Guitar Hero (video game)

This article is about the 2005 video game. For the series, see Guitar Hero(series)

Guitar Hero

Input method(s)
Guitar controller (game packaged with Gibson SG controller), Gamepad
Guitar Hero is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems and published by RedOctane for the PlayStation 2 video game console. It is the first entry in the Guitar Hero series. Guitar Hero was released on November 8, 2005 in North America, April 7, 2006 in Europe and June 15, 2006 in Australia.

The game features a guitar-shaped peripheral (resembling a miniature Gibson SG) that the player uses to simulate the playing of rock music. The gameplay is very similar to the GuitarFreaks, in that the player uses the guitar controller to hit scrolling musical notes. The game features covers of 30 popular rock songs spanning fives decades of rock, from the 1960s to current music.

Guitar Hero became a surprise hit, earning critical acclaim and winning many awards from major video game publications. The game's success launched the billion-dollar Guitar Hero franchise, spawning the sequels Guitar Hero II, Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s, and Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock.

Development

An interview with Harmonix developer Ron Kay describes many of the details of the development of Guitar Hero.

The idea of Guitar Hero was directly inspired by Konami's GuitarFreaks arcade game, where the player used a guitar-shaped controller to interact with the game. At the time, GuitarFreaks had not seen much exposure in North America.

RedOctane, who were then in the business of making dance pads for games like Dance Dance Revolution for home consoles, were planning to also create guitar controllers, and had approached Harmonix about making a guitar-based game for those controllers. With a budget of about one million dollars (which Kay noted was "pretty tiny for a video game"), the two companies worked to make Guitar Hero. Kay noted that "No one had any notions about it being a massive success; we all just thought it would be fun to do."

Harmonix worked with third party controllers that were already on the market, and started with "super-basic Pong-style graphics" for the game display; through this, they found that "the controller really was the kind of magic sauce for what we wanted to do." Further art was added led by Ryan Lesser, using the art team's involvement in the music scene.

Based on the experience from Frequency and Amplitude, the team realized that "people don't necessarily relate to really abstract visuals", and included the depictions of live performances as previously used in Karaoke Revolution. During development, the team identified three focuses for gameplay: the note-matching aspect, the development of Star Power as "to provide a little more depth to the game — some replay value, some interest for people as they were playing beyond just hitting the notes", and showmanship by incorporating the whammy bar and tilting of the guitar into established gameplay.

The team did not have any initial idea of what songs would be present in the final game. Kay noted that "We wanted 30 or 40 songs for the game and put a hundred on our wish list." Harmonix continually had to modify the track list as certain songs were cleared or removed based on licensing issues, balancing difficulty and popularity of the track list, which continued concurrent with the development of the game engine and up nearly to the shipping date.

"Gem tracks" for a song were developed by a team in Harmonix, taking usually a day for a song, identifying key notes to "make you feel as if you're a brilliant musician." Software algorithms were used to assess the difficulty of the tracks, and the quality assurance team helped to rebalance the tracks for accuracy and difficulty. The software also allowed Harmonix to quickly make changes to the set list or to reauthor a song to make sure the overall difficulty of the game was appropriate.

Gameplay

The controller that was packaged with the game, an approximately 3/4 scale reproduction of a Gibson SG.
See also: Common gameplay elements in the Guitar Hero series
The gameplay is similar to other music and rhythm video games, in that the player must play scrolling notes to complete a song. The basic mechanics are based on Konami's GuitarFreaks.

In the case of Guitar Hero, the player may use either the guitar peripheral (a 3/4 scale reproduction of the Gibson SG guitar) or a standard controller to play the scrolling notes. The guitar peripheral works by pressing the fret buttons simultaneously with the strum bar, while on the standard controller one simply presses the corresponding button. The player is awarded points for correctly hitting notes, chords, and sustains, and gains multiplier bonuses for consecutively playing notes correctly.

A "Rock Meter" tracks the player's performance based on success or failure of hitting notes, and if the meter drops too low, the song will end in failure prematurely for the player. The player can also earn "Star Power" by playing a series of glowing notes perfectly and using the whammy bar during sustains.

Once the Star Power meter is filled halfway, Star Power can then be activated by tilting the guitar controller vertically momentarily, or by pressing another button on a standard controller. Activating Star Power will double the scoring multiplier and affect the behavior of the Rock Meter in a positive manner. Thus, players can strategically use Star Power to play through difficult sections of a song they might have otherwise failed.

Modes and other features

To play a note, the fret button and strum bar must be pressed when the solid note scrolls through the corresponding ring at the bottom. The interface shows the player's score and score multiplier (left), Star Power meter (right), and Rock Meter (bottom right).

Guitar Hero's main mode of play is Career Mode, where the player and in-game band travel between various fictional performance arenas and perform sets of four or five songs. It is by completing songs in this mode that the songs are unlocked for play across the game.

Players can choose their on-stage character, their guitar of choice, and the venue in which they wish to play. In this mode, the player can earn money from his/her performances that is redeemable at the in-game store, where bonus songs, additional guitars and finishes, and bonus content can be unlocked. Quick Play mode is a quicker method of playing songs, as it allows the player to select a track, difficulty, the character venue and guitar depending on the song chosen. After successfully completing a song, the player is given a score and a rating based on 5 stars, depending on his/her overall performance.

Multiplayer mode offers two players the chance to compete against each other on the same song. Two fret boards will appear on screen, one for each player, as they alternate playing sections of the song in a dueling manner.

The player with the highest score at the end of the song wins.
The four difficulty levels for each song afford the player a learning curve in order to help him/her progress in skill.

The first difficulty level, Easy, only focuses on the first three fret buttons while displaying a significantly reduced amount of notes for the player to play. Medium introduces a fourth fret button while adding more notes, and Hard includes the final fret button while adding additional notes.

Expert does not introduce any other frets to learn, but adds more notes in a manner designed to challenge the player.

The game supports toggling the handedness of the guitar, allowing both left-handed and right-handed players to utilize the guitar controller.

Soundtrack
Main article: List of songs in Guitar Hero
Guitar Hero features 47 playable songs, 30 of which are "main setlist" tracks that are covers of popular songs, recorded by WaveGroup Sound in Fremont and San Francisco, California. The additional 17 songs are original recordings by lesser-known groups. Featured tracks include "Iron Man" by Black Sabbath, "Take Me Out" by Franz Ferdinand, "Spanish Castle Magic" by Jimi Hendrix, "Bark at the Moon" by Ozzy Osbourne, "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple, "Crossroads" by Cream, and "Fat Lip" by Sum 41.

Many of the groups that performed the game's bonus songs feature members of the Harmonix development team, while some are indie Boston area groups. Drist's guitarist, Marcus Henderson, provided lead guitar on 20 of the game's 30 cover tracks.
All cover tracks are credited on screen with the phrase "as made famous by" (e.g., "'I Wanna Be Sedated', as made famous by The Ramones").

Reception
Guitar Hero was initially released to retail stores in a bundle that packaged the game disc and a Gibson SG guitar controller (since its release, individual guitars and copies of the game have become available for purchase separately). Despite the bundle's US$79.99 price point (US$30 more than the price of an average PlayStation 2 game), Guitar Hero received very positive reviews and became an unexpected hit. IGN gave the game a 9.2/10 score, praising the "fantastic soundtrack" and "great peripheral".

GameSpot, which gave the game a 9.0/10 rating, echoed these sentiments, stating Guitar Hero had a "great guitar controller" and "killer soundtrack" and was possibly the "best rhythm game ever made." The website also noted the game took an "extremely smart approach to difficulty." 1UP.com awarded the game a perfect 10/10, stating "our scale only goes up to 10." Play UK said the game gives "bedroom air guitarists a chance to live out their rock 'n' roll fantasies."

The game's average review score by critics, according to Metacritic, was 91%. The consensus of most reviewers was the game had a great soundtrack (consisting of high-quality covers) and a guitar controller that was both fun and easy to use.
Guitar Hero has sold nearly 1.5 million copies to date.

Source: Ultimate guitar blog.