Gameplay
Guitar Hero Live
The gameplay is about what you would expect. You beat match the notes coming down the highway and that’s about it. There are several modes of play including quickplay, career and online play (Guitar Hero TV). GHL offers a fairly steep learning curve and going from expert on a 5 button guitar to expert on a 6 button guitar is not an easy transition. The six button gameplay feels terrific and being able to play chord shapes is a huge improvement from the 5 button guitar. If you want a fresh take on the music game genre, then GHL is a great choice.
Rock Band 4
RB4 contains some new gameplay enhancements for vocals, guitar and drums (sorry bass players). Guitarists can now do freestyle guitar solos, which are mind-blowingly awesome and badass. Drummers can now play pre-authored fills during overdrive sections and vocalists can add their own spin to a song with freestyle vocals that allow you to sing outside the pitch line. This is something that’s sadly missing from GHL. Everything is about beat matching in GHL, while RB4 gives you some form of freedom. In addition to that, all your old pre-Rock Band 3 DLC has been upgraded with harmonies and feature freestyle vocals and solos, so you can re-experience old music.
While RB4 has some gameplay enhancements it is missing some core features such as the ability to make setlists, practice mode and online play. In addition to that, there are some bugs such as the music store which is still half-working and noticeable vocal lag when singing that need to be fixed. Harmonix has promised an update on December 8th which will add some new social elements, competitive features, individual breakneck speeds and a new game mode.
Song List
Guitar Hero Live
GHL focuses on more recent music. Even the older artists such as Pearl Jam and Soundgarden have songs featured from their most recent albums. There are a few classic rock songs spanning the Who and the Rolling Stones, but these tracks are few and far between. The soundtrack definitely has a more poppy feel to it with artists like Katy Perry, Rihanna and Avril Lavigne rounding out the setlist. If you loved Guitar Hero’s focus on hard rock in previous iterations of the game, you maybe slightly disappointed with the song choices on disc. Also disappointing is the limited tracklist. Only 42 songs are available on disc, making this one of the smaller tracklists we’ve seen from a Guitar Hero title. Also, none of your old GH DLC works in GH Live.
For those disappointed with the song list on disc, the game’s online service, GHTV, has something for everyone. Featuring 200 songs at launch, the service offers a wide array of music from today’s hits to classic songs across 2 TV channels that play music 24/7. We’ll look more at the service when I compare the multiplayer of both games.
Rock Band 4
RB4 features 65 songs on disc, which is small in comparison to Rock Band 2 and 3, both of which featured over 80 songs. Most people agree that the on-disc setlist is fairly mediocre. While big name artists exist on disc like U2, Van Halen and Aerosmith, there are plenty of lesser known artists as well. This is in large part due to the fact that Harmonix has already released over 2000 songs as DLC, most of which work in RB4. RB4’s setlist is much better varied than GHL featuring artists ranging from Elvis to Bruno Mars. In addition to that, all your old DLC songs are compatible with the new game features including the freestyle solos and vocals. The one downside with the music store is that some of my old songs, exports and track packs haven’t been made available yet for download.