Though it never turned into a mainstream hit, Ubisoft's ' Guitar Hero with real guitars' is - or should be - for guitarists of all levels, an irresistible combination of arcade mechanics and genuine musical tuition. The only other real problem for Guitar Hero Live is the fact that Rocksmith 2014 exists. And for those with a single player focus (or a self-delusional intent) like myself, it's easier than ever to lock in, feel the flow and drift away to a world in which the crowds really can't get enough of your rosewood-warping axe attack. While the redesigned controller will be divisive however, and while the game also has existential flaws - plastic guitars, repetitive gameplay - it's ultimately a very rich and enjoyable arcade game that moves the genre forward.
You can play alongside someone else, and someone can sing if they want to, but it's a slight experience with no sense of collaboration. Guitar Hero Live does have specific drawbacks - multiplayer is thin at best, for instance.
The downsides are it is expensive (£), squeaky, the whammy bar doesn't do much (seeming to overlay a wah-like sample rather than actually modify the guitar lines) and you still have to hide it in your living room so the real adults in your life don't know this is what you do to relax. The guitar itself is sturdy, good-looking and responsive. This layout makes chord shapes and progressions possible for the first time, introduces deviously rich solos and cuts down the amount of errors you can realistically blame on the instrument. But play for a while at the higher levels and the nuances and difficulty start to be more obvious. What this means if that you don't have to actually move your hand during a song - at first that seems like a cynical simplification to generate 'engagement'. In terms of mechanics, Guitar Hero Live doesn't stray too far from the classic formula, but ditches the five-button layout of old for a more intricate system in which three finger buttons are split into two strings, for a total of six buttons. But do well, or press your power-up button, and everything will be fine again - the crowd will yell and the band will give you subtle nods, and everyone will start to ROCK! in the manner that only people in rhythm games now ROCK! (Even the signs they're holding up will start to feature angry messages, as if they planned to come along to the festival weeks in advance purely to say mean things).
These live action performances are responsive do well and the band will start to get ridiculously annoyed with you almost immediately, and the crowd will start to boo. The bands themselves are hilarious, too, ranging from a cartoonishly hipster Mumford and Sons parody ('Portland Cloud Orchestra) complete with a guy bashing a bass drum and singers with flowers in their hair, to a punk-pop foursome relegated to backing up Blink 182's 'The Rock Show' in sneakers and t-shirts, which would be reductively offensive to anyone fully indebted to that maligned musical movement, like myself, were it not completely accurate. (In fact, that's not even where it starts you'll actually begin offstage, and be directed into the bright lights and the roar of the implausibly enthusiastic, clean-cut crowds, before launching into the set backed up by one of about a dozen bands.) Instead of a CGI cartoon band, the rolling tracks and note indicators are here overlaid on an immersive first person full-motion video shot from the perspective of you, the guitarist, on stage with your bandmates. First you have Live, the much-heralded single player campaign which is notable not for its structure (which is split into two 'festivals' but largely comprises ho-hum short sets of a few songs each, to be completed in sequence to unlock new songs) or its song selection (there are 42 tracks here, with a few standouts but too many mid-level hits), but the deeply immersive presentation.