Kris Wall reports from EGX 2015…
If there was one game on display at EGX this year that personified pressure to perform, it was Guitar Hero Live. I would consider myself a fan of the series and have played pretty much all of them to date, I’m no expert but I know my way around the guitar controller. However, upon stepping into the booth to play (itself modeled on a giant amp) and being handed the new style controller by the attendant, hubris and overconfidence quickly gave way to sheer face palming failure and the embarrassing act of having to lower the difficulty below normal.
The new style controller has lost its coloured buttons down the neck and been replaced with a new 6 button system that are designed to replicate the strings on a guitar, there’s 3 black buttons on the topside and 3 white buttons on the underside. I was explained this while being handed the controller and that most people had turned the difficulty down in order to get a feel for the new layout at an easier pace, but not this guy though whose inner rock star was already looking to show off some Slash level skills before the game quickly made me the Icarus of my own musical fantasy, flying too close to the sun and going down in a blaze of glory, at least that’s what I chose to tell myself to dilute the shame anyway.
Without the time to really get a feel for the controller and the pressure of being watched by people that included the glamorous assistant and my own father chuckling away in the background, I hit Royal Blood’s ‘Little Monster’ on a more comfortable skill setting and immediately got sucked into the new style presentation of the game. The shift to a first person perspective might sound simple but it really draws you into the experience as you see the crowd react to you in real-time, play poorly and they’ll let you know with their gestures, body language and chants but play with skill and they’ll be going crazy and it was fun to see the crowd jumping around and singing along to the song the better I did.
The presentation of the game extends to all of the tracks being captured by a live band (Though the song is the original artists version) and as the song progresses, you’ll be moving around and interacting with your band mates who will also react differently to you based on how well you’re playing. By the end of my short time with the game, the frontman had leapt off stage to crowd surf and the fans were screaming for more, it’s a hugely immersive experience that you can’t help but smile at and be drawn into. Unfortunately the fans will have to wait until next month for an encore and the chance for me to get a better hands on with that guitar controller and then I can really rock out.
Guitar Hero Live is set to be released for all formats on October 20th
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng&v=sbXoZXr2goI
Originally published October 2, 2015. Updated April 14, 2018.
