Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s

"It's Guitar Hero! For hardcore fans only."

After releasing two of the biggest blockbuster hits in the past two years, Harmonix studios are back at it with the latest installment in the Guitar Hero franchise. While this game will be considered by many as an expansion for Guitar Hero 2, hardcore fans of Guitar Hero 2 and 80's music will get everything they want from this game.

The game is using the same engine as Guitar Hero 2, and it really shows as Harmonix didn't make any major changes to the looks. The guitar players now have different clothes giving them more of a 80's look, but the other band members didn't get the same redesign, which is somewhat disappointing. The main menu look is the same except for the colors, so if you played Guitar Hero 2, you'll feel at home right away. The 6 available venues you can play in are also taken directly from Guitar Hero 2. While they still look great, one can assume Harmonix didn't want to put too much effort on that one as they have another bigger project underway with Rock Band. Overall, the game still looks sharp, but if you played Guitar Hero 2 a lot, you'll find the design fairly boring as pretty much everything was taken from the previous game.

The basics of the game is to simply play the notes as they come at you. Sounds easy? You better think again. The game offers 4 difficulty levels, going from Easy to Expert. Beginners will want to play on Easy and slowly make their way up in the difficulty level since the game requires a good amount of time before getting good at it. The Easy difficulty level only uses 3 different fret buttons, Medium makes you use 4 while Hard starts using the 5th fret button. On Expert, the game requires you to play every single guitar notes for a specific song. Trying the game on Hard or Expert right away would most likely discourage beginners and make them never want to play the game again. For everyone else, you'll find the game to be extremely enjoyable and addicting.

The goal of the game is simple: manage to get to the end of the song. Fail to do that, the crowd will boo you off the stage! Quite humiliating isn't it? At the end of each songs, you'll get a rating out of 5 stars depending on your score at the end of the song. If you manage to make a perfect performance, you'll get golden stars next to your song in Career Mode. You will also receive some money depending on your performance on any difficulty levels, except Easy. You'll be able to use that money to buy new characters, guitars and guitar finishes. This game, unlike the other two, offers no unlockable songs.

The game works pretty much the same as its predecessor without any noticeable changes to the gameplay elements. The game features 30 songs from the 80's divided in 6 different sets of 5 songs, from easiest to hardest. Of course, you can only fully enjoy the game if you are playing with the guitar controller. For those of you who don't have one, you can still play the game with the standard PS2 controller, although the overall enjoyment will most definitely decrease. Fans of the 80's will find songs by some of the most famous 80's rock bands, including Scorpions (No One Like You), Iron Maiden (Wrathchild) and Judas Priest (Electric Eye).

The game offers you 4 different modes to play. The main one is the Career Mode where you'll have to name your band and make yourself a reputation until you are able to play the harder songs. The concept is the same as its predecessors, but that's really where you'll be spending most of your time. The game also offers a Quickplay mode if you only just want to play a few songs real quick. I personally find this mode to be useless unless you can't get pass a certain point in the game and want to test the other songs you have yet to unlock. The practice mode is back again, allowing you to select specific song sections you are having trouble with. It also allows you to slow down certain parts of a song to help you get that section down until you can play it at full speed. The game offers a multiplayer mode allowing you to face off against one of your friend to see who the better Guitar Hero player is. You can also play cooperative mode with one of your friend playing either bass or rhytm guitar. Unfortunately, the game doesn't support online play.

While the sound itself is great overall, some of the songs are covers of the real ones. The game does offer a few master tracks like "I Wanna Rock" from the Twisted Sisters, but most of the songs are covers, some of them doing a good job at rendering the original songs, but some of them won't do the songs any justice. The song selection is really up to the players, but the variety is wide, going from classic rock to a more 80's metal sound. Some of the songs can get annoying fairly fast (We Got The Beat), but overall, the song selection is pretty good and shouldn't bore you too quickly.

With only 30 songs, less unlockables than the previous titles and no bonus songs, the game still manages to offer a decent replay value. Since the goal of the game is to improve your skills with the guitar, you can try to beat your scores again and again and again until you get bored of a certain song. Of course, how long it will take you to get tired of a specific song is pretty much up in the air, and since the game offers a smaller song selection than the other 2 games, replay value is a bit lower than the other Guitar Hero titles. Still, with 30 songs, you should have fun for quite a while.

Compared to its predecessor, Rock the 80's really doesn't offer much, but since the game will be considered as an expansion by most people, this is understandable, although still somewhat disappointing. With only 30 songs compared to 47 and 64 for the previous 2 games, and a price tag of $50, it is fairly safe to assume that Red Octane and Harmonix wanted to a quick buck with this game, while still offering hardcore fans of the series something while waiting for Guitar Hero 3 and Rock Band. If you're a die hard fan of the Guitar Hero games and/or a 80's music lover, you'll definitely want to at least give this game a rental. If you don't fit under these two categories, you might want to wait for the next "real" Guitar Hero game.

Graphics: 8/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Sound: 8/10
Replay Value: 7.5/10
Overall: 7.8/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/31/07

Game Release: Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s (US, 07/24/07)