Video Game Review: Band Hero Finally let’s you Consolidate Your Guitar Hero Library!

Band Hero - Taylor Swift.jpg

Standard Disclaimer – Stop the monkeys! There are too many darn music games. Now that I’ve said that we can talk about Band Hero – Activision’s latest round of music games. I mean hey, let’s ignore the fact they just released Guitar Hero 5 a month or so ago and earlier in the year Guitar Hero: Smash Hits. Not only that but Activision is trying to be slick by calling this Band Hero.  On first blush you have to ask the question what is the point of this release. After going through the Pop Centric track list I get it. This package is for people who don’t like metal or think there has been too much hard rock and not enough pop music in past GH titles. I’m one of those people. The problem is a lot of the songs on this disc are amazing if you sing or use the drum set, but the guitar charting on a lot of these songs are just janky and don’t translate well at all, two immediate examples – Kung Fu Fighting. You are basically playing the flute part and everything else feels made up.  Now I’m not going to go into all the features on the game if you’ve played any of the previous Guitar Hero, then you know what to expect – full online multiplayer, music creation, world tour “story” mode, band creation, easy jump in and out, etc.

However, Band Hero has one very important feature, that’s worth the price of admission alone – you can FINALLY IMPORT SONGS from previous Guitar Heroes. Let me repeat that you can FINALLY IMPORT SONGS from previous Guitar Heroes. I’ve been waiting for Activision to do this for three years now! The reason I wanted Guitar Hero: Smash Hits was I wanted to get the good songs from all their previous releases, but somehow Activision managed to screw up the Smash Hits set list.

Band Hero - 'Pretty Woman' Double Vocals.jpg

Now thanks to being able to import songs from GH5, GH Smash Hits, World Tour, plus my downloadable tracks, I’m now able to truly create that “dream” set list. I have 211 songs at my disposal. My Dream set list right now is:

  • YYZ
  • Sweet Home Alabama
  • Free Bird
  • Sympathy for the Devil
  • YMCA
  • Superstition
  • Smells Like Teen Spirit
  • Do You Feel Like We Do
  • Band on the Run
  • Play that Funky Music
  • Shout at the Devil
  • We Are the Champions
  • Pretty Woman
  • Old Time Rock And Roll
  • Are You Gonna Go My Way

Band Hero - 'L.E.S. Artistes' Santigold.jpg

This makes Band Hero the best music game you can get. I’ve always said I loved Rockband’s Set List but found their charting to be pretty terrible – I can’t even play Beatle’s Rockband and hated GH’s overall set list. I mean sure I can always find 20 songs on each disk that I liked, but now I can have it all – awesome charting, great songs all on one disk. The drawback is for some strange reason (licensing) you don’t get all the songs from each disk or all your previously purchased downloads – you probably get about 85% but for now, that’s good enough for me. So don’t pick up Band Hero for the included tracks – there are some gems (Janet Jackson’s Black Cat, and I Heard It Through The Grape Vine), get it because you can finally get all your Guitar Hero music in one place.

Grades

  • OnDisk Track List C
  • Overall Track List A+
  • Presentation – C
  • Fun Factor – A

Final Overall Grade – A

EM Review by
Michelle Alexandria
Originally posted 11.11.09