play-tested the game? Just really, really stupid and inexcusable. -2 points.


This makes the game not fun at all for me. I play on a tiny tv which makes it so hard to tell them apart. Though I was really happy to see Avril in the setlist. Even if I disagree with most of the song choices.
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Cabanon  





Joined: 29 Oct 2007
Posts: 6460
Location: Quebec, Canada

PostPosted: Tue Jan 03, 2017 12:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

you get used to it but im not playing on expert and they are probably more present than on advanced. some awkward pattern are also an issue, like b1-w1-b1, repeat 10-15 times in a row, it's a bloody nightmare.
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singemfrc  





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PostPosted: Thu Jan 05, 2017 3:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I just now finally picked the game up - is there any way to sing solo?
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 05, 2017 3:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

singemfrc wrote:
I just now finally picked the game up - is there any way to sing solo?

Sort of. Plug in a mic and just don't play guitar. They're scored separately and you can't fail
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Peachfanclub  





Joined: 02 Nov 2011
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Location: Switch Cartridge / State of Hockey

PostPosted: Thu Jan 05, 2017 4:16 am    Post subject: Re: My GH:Live review Reply with quote

ihatebarracuda wrote:
-Terrible setlist. Ugh. Is Guitar Hero marketed toward 13 year old girls now? Katy Perry? Avril Lavigne? I guess I won't dock a point since it's a matter of taste, but I doubt many people interested in this game would disagree with me. This is a game about guitars. Give me rock and metal, not Eminem, Skrillex, and a bunch of crappy pop artists who don't even play instruments. Honestly, there isn't a single song that I really like. A few are OK.

Honestly, I could not agree with you more. For a game that markets gameplay for ONLY guitar players, without bass or drums, I would've expected a GH1-caliber setlist. I mean, think about it. Guitar Hero at the beginning catered primarily to fans of rock music. There were no uberprocessed pop songs in the very first Guitar Hero game. Or the second. Or the third. Back in those days, they were really targeting the guitar heroes. I could pick any song in any of these games and I'd be all "oh, yeah".

I'm supposed to relearn the different positions of the fret buttons in this new controller that they give me, but they expect me to play in an actual guitar style to a song that isn't known at all for its guitar part to begin with? Am I a guitar hero, or am I just making dubstep noise? I was hoping we'd go back to the GH1/2/3 days so I could play only the guitar parts. I understand that the previous Guitar Hero and Rock Band guitars have a set of fret buttons that resembles piano keys, so they could possibly get away with charting keyboard charts. For a controller that more closely resembles a guitar, I could never forgive them for charting anything but guitar. Like, seriously? I wanna be a guitar hero! The reason I bought Guitar Hero Live was for it to make me feel like a guitar hero like it did back in 2005. But thus far it's failed miserably to do its job.
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On Jan 24, 2016, AdamHero wrote:
peach you are good at guitar hero
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Bradmasta  





Joined: 17 May 2008
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Location: Virginia

PostPosted: Thu Jan 05, 2017 12:56 pm    Post subject: Re: My GH:Live review Reply with quote

ihatebarracuda wrote:
--No practice mode or hyperspeed. I honestly don't even know what to say about this. Why? These have been in every game since GH2, why are they absent here? It's really annoying having to replay a whole 4-5 minute song over and over just to figure out how to hit 1 small section. And lack of hyperspeed is going to be an annoyance to many veteran players, including me. -1 point


This is what killed the game experience for me. I bought the game release day, and literally returned it release day. I have since watched people stream it, in the hopes I would see some hidden update bringing both of these pretty fundamental features back into the game, but it never happened, and it never will. Oh well; i'm perfectly content with GH3PC
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ihatebarracuda  





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PostPosted: Sun Jan 08, 2017 1:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

After playing some more I'm revising my rating to a 0. My problems with the controller have gotten worse to the point where I can't FC songs and the game is pretty much unplayable. My middle white button just refuses to consistently work. It will ALWAYS fail at least once per song, just enough to keep me from getting FCs. I haven't even had the game two weeks. Pathetic.

I gave the benefit of the doubt in my review, but after googling around, it sounds like issues with the controller are a matter of "when" and not "if". What a complete joke.

Sigh -- I have 10 songs left to FC that I know I can get. I don't really want to leave them hanging out there, but I don't really want to return the guitar just to get another heap of junk that will quit working in 2 weeks. I don't know what I'm going to do yet.
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Cabanon  





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PostPosted: Sun Jan 08, 2017 12:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

just return it and get another one while it's still time.
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ihatebarracuda  





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PostPosted: Sun Jan 08, 2017 10:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I was able to fix it by taking the guitar apart. I just want it to work long enough to FC the game.
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Cabanon  





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PostPosted: Mon Jan 09, 2017 1:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

if you want some more challenge, have a crack at GHTV. there's some good songs there and there's also Stache.
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mninp  





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PostPosted: Fri Jan 13, 2017 2:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yeah this could have been an amazing game. The lack of practice and hyperspeed isn't a deal breaker for me, but that set list is just absolute garbage. It seems like a ton of shitty music starting coming out at the turn of the decade, because Rock Band 4 also has some terrible terrible music in there, though it's set list is still a thousand times better than GHL. No offense to people who like it, but this new age indie rock/pop rock nonsense needs to stay out of guitar based games. Guitar Hero needs bands like Megadeth, Dream Theater, Animals as Leaders, Def Leppard, Motley Crue, Rush, The Who, Van Halen, Aerosmith, Alice in Chains, The Police, Symphony X, Cacophony, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, etc...and if you're going to go for the really easy stuff, at least put in bands like Joan Jeff, Rob Zombie, Twisted Sister or Linkin Park, you know songs that make you feel awesome playing or that revolve around cool riffs. Even guitar hero 1, when they picked the more indie/alternative stuff it was still awesome, like Heartfull of Black and Stellar. Also notice how pretty much 99% of the bonus songs in GH1 and 2 were absolutely amazing despite them being mostly no name bands? Harmonix gets it, simple as that. Now look at the bonus songs in GH3. Huge difference in quality. Some were awesome, but some unbelievably terrible songs in there.

The only songs I even remotely liked from GHL were Won't Get Fooled Again (which they butchered), I Want It All, Sundial, Wastelands and I've Been Away Too Long. Pathetic track list, seriously. When Rihanna has one of the better songs and solos in the game, you know it's bad
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Cabanon  





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PostPosted: Sat Jan 14, 2017 6:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

its called musical taste. this debate is so old, it's annoying to see this kind of comments nowadays. more this, more that, less this, less that. are you 12 or something ?

not happy ? go spend your money doing your own game toward a ultra niche market musical choice only so few people will like the music, it will make you bankrupt before it's released. don't forget company have to meet their goal and they have to do compromise to reach them. Rock/Metal is the first choice of music regarding any rhythm games, but both GH & RB need to have stuff for the mass market to have some sales.

I do enjoy playing whatever type of music, it makes me discover stuff that I wouldn't normally listen to while playing video games, knocking two birds with one stone.
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