Review by: Tony Mitera

Between genre giants Rock Band and Guitar Hero there is certainly a wide swath of the rock culture on display, even if you are talking about it from the standpoint of a few twenty or thirty-somethings banging away on some plastic peripherals. Of course not all of this culture is kid friendly, not only in the consideration of the lyrics or subject matter of the songs but also in their style or age. Band Hero is essentially Guitar Hero 5, only retooled with an appeal towards a younger demographic and a replacement of its music with tracks pulled straight from today’s Top 40 hits.

The game shares many of its design and gameplay elements with Guitar Hero 5, to the point that anyone familiar with the latter should be instantly at home in the former. The game allows up to four players to play with whatever combination of instruments and difficulty levels the band wants. An interesting tweak to the formula is that anyone playing on Easy or Medium is also playing with No Fail mode, which means that while you can still get into the red you will never actually fail out of a song. If you are playing on Hard, Expert, or Expert+ however be prepared to fail if things stop going your way. The standard method of resurrecting fallen band mates remains the same however, with a meter appearing about the band members note highway requiring the remaining band members to simply play well enough to max the meter out and lift them back up. You can be resurrected an unlimited number of times, so it is really hard to actually fail out of a song in the game.

Of course before you take to the stage you must first pick or select your rocker. Your avatar can be used for comedic effect, one of the standard Guitar Hero rockers can be chosen for a quick jump in, or you can choose to create your own musical clone. The character creation in Band Hero is just as diverse as Guitar Hero 5’s and uses the same system and controls for crafting your character, and has a bunch of new outfits and accessories. Want to use an ice cream cone as a microphone? It’s in there.

All of the game’s 65 songs are unlocked right off the bat for use in Quick Play, though you must venture forth into the Career mode if you want to unlock new outfits, instruments, and playable characters. The Career mode is structured around your new band trying to rise among the ranks of popular music, starting off playing in malls and working your way up to exclusive clubs and resorts. Much like Guitar Hero 5, each venue is host of a few songs, and playing through those not only unlocks additional songs in that venue but also gains you stars so that more venues are unlocked. Each song can get you up to eight stars, five for playing well and three for tackling the song’s challenge. Challenges range from simply having the band get a set number of points to reach the Gold, Platinum, and Diamond ratings to oddball ones such as hitting a number of red notes in a song or making the bassist keep his/her multiplier up.