My thoughts: Guitar Hero 5

First off I have to say that I have not played this game and it is unlikely that I will play it. From the looks of it they have made some pretty good improvements to the Guitar Hero formula. Like making the menus easier to navigate, getting rid of money, having every song unlocked from the beginning, people being able to play any instrument they want no matter what someone else is playing, being able to jump into a song from the main menu even in the middle and better multiplayer modes.

The thing that really hurts this game is the song list. I have looked at the list and there are some really good songs on there by The Rolling Stones, Peter Frampton, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Tom Petty, Queen & David Bowie and Nirvana. But what is not good is the number of songs and artists that just don't belong in a Guitar Hero game. I like Coldplay but even as a fan I would say they don't belong in a game like Guitar Hero. Guitar Hero should be about making you feel like you are really shredding away at the guitar and becoming a great lead guitarist. I could get that from Do You Feel Like We Do by Peter Frampton but not from something like Song 2 by Blur.

It's like they tried to do too many things with the song list. They tried to appeal to way too many people but wound up with a song list that would only really appeal to those people that prefer music from the last 10 years or so.

Another thing that is interesting is the avatars that they created of real-life rock stars. There is Johnny Cash, Kurt Cobain, Carlos Santana, Shirley Manson of Garbage, and Matthew Bellamy of Blur. I think that they probably should have put it Bob Dylan and Peter Frampton and left out the last two. Also I don't think putting Cobain in the game is the best choice. If there's one thing he despised it was the over commercialization of music and having his likeness appear in a video game is something he never would have stood for. So to most true fans of Nirvana this is more of a slap in the face than a tribute.

Whether or not you will pick up this game really depends on your personal musical preferences. If you like bands like Blur, Coldplay, Eagles of Death Metal, Scars on Broadway and TV On the Radio then this game is probably for you. My personal tastes are pretty varied but even I'll say that there's a handful of people I've never even heard of or listened to at all. Also there just aren't enough of those great memorable guitar songs to warrant a $60 purchase. You can also pay money to import a good majority of the songs from World Tour but even that song list leaves a bit to be desired.

I would like to say that I agree with one reviewer that I saw when it came to his suggestion on what to do with the music. When you buy the game you should be given something like $50 or $60 in special credit that's only good in the in-game store and then you can pick and choose what music you want in the game. So if you like Coldplay then you can buy their songs. But if you only like classic rock then you can buy nothing but classic rock songs and you can build the song list to fit your own personal tastes. Granted this hurts people without an Xbox Live connection but in that case you just give them a way to import the songs onto their system or order a custom made disc that will be sent to them in the mail. Rock Band has already gotten this formula down. Rock Band and Rock Band 2 have pretty decent song lists but they have tons of songs that you can download and you can add only those songs that fit your musical tastes.

So if there is a Guitar Hero 6 they either need to pick a better song list or start from scratch and redo the system because if they release another game with a list this bad Rock Band will win the war and not even Guitar Hero: Van Halen will be able to bring it back.