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Guitar Hero Is A Decade Old Today – Here Are All Of Our Reviews
Guitar Hero celebrates a decade today. The original Guitar Hero bundled with its plastic guitar peripheral released today in 2005. In honor of the occasion, we've gathered review scores and excerpts, where available, for every Guitar Hero game we have a review for.
Guitar Hero - 9
"I desperately hope that this game garners enough attention to afford some sequels, if for no other reason than I’d like to see the team experiment with some other genres. With great music, steady challenge for hours and hours, and style to burn, Guitar Hero may not be for everyone, but for my money it doesn’t get much more fun." – Matt Miller
Guitar Hero II (PS2) -9
"It’s so good, in fact, that there are few gamers I wouldn’t suggest this to, if only for how great of a tool it is to evangelize gaming to friends and family. The high cost of admission is most certainly worth it – this is a show you don’t want to miss." – Matt Miller
Guitar Hero II (360) - 9.25
"I have few complaints about this package. It’s not dramatically better than the PlayStation 2 version, but it’s great that a whole new audience is going to have the opportunity to play Guitar Hero II. I’m glad they included some new songs, and am excited at the prospect of downloading future tracks on Xbox Live, but a little disappointed that it wasn’t possible to include online multiplayer, a feature that would have taken the GH experience to the next level. Also, I have a problem with the placement of the Xbox 360 Guide, start, and select buttons, which I frequently found myself hitting by mistake – pausing the game – with the palm of my picking hand. To be fair, I was the only one in the office who had serious complaints about this, so maybe it’s just my own overly zealous strumming style that’s the culprit. These slight quibbles aside, Guitar Hero II is a fantastic game. If you haven’t already, go out and buy it. It’s just that simple." – Matt Helgeson
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock - 8.75
"For the solo hardcore player, however, this release will be a godsend. Filled with wailing solo lines and uncompromising in its commitment to choose songs that rock hard over ones that might be more familiar, Guitar Hero III won’t disappoint its longtime fans. It also has one of the most hilarious and awesome endings to a game in memory. You’re in for one hell of a good time." – Matt Miller
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith - 8
"With the impending release of Guitar Hero: World Tour, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that downloadable content for this Aerosmith release will be sparse. Love the band-focused formula or hate it, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith is a herald of things to come. This won’t be the last Guitar Hero with an individual band for a subtitle. It remains to be seen whether a public that increasingly downloads singles and listens to mix CDs still wants a musical experience focused on a single act. Whatever the answer, Guitar Hero Aerosmith delivers where it counts — with great music enhanced by the chance to play along." – Matt Miller
Guitar Hero World Tour - 9.25
"After about a day of experimentation, I had created two songs that -- if I do say so myself -- would have made pretty good theme songs to an '80s cop show. If recent history has shown us anything, it's that putting your tools into the hands of your audience can result in things far greater than you can imagine. For this, one has to applaud Neversoft -- and wait for what all the digital shredders out there have in store for us." – Matt Helgeson
For reviews on the more recent Guitar Hero games, head to page two.
Guitar Hero: On Tour (DS) - 7
Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades (DS) - 7
"The sad fact remains that I don’t think there’s really anything that the developers can do to fix the game’s true problems: the frustratingly inexact touchscreen strumming and the fact that playing this game is an ergonomic nightmare, especially for those with larger hands. Ultimately, what I remember most about this game is the wrist and neck pain." – Matt Helgeson
Guitar Hero 5 - 8.5
"Guitar Hero 5 is a well-done sequel with high quality production values and a good feature set. If something seems, well, missing, I guess that’s just the natural passage of time. The music genre has been extremely successful, but I’m not sure the crazy days of 2007 are ever coming back. Come to think of it, at that last party I went to, no one even suggested playing Guitar Hero or Rock Band." – Matt Helgeson
Guitar Hero: Metallica - 8.75
"It seems out of character with Metallica's image, and I would have preferred more documentary-style footage (I did appreciate the fan-shot videos and visual archive in the extras menu). Still, it's a small quibble with a game that provides a whole lotta metal for your $60." – Matt Helgeson
Guitar Hero: Van Halen - 7.5
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock - 8
"Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock is often stupid and frequently silly, but I got caught up in shredding my way through the ridiculous experience. It doesn’t matter if I was laughing with the game or laughing at it; I was entertained." – Matt Helgeson
"Smash Hits does absolutely nothing to advance the GH brand in any way, but if you've long since packed up your PS2 it's a great way to get your hands on some old-school favorites. You're basically paying $1.25 per song, which is lower than DLC pricing. Not a bad deal if you can handle jamming yet another Guitar Hero box into your racks." – Matt Helgeson
Guitar Hero Live - 7.5
"I like Guitar Hero Live; FreeStyle has crafted an innovative and intriguing variation on the standard music game formula. But as I played, I couldn’t help feeling like my enjoyment was on a slowly burning fuse, and the inability to play my favorite songs was waiting to blow up the fun." – Matt Miller
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