Review by: Jason McMaster

Starting off the fall holiday rush with a bang is the fifth (full) edition of Guitar Hero, the game that started it all, and with it a huge new song list and a revamped system. Is it worth it? That depends on your taste in music more than anything specifically technical.

As in the tradition of Guitar Hero games, in career mode you play through multiple songs in a venue to gain enough stars to unlock the next venue. New in Guitar Hero 5, though, are the instrument challenges – do well enough on a song at a certain part and you can gain up to three extra stars towards your score total, effectively making it a possible eight stars, and you can unlock an outfit. These challenges provide an opportunity for the more talented players to stand out while providing a way for the less seasoned players to increase their scores.

The controls and game system have been revamped to avoid some of the blunders and irritations of the earlier Guitar Hero games. Most of the information necessary to play your instrument, and play it well, has been moved into an area near the scroll-bars to allow for easier viewing. Also included is the Guitar Hero Metallica feature of showing progress towards your next star level.

Attached to some of the songs in career mode, you’ll find different icons. They represent songs that unlock further songs or encores, or songs that unlock characters. Here’s where things get a bit weird: you can unlock Kurt Cobain, Santana and Johnny Cash (among others) as playable characters. I thought it would just be Smells Like Teen Spirit or Ring of Fire … heavens no! You can play as Johnny or Kurt or any of the unlockables through the entire game. Currently, I’m playing as Cobain on Guitar with Johnny Cash on lead vocals and drums while Shirley Manson of Garbage plays bass. It’s hilarious to see Johnny Cash sing Du Hast or Bring the Noise. That level of hilarity is overpowered by depression when in Bring the Noise, Johnny Cash has to shout out “Farrakhan’s a prophet that I think you ought to listen to!” That’s a long, long way from Folsom.

Of course, outside of career mode is the quick play, as always, and a few other new options on the menu system. Party Play, which allows for anyone to pick up an instrument and jump in at any moment and drop out whenever they desire, is designed for, well, parties—the idea being that you can play up to four of the same instrument or any combination without fear of failure.