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[Strum la Frantique]

Countless reviews all say the exact same thing about this game, and mine will say the exact same thing - this is a cheap cash in at full price.

A look at the track list uncovers some gems, but among them is a flood of unknown tracks, which is fine. I was born in '85, I can't claim to know every hit, or every band from the decade when I was only alive for half of it and at 3 years of age, my taste for music wasn't developed at all. Plus a lot of the fun from the first two games was discovering those hidden gems of the past that were either skipped over by the generation they were made for, or simply forgotten in time.

So to skip a lot of crap, yes the menu is nasty, yes the characters are nasty, yes the venues are nasty, and yes there are no new unlockables. Everything is the same except a new lick of paint, and even then some menu screens aren't even given that (which is a positive as the guy responsible for the new coat was either playing a cruel joke, or colour blind). Oh and the tally of replaced loading screen sayings is around three, and two of them don't make sense to me, or simply aren't funny.

The tracklist is the bread and butter of Guitar Hero, or any music game for that matter, so I'll detail it better. It mostly falls flat. It's a combination of things really - the reliance on chords, the poor sound mixing, a poor cover and the poor song choice.

Firstly, the chords. Boy do they come thick and fast. The three button chords are the main offender here. In GH2 they were used sparingly; to add punch to the finish of a solo, or for repeated chords when a two button chord was too easy. 80's however on expert throws them at you in nearly every song, in nearly every combination and it's for absolutely no reason. It's like all the songs are fan made custom songs for GH2, they all rely on three button chords too to artificially ramp up difficulty. It just feels cheap, with little imagination, and only serves to shorten the amount of time you can play as your fingers will get sore.

The sound mixing is shit. Every song has been shoved under a pile of mud, with the guitar track put over it. They honestly have drown out everything bar the guitar, on some songs I can't even make out the vocals. Harmonix have always brought the guitar to the front of the mix, simply for the reason of you are playing a guitar game. In the past though individual levels were mixed to create balance so the vocals were always heard and you had a drum beat, usually the victim was the bass guitar (except for the co-op songs). That's not done here, they've lowered the entire band. It's just crap, you can't pick the drum beat in a lot of songs that you're supposed to be playing alongside with, you simply can't hear it. You have to manually tinker with the sound volumes in the menu to get the game to a playable stage - sheer laziness on Harmonix' part.

Poor covers are in abundance here; if you don't know the original, you're the lucky one - don't seek it out to listen to it. The covers are inferior to the originals in every way. GH has had bad covers in the past, but they were the exception, here they are the rule. The master tracks shine through though, as the change in quality is startling in a good way. They tease you for what could have been a better game.

And the tracklist, a lot of the choices are puzzling, like both Red Octane and Harmonix were pulling punches. Red Octane was in charge of song selection according to the credits, I don't believe this was always the case with the first two games. Some bands included simply have a catalog of better songs that are better suited for the game, a lot of bands aren't included that are in GH, GH2 GH3 or Rock Band that should also be in this game, and some bands I've never heard of and wonder where this shit was dug up from. The big problem is that the vast majority of songs are just plain boring to play, and the challanging one's aren't worth mastering because the song is still crap to play. There's also nowhere near enough bad 80's synthesiser.

Overall the cheap cash in is prevalent. Harmonix left 5 guys in a back room to shove this shit out (due to a contract, Harmonix didn't want to make the game) while the main team went on with Rock Band. Red Octane has their sights set on the multi platform Guitar Hero 3, which offers far better 80's songs, and it will undoubtedly sell better. Rocks the 80's is stuck in the middle of this, a developer that didn't care, and a publisher that didn't care and only wanted some more cash. The problem is people want more songs to play and will pay whatever price necessary for whatever shit is being handed to them (the X Box Live GH2 songs are a great example) so this will always sell. You can't help but get the feeling though that this sort of release took away the momentum of the genre of the past 2 years, and too many releases like this will hurt the publisher and genre as a whole in the end.

Overall 30 tracks, 5 of which are worth your time. Avoid unless you're a die hard expert player.

[Subrick]

I'll just rent it at Blockbuster.