Guitar Zero

I guess this news was coming, but even so, I’m rather surprised by it. Activision, believe it or not, hasn’t been making as much money (nor have they been exploiting their fanbase as much) on their other games. Other than Cash-cow of Duty, I mean. Guitar Hero is being killed off (if only for a little while). Since the release of the very first Guitar Hero game, the sales figures and the profits have been gradually sliding. This is in no small part also down to the increasing size of licensing fees for the music. They’ve been consistently critically well received though, but it seems that nobody gets excited by the genre any more. Warriors of Rock sold pretty poorly for what you’d think is such a large franchise, and EA’s Rock Band 3 didn’t exactly fare too well either. Activision has always played it (too) safe with GH, so it was at least refreshing to see EA do something a bit different and ambitious, even if it was admittedly a bit shit. Sorry, no, it played fine, but there’s one slight gripe I have with it…IT’S COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY. ‘Pro’ mode sucked, because you may as well (for the time, money and effort you have to put into the game) just buy a real guitar (y’know, without the coloured fret buttons, and with strings…) and slog it out until you can play the damn thing. Silly. Make no mistake though, neither of 2010’s two big ‘rhythm action’ were bad titles by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s clear to see that the consumer is getting really quite sick of them. The concept’s got a bit boring now, and by the nature of the control scheme, nothing much can be done to alter the gameplay. That said, I always used to look forward to the next instalment of Guitar Hero, so I am pretty disappointed. I was desperately pining for either a Red Hot Chili Peppers or Muse version of the game, but I guess that dream will have to wait…! Thankfully, the series does still have a future. Think of it as though it’s just hibernating; it’s likely that in a few year’s time, most probably on the next generation of home consoles, we’ll be seeing the rejuvination of Guitar Hero. There’ll probably be some innovative twist, but it’ll mostly be driven by the fact that after a period of starvation, the public will be hungry for that type of game again. RIP for now Guitar Hero, I had some rockin’ good times with you…even if your tracklist selections were a bit…’meh’.
DJ Hero is also dead, but nobody gives a flying fuck.