[Gaming] Guitar Hero Hullaballoo

The demo for Guitar Hero Metallica made its way onto the Xbox Live Marketplace last week. Glutton for punishment that I am, I downloaded it and gave it a spin.

The evolution from Guitar Freaks to Guitar Hero to Rock Band is an interesting one, particularly in the way the Guitar Hero franchise desperately tries to evolve alongside Rock Band despite the fact that it already consistently outsells it on a fairly major scale.

Besides the simple innovation of expanding the instrument selection, Rock Band made basic (yet sweeping) changes to the basic functionality of Guitar Hero that I would like to think are widely considered as improvements. Through the GHM demo, I discovered that some of these tweaks, such as the tendency for power-up notes to remain accessible despite activation, have mysteriously found their way into the Guitar Hero design.

As much as Activision hems and haws about their "imitators," it's interesting to watch Neversoft continue to cling to design choices made by Harmonix even after they've usurped the Guitar Hero franchise. Clearly, their franchise can stand on its own - it's almost insane how much it still sells despite a quality competitor being out there - and yet they still look tangentially to the originator for creative guidance.

Punctuate with mediocre note charts and terrible animation, and you have yourself a brand new Guitar Hero. Bravo.