5 Things Guitar Hero Can Do to Stay Fresh December 31, 2007
It’s obvious that we loved Guitar Hero III on the Wii, but its gotten to the point where the formula will have to have some thoughtful additions to keep it fresh and exciting to come back to. Neversoft made attempts with the addition of Boss Battles and the battle mode in general, but seemed to have missed the point. Guitar Hero III is a fun experience in that its a blast to nail a song. Throwing in the randomness of Mario Kart-esque items really detracts from the overall experience.In addition, where Rock Band has carved its niche in the multiplayer realm, we can’t help but feel it would be a mistake for Guitar Hero to follow in its footsteps by adding singing hero or drum hero to its repertoire. It seems in Neversoft’s best interest to differentiate itself further by taking its single player experience even further. So what can be done to enhance the core gameplay of Guitar Hero? We have five things that Neversoft could try out, check them out after the jump:
1. Distortion pedal peripheral
Something of a no brainer: the Wii version (as well as others) has a peripheral port on the underside of the guitar. While most of the rock songs included in Guitar Hero start out distorted and end that way, there are plenty of songs that take things down a notch and to actively switch between clean and distorted would feel incredible.
Some songs that would benefit (from GHIII): “One” by Metallica, “Black Magic Woman” by Santana, “My Name is Jonas” by Weezer
2. Whammy Notes
We all love hitting the whammy bar to show off, but what if it were an integral part of gameplay? There are many notes in GHIII that are played with a button change, but the pitch is actually affected in real life by a whammy bar. If the developers carved out whammy paths for players to follow, we would be all for it.
3. Optional Solos
We can’t fault Neversoft for seeing the need to keep the Guitar Hero formula fresh, but we can fault them for implementing boss battles as the answer. However, they were on the right track by including songs recorded by artists specifically for the game.
If instead of powerups the player was instead able to “choose his own path” so to speak, we could see it becoming a big hit. Artists could record their own original solos multiple times over the same track allowing for players to either choose safer solos with more accuracy, or crazier solos with bigger payoff.
4. Double Necked Guitar
We’re just saying…this would be sweet.
5. HORSE Battle Option
As said earlier, Guitar Hero gives players a thrill when they 5 star or FC a song, and battle mode seems to miss the point. What if, though, Neversoft merged practice mode and battle mode into a game of HORSE, where a player is able to select a section or sections of a song and then play through it. The second player then has to match or beat the first player to stay in the game. Other games like Pain and Tiger Woods Golf have seen success with the unorthodox implementation of HORSE in their games, and it seems this would be a battle mode people could get behind.
We really do love Guitar Hero, and wouldn’t want to mess with the core gameplay so much that it became unfamiliar. That’s why additions such as a distortion pedal and whammy notes could be optional during main gameplay, only providing a score boost, and not messing up note streaks. That way casuals can still enjoy the game, but hardcore players can have an additional challenging way to get ahead on ScoreHero. Please head our advice and don’t give into the Rock Band reverie, there are still plenty of players that love singleplayer, and Guitar Hero reigns supreme in that realm.Also, if you do decide to go ahead with this Neversoft, you only have to unofficially credit us.
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Not too bad. Like you said, it’s a great game, but maybe some stuff like this would help it stay around longer.
Yeah who knows…I would love a distortion pedal! It would take the game to a new level.
I would love a “make your own song” option. Where you can load songs off the SD card then manually put in notes, this would be amazing. It would most likely never happen (unless the MAC version gets hacked) because it would essentially be the end of the guitar hero franchise (unless of course they do some of what was mentioned in the article)
[...] Article here (thanks Fishingthesky!) [...]
@hey_suburbia
well you say it would be the end of the franchise but stepmania lets you creat your own tracks and is exactly like DDR buitt DDR is still going strong.
I’d just like to be able to creat an Avatar like you can do it rock band. I’m a sucker for customization x-D
also, I think I’m gonna get a digg account… seems like it gets your stuff around the web quite well. Should help my endless ocean review get more than a few hundred views >_
Level Editor!!
Yeah!
These are some great ideas!
I emailed Neversoft asking them to take a look at this article. Hopefully they will.
The whammy bar does actually grant extra points when used in the right places… you can tell if you are getting extra points because the note you are doing (I think always a long note) turns blue
No it doesn’t, that just shows you are getting Star Power.
[...] Article here (thanks Fishingthesky!) [...]
How about let you play through the entire career as a bass player for once? I’d love to play bass with the actual song and not have to have a friend playing (because I don’t know anyone else with GH and a Wii) and playing in practice mode isn’t a challenge.
How about a 6th fret?
If they put in another fret, they’d better include another finger for me.
About the whammy notes… it’s been implemented in Phase for the iPod (made by Harmonix), but instead of a whammy bar you move the touch wheel
I did know about the touch wheel notes in Phase, but I think it would play out a little differently in Guitar Hero.
Awesome ideas!
frankly, i’d love to see some different genres get into the game… or maybe an acoustic guitar hero. i’d love to see a guitar hero that basically comes with X amount of points and a whole catalog of songs for the user to download. that way, the user gets their favorite tracks and can always pay for more.
[...] se atreveu a sugerir que Guitar Hero não é perfeito. Onde este mundo foi parar? Eles fizeram uma lista com cinco coisas que o jogo pode fazer para se manter atualizado em sua próxima versão, e inclui [...]
The points idea is a pretty good one patric!
More boss batles, and instead of made up characters, more real rock gods like Van Halen etc. Also maybe a pro-face off which you can fail in online?