"Heroes of Mock"

Guitar Hero 80s
Article Title: Heroes of Mock

8/10 <not an average>

INTRODUCTION
With a game like this, it's hard to do a review. It's not that the game is particularly difficult to grade, that part is the easy part, it's exceptional, and lots of fun. What is problematic when trying to review this game is how to grade it in regard to its history. Most would suppose appropriate in a situation like this is the maxim ‘if it aint broke then don't fix it,' the writer in this case doesn't differ much in this way of thinking. The game has been done well, but little is different. Basically this version is a song upgrade. You will get about another 30 songs to mess around with as far as unlocking the games are concerned.

GAMEPLAY – 10/10
As was mentioned in the into, the gameplay is much the same. This, one would suppose, is a good thing. There was nothing particularly wrong with the ‘Taiko no tatsujin' style fret board that was being used to get users to sync with their button presses. It worked, so why fix it, right? There is nothing particularly knew here. The game is addictive. Upon receiving it, the first night I played and completed Easy and Medium. Neither were particularly difficult (Hard is obviously insane as per usual, which is why I never play it in any of the Guitar Hero versions <it's rough playing without a guitar hero guitar (that x button for orange really makes things difficult>)

Music - 8/10
Top notch stuff right here, people. Some of the songs were good in terms of nostaligia (Radar Love, Turning Japanese, etc.) while other were new to the writer, and caused the writer to stop and laugh while playing because of pure hilarity (DIO – Holy diver <never heard it, but an awesome track).

Overall the song selection here is decent, it could have been better, as they could have thrown in some Adam Ant, or some AC/DC, as well as more of the police (Roxanne would have been nice), but on the other hand, they had many of the key quality songs, so one can't be too hard.

It is a shame that the song selection isn't as extensive as the other versions of Guitar Hero. With only 30 songs available (up to medium), there isn't that many songs available, and one can get bored of that fairly quickly.

Visuals -7/10
There really isn't much to say here. The game isn't played for it's visuals. If you want to be impressed visually, play God of War II or Monster Hunter 2. Guitar Hero has visuals which are decent, but they really aren't breath taking. For the most part, you can't even look at the areas of the screen where the grim reaper may be playing as you are too busy concentrating on the fret board for the button presses. As was said though, the game visuals are decent, and get the job done, but don't expect anything special here. While the intro video was amusing, one would hardly call it a boundary pusher…it looked like something out of south park (not that there is anything bad about there, but no one would say south park does Disney quality animation).

REPLAYABILITY – 5/10
With so few songs in this version, it wont take you long to get through them all. While it might take a while to get to 5 stars for all songs, whether or not you have the patience to get there is another issue. If one is an avid fan, then most likely they will. However after 24 hours, the writer feel that they are pretty much done with the game. Given that this is the case, replayability level isn't very high. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater was highly replayable for the frogs locations as well as the compelling story line, this however has none of those easter eggs, and zero story. Aside from the fact that you might be interested in a song (like this writer was with Holy Diver, wound up playing it 5 times straight)and you might want to hear it, there isn't much else to drive you to keep playing.

OVERALL: 8/10
A great game, but it doesn't really bring anything new to the table. It's more of the same (much like EA with their sport's titles every year). The game is fun, but it gets old fast. It won't take you long to finish much of the game, and then there isn't much to keep you playing.

RECOMMENDATION:
If you have many friends, this is a GREAT party game. You will be having a great time with this, and laughing considerably at the 80s power metal style music. If you don't, this would probably be a better game to rent. This game can be finished very quickly, and whether or not you will want to keep playing it to unlock all the insanely difficult requirements for new guitars (e.g. 5* for Hard for all songs) is a matter for the individual.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/02/07