In the all-new Party Play mode, players can now jump in or drop out of gameplay seamlessly, without interrupting their jam session Play with any in-game instrument combination in any game mode - multiple vocalists, guitarists, bassists and drummers Features new in-game artists and rock legends The entire set list is available from the beginning Software compatible with Guitar Hero World Tour peripherals By now, everyone knows what to expect from the latest version of the game that popularised console music games.
In the extremely unlikely case that you are not familiar with the series, firstly, welcome back from what must have been a quite protracted visit to another planet, but let us explain. Guitar Hero involves playing along to popular music songs on a USB guitar peripheral that comes bundled with the game (or not, for users who already have one). You have to hit and hold notes on button on the USB guitar fretboard in time with the notes in the song.
Hitting a series of notes increases your score multiplier, missing notes will drop your performance meter, and if you do it repeatedly you will get booed off stage. As you would expect, GH5 does not re-write a winning formula, but instead adds to it with new songs, and artists. This time there are 85 songs by 83 different artists, and as is typical of Guitar Hero games, several of the artists are rendered in 3D for you to play when performing their songs.
These include Johnny Cash, Carlos Santana and Shirley Manson of Garbage. The big news is that GH5 features songs by Nirvana, and Kurt Cobain is also one of the 3D avatars. There is also an character editor, but 360 users can also import and use their XBox live avatar.
Other improvements to the latest version of Guitar Hero mean that players can now us the drums and microphone controllers from Guitar Hero World Tour as well as the traditional guitar. They can also jump in and play without spending as long in the game's menu system. Both the single career mode and competitive multi-player modes have been enhanced.
In "Party Play" mode players can jump into a band or drop out in the middle of a song. Instruments and difficulty levels can be changed mid-song.