#GUITAR HERO LIVE NINTENDO WII U SONGS PS3#

Playing predetermined sets as various Drive Shaft-like faux bands at the luxuriously imagined Rock The Block and SoundDial festivals might not scream long-term appeal, but perhaps the maximalist presentation was conceived to achieve just one aim: to launch this new incarnation of the franchise spectacularly hard and fast, then simply drop away. The audaciously presented campaign mode has already been criticised in some quarters for being ephemeral, but that might be the point.

It's also a game of two distinct halves, which could be characterised, respectively, as a genuinely dazzling promo and a slightly more ramshackle Bob Dylan-style endless tour. GHTV mode has seven power-ups to unlock, from the default highway-clearing bombs to temporary invincibility and additional score multipliers. At the expert level, Guitar Hero Live, for good or ill, tickles some of the same brain centres. It took me a while to figure out what the snappy black-and-white icons reminded me of but it was the chunky interlocking chevrons of an old Rubik's Snake puzzle. It may still be satisfying to ace the skittering, tropicana fretwork of a track like Girls by the 1975, but it's feels more like an intellectual achievement. The double-decker buttons of the new Guitar Hero controller restrict that sense of widdly abandon, demanding much closer attention and application. Faced with a labyrinthine solo that looked like a roadie had accidentally tipped a bowl of M&Ms over your highway, you could sometimes let your fingers take over, intuiting the gatling-gun inputs required to bodge your way through. For anyone who's wielded a plastic instrument in the past, Guitar Hero Live feels like something similar: a classic inviting you to remaster it.īut if something has been lost in this determined push to make a well-worn mechanic seem new, it's that in previous Guitar Hero games, it felt easier to wing it on the higher difficulty settings. Notable albums of yesteryear are spruced up using the latest production technology, digitally polished to a sheen to justify being resold to a new generation. It also feels appropriate for the subject matter.

#GUITAR HERO LIVE NINTENDO WII U SONGS PS3#

Availability: Also available on Xbox One, PC, Wii U, PS3 and Xbox 360.It's taken some physical graft and a little mental rewiring, but ramping up the difficulty level feels like it has been worth it: there are pleasing nuances to uncover among the challenging punchcard patterns.

It's a three-lane bowling alley where ergonomic icons scroll smoothly into strum bar range, a blizzard of black-and-white plectrums and the odd liquorice allsort hurtling down the familiar endless guitar-neck highway. Guitar Hero Live's lavish reboot feels like a solid foundation, but it falls just short of feeling like the finished article just yet.Īfter a solid week of back-to-back shows, I've just about got to grips with Guitar Hero Live's new visual vocabulary.

Guitar hero live nintendo wii u songs