Guitar Hero 5: Preview

Guitar Hero 5, will be, as you could probably guess, the fifth major game in the series. Not including spin-off’s such as Guitar Hero: Rock the 80’s, Guitar Hero: Metallica, and the latest Guitar Hero: Smash Hits of course.

As with the last few Guitar Hero titles; the game will be focusing more on the full band experience, bringing us all together as one big happy family, how touching. That means new multiplayer orientated features and a whole bunch of achievements and trophies based around you and three of your friends rocking out.

The gameplay will almost be identical to that of Guitar Hero: World Tour, only with a few slight differences to the multiplayer portion. ‘Star Power’ will now no longer be shared amongst the group; this will now be more individually focused. Instead it has been replaced by ‘Band Moments’, which is essentially just the same thing with a different name.



There will be two new modes for you to get your groove on with, the first being ‘Party Play’, in which players can jump into and out of the band mid-song, and even go as far as to switch instruments off the cuff. It sounds a little bizarre, but equally as exciting, and I guess the only way to get a feel for how it works is to see it first-hand.

The other mode being brought to the fray is ‘Rock Fest’ and will host a few sub-modes of its own, each putting a new spin on the standard formula. If you choose “Elimination” for example, the player performing the worst will be eliminated, and then the next after him, and then so on, until there’s an eventual winner.

In terms of the actual music featured in the game, there will be no fewer than 85 different musicians on show, 25% of which will be music released in the past 18 months, 50% will be from the current decade. All songs will now also be available out of the box in every mode, making the game more accessible to a wider audience.



The song that has probably caught the most attention is Queen and David Bowie’s ‘Under Pressure’, which the people working on the game claim they’ve been trying to get hold of for quite some time. Some of our personal favourites are the energetic ‘Sex on Fire’ by Kings of Leon, the heart-wrenching ‘In My Place’ by Coldplay, the punk-fuelled ‘The Rock Show’ by Blink 182, the ever-popular ‘Plug in Baby’ by Muse, and the indie-rock anthem ‘Brianstorm’ from the Sheffield-based rockers The Arctic Monkey’s.

For a list of confirmed songs and artists click here.

In addition to this all downloadable content from Guitar Hero: World Tour will be available to use, with all new features automatically integrated. It’s currently unconfirmed whether they’ll do the same for Guitar Hero: Smash Hits, but it would be daft not to.

Johnny Cash has also been confirmed as a playable character, and with it he’ll be performing his hit ‘Ring of Fire’. A tribute artist by the name Terry Lee Goffee has lent his services to motion capture in order to represent him in the game.



The game will come packed with a new guitar design, a red body with a white pick guard. The changes aren’t just cosmetic though, apparently the touch-pad frets are now “more accurate ad responsive.”

The new drums aren’t all that different to the ones found in Guitar Hero: World Tour, only they now come with two symbols, which resemble that of Rock Band’s, except they’re fully round as oppose to half-circles, giving a more realistic look. The microphone is reportedly set to be unchanged.

Guitar Hero 5 is coming September 1st 2009 on PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360.

Craig Bryan, NoobFeed