Guitar Hero (video game)

Guitar Hero (video game)

Guitar Hero is a 2005 music rhythm video game developed by Harmonix and published by RedOctane for the PlayStation 2. It is the first main installment in the Guitar Hero series. The gameplay is similar to GuitarFreaks, in that the player presses buttons on the guitar controller in time with musical notes that scroll on the game screen. The game features covers of 30 popular rock songs spanning five decades of rock.

About Guitar Hero (video game) in brief

Summary Guitar Hero (video game)Guitar Hero is a 2005 music rhythm video game developed by Harmonix and published by RedOctane for the PlayStation 2. It is the first main installment in the Guitar Hero series. The gameplay is similar to GuitarFreaks, in that the player presses buttons on the guitar controller in time with musical notes that scroll on the game screen. The game features covers of 30 popular rock songs spanning five decades of rock, from the 1960s up through 2005, in addition to bonus tracks. Guitar Hero became a surprise hit, earning critical acclaim and winning many awards from major video game publications, and was considered one of the most influential games of its decade. It has earned more than USD 2 billion in sales, spawning several sequels, expansions, and other game-related products. It was released in November 2005 in North America, April 2006 in Europe and June 2006 in Australia, and in September 2006 in the UK and Australia. The player can earn money from their performances that is redeemable at the in-game store, where bonus content, such as additional songs, guitars and finishes, can be unlocked. Quick Play mode allows players to play any unlocked songs, selecting the character, venue and guitar. After successfully completing a song, players are given a score rating from three to five stars, depending on their overall performance. Multiplayer mode offers two players the chance to compete against each other on the same song. The four difficulty levels for each song provide players with a learning curve in order to help them progress in skill.

The first difficulty level focuses on the first three fret buttons while Medium introduces a significantly reduced amount of notes for the player to play while adding more fret buttons to play the fourth section of the song. A player can also earn Star Power by playing a series of glowing notes perfectly and using the whammy bar during sustains. Once the Star Power meter is filled at least halfway, Star Power can then be activated by briefly tilting the game controller vertically, or by pressing a specific button on a standard controller. The game supports toggling the handedness of the guitar, allowing both left-handed and right-handed players to utilize the guitar controllers. The basic mechanics are based on Konami’s Guitar Freaks, in the case of Guitar Hero, the player may use either the guitar peripheral or astandard controller to play the scrolling notes. The guitar peripheral has five different-colored fret buttons near the nut of the Guitar neck, and a strum bar and awhammy bar on the body of the guitars body. The peripheral also has other buttons inorder to navigate the game’s menus. Players can choose their on-stage character and their guitar; these elements have no effect on gameplay but affect the visuals during the performance. Players can also use hammer-on and pull-off techniques where the player does not need to strum each note. A player using the standard controller simply presses the buttons that correspond with the displayed notes as outlined in thegame’s manual.