Band Hero

Game for pop-loving teens is far from terrible

It’s been a reasonably impressive year for gaming. Modern Warfare 2 came out, motion sensor technology took a few steps forward and Activision released countless numbers of [BLANK] Hero games, with one still yet to come out before the end of the year. But the odd one out from the collection would have to be Band Hero.

As the title suggests, the main focus of the game isn’t playing awesome tracks on the guitar, rather being collectively great as a band. I think if you’re a fan of Guitar Hero, know all the songs in the soundtrack and are a massive moron (for assuming the game is aimed at Guitar Hero or metal fans) then you couldn’t hate the game more unless it marched into your house, kicked your pets or family members in the face and ran out yelling “Wolverines!”

Some of you probably expected me to tear into this like an annoyed wrestler opening a bag of peanuts, going by my mostly negative review of Guitar Hero 5 which I still sort of stand by, but here’s the twist. It’s actually not a bad game if you think about who it was designed for. Fair play, if it was a Guitar Hero game with music from Duffy, Robbie Williams and Culture Club then it would deserve all the harsh words and death threats it would probably receive.

However, it’s clear from the sparkly pink and purple menu that a new audience has been selected and you can’t fault the game for that. If you think of Guitar Hero as a game for people who love rock music, then this is a spin off for people who love pop music in the same way DJ Hero was a spin off for people who love hip-hop and have the desire to be the biggest arse of any party.

If you've played any Hero game, ever, you'll know exactly what to expect.

So how is the soundtrack? On a personal level, I really don’t like it. There are songs I physically couldn’t bring myself to play such as Like Whoa by Aly & AJ or So Yesterday by Hilary Duff and songs that I tried only to strongly hate such as Naive by The Kooks or Pictures Of You by The Last Goodnight. But as I said, the designers weren’t thinking of me sitting on my high horse when they put the soundtrack together.

That being said, I did request the song The Impression That I Get by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones a while ago on the Guitar Hero Request feature from their website and it’s the final encore song of the game. It’s also one of the few songs I like, along with a couple other guilty secrets.

Yes, even for a game aimed at girls with Twilight posters all around their bedroom walls, there are some songs that would belong just as well on a Guitar Hero game, for example Poision’s Every Rose Has Its Thorn. Even though the title would make the game sound like each song is balanced by fun charts on all the instruments, you can tell that a more accurate title would’ve been Vocal Hero as it’s far more fun to sing YMCA by The Village People than to play the brass on guitar.

The game isn’t flawless by a long shot, let’s make that crystal clear. Song specific challenges still don’t have individual instrument tasks so in order to complete the game you need to be able to play each instrument and personally, I’d rather not sing along to Wannabe by The Spice Girls as long as I have blood in my body and balls on my manhood (apologies for the mental image).

Neversoft’s censoring habits also take the piss at times, most notably American Pie by Don McLean. Most people already know the chorus, in particular the line “drinkin’ whiskey and rye”. The word ‘whiskey’ is censored, which sounds quite awkward as if an uptight Christian parent went to the recording studio and forced them to mute the word, while ‘rye’, stays in even though it also refers to whiskey.

Oh, and then there are Fan Requests, a good feature from a portable Guitar Hero game but in order to play them on the Wii you need to have Band Hero on the DS. No Activision, I will not shell out more of my cash for the same game on the DS just to play extra challenges. That money will be spent on an Iron Maiden CD and Red Bulls, thank you very much.

Still, at least they have fun little descriptions for them that make the pain of whammying every note on a song a bit more bearable. Activision has also tried to avoid getting sued again by making it impossible for unlockable celebrities such as Taylor Swift or the guys from the band No Doubt to be in songs performed by people of the opposite sex, i.e. Gwen Steffani can’t sing Whip It by Devo…didn’t work though, they’re still getting sued…heh heh…

I guess if you can put up with cheesy songs,  tame charts and the feel of something that’s been vomitted by a unicorn then you’ll enjoy the game but if, like me, you just wanted to play a few songs that you liked then it’s probably best if you rented the game, exported the songs and then returned it.

The only problem with that is that is that you won’t get Mr Roboto by Styx, a song only made awesome by the fact that you can pretend to be Jeffster with the plastic guitar (for Chuck fans out there). At the end of the day it’s a good thing this game exists, since it means that KT Tunstall and Lily Allen won’t be in future Guitar Hero games if Neversoft have any sense.

The game could be a hell of a lot worse, just think of it that way. You could have music from Soulja Boy or many other titheaded pricks with no musical talent, but instead the soundtrack is filled with many artists like N.E.R.D and Joss Stone…oh.