The reveal of Guitar Hero Live didn’t impress me. In fact, words like cheesy, lame, and bad idea spilled uncontrollably from my soul. Now that I’ve seen it in person, I’m not ashamed to say this: I was wrong.
COG had the opportunity here at E3 to hang out with Jamie Jackson, Creative Director at Freestyle Games, and tour around both the Live and TV modes in Guitar Hero Live. This article focuses on Live mode: for impressions of Guitar Hero TV, check out THIS article.
The big change in Live is perspective. Instead of watching the band from cinematic angles, you ARE the guitarist. In practice, this provides a huge amount of immersion, and makes for a much more focused experience. Freestyle have worked extremely hard to immerse players, and tailor the experience to individual play styles.
Numbers weren’t announced, but developers promised a wide variety of bands to play along with including an all girl hard rock group. Crowds too will be tuned – a goth heavy playlist in the UK will populate the crowd with people dressed in the UK goth style. It’s a small detail, but that seems to be how Freestyle have approached all aspects of the game.
Each venue, song, and band have been captured twice – in a positive and negative situation – and the game seamlessly transitions between the video feeds. It’s impressive in person how closely the visual and audio feedback from the world matches your skill. “How the hell did you guys pull this off?” we asked. A giant robot camera was the answer. Awesome. The robo-cam followed an identical path on each take, allowing the game to cut between the takes with no jarring. The crowd’s reactions are the only potential negative feedback in the game – there’s absolutely no fail state in GH Live.
No fail epitomises the developer philosophy behind the game – have fun, do your best. It’s refreshing to see positive reinforcement being so lovingly embraced in a game about performance.
A standout feature from the demo was the audio mixing. As the camera zooms around the stage (from your personal perspective), the mix of audio dynamically changes. Near the crowd, their cheers (or jeers) become more prominent, while getting near the drummer will pump up the drums in the mix. Very cool, and will likely sound incredible on a solid pair of headphones.
On the gameplay side of things, GH Live offers all kinds of levelling up – guitars, note highways, player cards etc. can all be earned, bought, and won while playing the game. Meanwhile, a whole host of new hero powers have been added to the game that can clear the highway during difficult sections or double your score temporarily, adding an additional layer of  strategy to gameplay.
In all, GH Live is on track to redefine the music gaming segment by ignoring the other guys instead of fighting them. It’s a risky approach that appears to have worked – we look forward to getting our hands on the final product when it releases this October.