Like we have learned from countless remakes of Japanese horror movies, America enjoys screwing up a good thing. When gamers stateside received RedOctane’s submission to the rhythm genre, Guitar Hero, they were stunned at its originality and overall cool factor. Imagine America receiving a veritable rhythm game, just like GuitarFreaks in Japan! We were psyched – familiar songs, awesome gameplay, and good old-fashioned challenge was finally in our hands. No more importing for a fantastic game.

Well, it was awesome, but we lost it. I quote Miley Cyrus because her music represents the quality Guitar Hero has gone to only a few short years after its initial release. What began as a relationship that chugged along swimmingly has quickly deteriorated into that abusive arrangement you had with your boss so he wouldn’t leak the photos of you singing and dancing along to Clay Aiken in the break room. Spawn Kill is proud to present Doin’ It Rong: Guitar Hero.

Love Me Fifteen Times

Please stop drowning the market while wearing seedy grins as the franchise chills in a jacuzzi made of solid gold. It’s time for some beef jerky, because we are ready to kill this cash cow. We don’t even feel it’s worth it to pose the question “How many Guitar Hero iterations can they possibly throw over their shoulders in one year?” Because the question is unanswerable. In the past four years, yes only four, there have been f-i-f-t-e-e-n games pumped out in this soggy franchise. Fifteen! That is like, what? Eleven or twelve too many? How can people enjoy or respect a series that they are up to their elbows in?

Doin’ It Right: A short while ago, we would have recommended that Guitar Hero take the path that Rock Band valiantly forged, avoiding the unnecessary and bland reissues of the same games, and straying from milking the cash cow. However, Rock Band has piped up with LEGO Rock Band and even PSP and DS iterations of the same title, so apparently no musical franchise is exempt from this practice. How to fix it? Create one central music service via Xbox Live, PSN, or the Wii for gamers to shop around for their own tracks. Don’t force them to play only what is offered in the next game that’s basically a palette swap of the last.

The Wind Cries “Jimi”

The last time we checked, Hayley Williams, poster girl of the teenage, Buddy Holly glasses, MySpace angled-pic taking, scene waif was nowhere near the caliber of legendary guitarist Jimi Hendrix. Yet, for some reason, she appears alongside him in Guitar Hero: World Tour, amongst Ozzy Osbourne, Travis Barker, Billy Corgan, and even Ted Nugent. Who deems a glut of the “featured” rockers in the Guitar Hero games noteworthy? Spotlighting celebrities such as Travis Barker and Hayley Williams is just a bit ridiculous. If you want to put the real, legendary guitar players in the games, skip the tweeny crap and cut to the chase! It’s quite embarrassing “rocking out” with flame-haired Williams, believing you’re making some sort of history. These artists do little to convince me that Guitar Hero knows or even cares about those who have made true contributions to the industry. If the next Guitar Hero features Hollywood Undead or someone similar, I might be coerced to chuck it out of a window.

Doin’ It Right: Recognize true musical greats who are unanimously respected throughout the industry rather than a who’s-who list of the “cool” names in rock history. At least Rock Band can recognize a truly influential and important band (The Beatles) when they see one.

Band on the Run

With the release of World Tour,  Guitar Hero has finally made public its skeevy crush on band game cousin Rock Band. When this fact emerged, it was clear Guitar Hero was on the path to ruin. Because Guitar Hero doesn’t feature the slick presentation, extensive catalogue of DLC, or credibility that Rock Band has worked to build, it ends up falling flat on its face. It’s not enough to pretend to be another game – Guitar Hero aspires to rip it off entirely. After a September 2008 release for Rock Band 2, Guitar Hero: World Tour arrived in October, bringing with it at least five songs featured in Rock Band 2 - “Today”, ” One Way or Another”, “Feel The Pain”, “Eye of the Tiger”,  and “The Middle”. Coincidence? Perhaps. But just between you and me, if I had been building the World Tour set list, you better believe I would have chosen different Smashing Pumpkins or Blondie songs, even if just to set myself apart from Rock Band 2. Combine this with the fact that Guitar Hero releases far too many expansions, and it’s clear that it can just never be the streamlined musical experience that Rock Band has become. Not that Rock Band doesn’t have its faults, but at least it got the concept correct the first time.

Doin’ It Right: Hey, Guitar Hero! Are you named “Band Hero”? Well, perhaps not yet. Why not stick to what you know and expand upon the guitar concept rather than trying to copy off of a brand that’s obviously respected more than yours? Instead of creating a lackluster drum kit and overly harsh vocal rating, why not create an innovative guitar controller, new and improved gameplay, or work on what you’ve got rather than trying to imitate your idol? That’s never attractive.

I Wanna Rock

That’s just it – we want to rock. We don’t want to play country, ska, techno, or just plain noise. While it’s great the game has opened up the refines of its genres to include other styles of music, guitar is primarily used in your regular, garden-variety rock songs (metal, too!). So why include tracks that feature very little guitar riffs or the very same, repetitive ones over and over? Example: out of Linkin Park’s song catalogue that includes a great deal of guitar, why include the one that has the most boring and obnoxious parts to play in “What I’ve Done”? That certainly isn’t their best or most memorable song, so why are we forced to sit and groan when it comes up in the rotation? Start choosing some more guitar-appropriate songs!

Doin’ It Right: This one is quite simple. LISTEN to your fanbase. When great songs are suggested, pursue them and work toward making a respectable track list that doesn’t err on the side of country or rap with a side of guitar.

Ride the Lightning, er, Bandwagon

Because someone thought it was terribly appropriate that Aerosmith receive a volume of Guitar Hero aimed specifically at their song catalogue, the same person allowed Metallica an entire game to themselves, followed soon by Van Halen, and who knows who else? This “me too” sensibility is partially responsible for flooding the market with Guitar Hero titles. How many different bands merit their own installment, and why? Metallica is understandable, but if bands keep being rewarded with their VERY OWN Guitar Hero game, how long before you’ll need to own a good 20+ Guitar Hero titles in order to find the songs you really want to play from your favorite band?

Doin’ It Right: NO MORE GUITAR HERO: BAND NAME HERE releases. It’s great that there are some hardcore Metallica, Van Halen, and Aerosmith fans out there who know of and enjoy every single song the bands have ever released, but the general populace deserves some more effort and variety than that, wouldn’t you agree?

Y’all Want A Single?

We’re all for newcomers to certain bands discovering the rest of their songbooks, or even giving upcoming bands their next big break. But who in their right mind would prefer Muse’s “Assassin” to one of their more successful and widely-known songs? Of course, this may all come down to personal choice, but if the whole movement is to make Guitar Hero the mainstream rhythm game choice, why are some truly great and catchy songs being overlooked? “Trapped Under Ice” by Metallica tossed in to World Tour? Really? What’s preventing some of the hits from many familiar Guitar Hero artists from being added to setlists? Would you buy a greatest hits CD from your favorite band that only features B-sides? It’s the same premise.

Doin’ It Right: Take into consideration that many gamers who will purchase these titles are faithful listeners of the radio or follow trendy music. Also, most people enjoy the more popular side of music rather than obscurity. Rather than trying to cater to those who only want to hear rarities, why not try to appease both sides by offering mega hits and more of the rarer ones?

Never Take Censorship Personal

Thou giveth power, thou taketh away. With both the Rock Band and Guitar Hero franchises trying to seperate themselves from one another in their competition, each title must serve up a hot plate of something new before the other does in order to penetrate the marketplace and gain the shining spotlight. Guitar Hero came so close with this, so close. Correct me if I’m wrong but I believe music is an art; the creators are indeed called artists, after all. With this in mind, in an attempt to take a step forward beyond the ability to put yourself in the limelight of an already-famous performer and relive their power and fame from your couch, we were introduced with our very own “Music Studio” …mode. And you know what, we’re gamers. Some of us are still (and always will be) in — not to be crude — in the penis mentality mode, where we have to draw or create a penis out of everything. And when it comes to gaming, long-time pal Super Mario is our escape from that. Mario has been sculpted, lego’ed, and cupcaked — and you know what, we also love his music and we want to hear it in any form we can.  In giving the power to the fans with this, we decided to roll our own rock which may or may not happen to include key gaming songs recreated through this new mode and you know what, the second you upload anything that could possibly be known already, it’ll be snapped down off the servers faster than a New York Minute. It’s not a copy of the song, it’s a recreation. Don’t give us the power to be who we are and pretend we’re being allowed to have fun and then reprimand us with the wooden spoon of the internet by e-banning our tracks. Guess we just have to twiddle our thumbs while we wait for Guitar Hero: Super Mario Edition.

Doin’ It Right: Activision, don’t you have better things to do with your time rather than lurk the uploaded titles and delete anything that may even remotely resemble fun?

The Devil Went Down To Hollywood

Really? You want me to explain this absurdity? Alright… Well if any of you remember or heard last August director Brett Ratner had the audacity to propose the idea of a Guitar Hero film experience. I am at a slight loss for words with this, as it is just a horrible, horrible idea. Here’s our boy Ratner’s bright idea, shared with MTV Mutliplayer:

“I love Guitar Hero and I think it’s a part of pop culture. I would love to do a Guitar Hero movie, if Activision would ever let me. I’m trying to convince them, but why would you have a movie screw up such a huge franchise? Not that I would make a bad movie. So that would be cool, to do a Guitar Hero movie.”

Yep. However could you ruin such a goldmine. And now the plot unfolds…

“It could be about a kid from a small town who dreams of being a rock star and he wins the ‘Guitar Hero’ competition. One of these dreams-[come-true] kind of concepts.”

But you know what, it’s supposedly not in the works and we hope and pray that no plans are underway with this one. So I’m going to chalk this up as a personal save by not officially announcing such a demon and slate it as almost doin’ it rong.

Doin’ It Right: We don’t make films out of video games.  Especially ones without stories.

Did you enjoy this installment of Doin’ It Rong? You’re in luck – “Doin’ it Rong” – yes, we know it’s spelled incorrectly, is a segment here at Spawn Kill about people or things that are, well, doing it wrong in the gaming industry. Be it the press, the fans, or industry bigwigs, we’re here to spotlight this tomfoolery. Our commentary is not provided to mock but rather to shed light on and to educate. And please just remember, it’s all in fun. Check out the previous installment, Doin’ It Rong: All-Girl Gaming Blogs!

       

Tags: Doin' It Rong, Guitar Hero

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009 at 2:57 pm and is filed under DS, Editorials, Featured, Gaming, Industry News, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.