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The news satire website The Onion posted a hilariously deadpan story this week about poor sales of a game called Sousaphone Hero, in which gamers play two-note parade marches using a huge plastic controller modelled after the titular tuba.
What The Onion seems to be saying is the Guitar Hero phenomenon is getting too big, too fast. If you need real-world proof, look no further than Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks The 80s.
Unless you've been living in a cave so deep that it's warmed by the earth's molten core, you probably know Guitar Hero is a rhythm game played with a plastic guitar controller, which you use to "strum" along to popular music tracks. And you may also know it's a stupendous amount of fun -- we gave the last game, Guitar Hero II, a rare 5 out of 5 score.
As something to tide fans over between Guitar Hero II and this fall's Guitar Hero III (not to mention MTV Games' upcoming Rock Band), Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks The 80s should have been a winner, given the rich vein of music from which it could mine.
But this is a textbook example of the wrong way to milk -- sorry, build upon -- a franchise. Don't release what's essentially a glorified expansion pack and charge full price for it. Don't recycle virtually every element of the last game, from the menu interface to the music venues, and expect us not to notice. And don't focus on a musical era that has specific style and vibe and sound, and then build a set list of songs that barely touches on it.
Granted, not a lot of gamers are like this ancient joystick jockey, who lived the '80s and loved the music. And yes, the game is called Guitar Hero and not Synthesizer Hero, which could explain the overabundance of hair metal bands such as Ratt, Poison and Faster Pussycat.
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Still, why weren't seminal '80s acts such as Devo, New Order, Duran Duran, Depeche Mode and so on included somehow? Why are less than half of the 30 songs (10 fewer than the last game, and no bonus tracks) genuinely fun to listen to and/or play? Why are the cover versions so second-rate this time around? And what in Zeus' name is Winger doing here? Winger?? Is that someone's idea of a joke?
The '80s may have been a little odd and cheesy -- shoulder pads, jelly shoes, big hair and all -- but a lot of good, fun music came out of that decade. That so little of it ended up in this game is, as they used to say, totally bogus.
BOTTOM LINE:
While Guitar Hero is still one of the best games of recent years, this cash grab of a psuedo-sequel does no favours to the franchise or to '80s music.
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GUITAR HERO ENCORE: ROCKS THE 80S
PS2
Harmonix/Red
Octane/Activision
Rating:Teen
Sun Rating: 3 out of 5