Guitar Hero is a series of music video games published by RedOctane in partnership with Activision. The series is notable for its use of a guitar-shaped peripheral to simulate the playing of music, represented on-screen by colored notes that correspond to fret buttons on the controller. The games support individual play as well as cooperative and competitive modes for two players. The series has used a range of both licensed and independent rock music tracks from the 1960s to present, many of which are master tracks from the bands. In total, five games have been released for video game consoles, while games have been released for mobile phones and the Nintendo DS handheld gaming system.
The main mode of play in the Guitar Hero games is Career Mode, where the player and in-game band travel between various fictional performance arenas and perform sets of four to six songs. It is by completing songs in this mode that the songs are unlocked for play across the rest of the game. Players can choose their on-stage character, their guitar of choice, and the venue they wish to play in. In this mode, the player can earn money from his/her performances that is redeemable at the in-game store, where bonus songs, additional guitars and finishes, and bonus content can be unlocked. Quick Play mode is a quicker method of playing songs, as it allows the player to select a track and difficulty, selecting the character, venue, and guitar for the player based on the song chosen. After successfully completing a song, the player is given a score, a percentage of how many notes they hit and a rating from three to five stars, depending on his/her final score on the song.
The four difficulty levels for each song afford the player a learning curve in order to help him/her progress in skill. The first difficulty level, Easy, only focuses on the first three fret buttons while displaying a significantly reduced amount of notes for the player to play. Medium introduces the fourth (blue) fret button, and Hard includes the final fret button while adding additional notes. The addition of the orange fret button forces players to move their fingers up and down the neck. Expert does not introduce any other frets to learn, but adds more notes in a manner designed to challenge the player and to simulate the player’s hands to move in a sequence similar to a real guitar.
In the first two games and the 2007 expansion Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s, the majority of the songs on the main career mode set lists are covers of the original song; for example, a song may be presented as ‘”Free Bird” as made famous by Lynyrd Skynyrd’. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock introduces a much larger range of original recordings. The covers throughout the games are mostly recreated by WaveGroup who has worked before to create songs for Beatmania, Dance Dance Revolution, and Karaoke Revolution. Almost all of the unlockable bonus songs are songs performed by the original artist for the game (the only exception is the song She Bangs the Drums by The Stone Roses).
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