By Jeremy Azevedo

I’ve been playing Guitar Hero since 2005, and as a longtime advocate of Guitar Hero in general, I must say that I am both delighted and troubled by the existence of Guitar Hero: Smash Hits.

Ever since the introduction of Rock Band and the subsequent inception of music DLC, many of us have been wondering “why on earth haven’t Neversoft and/or Activision remastered the goddamn songs from the first two Guitar Heroes for use with the whole band already?” I don’t know if they were short-sighted when acquiring the rights to the songs in the first place, or if it’s just that much more difficult to get original masters or what, but two years later we finally have our answer. Obviously Guitar Hero as a franchise is not a huge supporter of DLC, so it should come as no surprise that the “Greatest Hits” compilation of songs from previous games should be packaged as a stand-alone title at full retail price.

The question, then, is: “Is this really worth paying $60 for?” I don’t know what the answer to that is. It depends on who you ask.

If Guitar Hero: Smash Hits contained all or most of the songs from the earlier games, then I would say yes, buy the game immediately. There were so many great songs in the first two games in particular that you’d be foolish not to... In the beginning, there wasn’t as much pressure for the developers to appeal to a mainstream audience, so absolutely no concessions were made to include shitty tweeny-bop bands in the slightest. This is not to say that Guitar Hero has gone half as pop as Rock Band has, but there was a distinct lean toward metal earlier on that lends itself particularly well to the simulated band experience. The more obscure stuff doesn’t work as well with the karaoke, but that’s always been my least favorite part of the game so I don’t personally mind that as much.

The problem, though, is that of all the 200 or so songs that could have been used for this game, there are only 48 on the disc. Considering that Guitar Hero: World Tour had more than 80, I just don’t see how this warrants a full retail price tag. The only explanation for this that I can see is that there must be a sequel coming exactly twelve months form now, possibly even two, that contain all the rest of the material that didn’t make it on this one. There are simply too many awesome songs that weren’t included for me to believe otherwise. And, considering that this is marketed directly at longtime fans of the series, I can’t help but feel that I am being taken advantage of by this fact.

Economic considerations aside, Guitar Hero: Smash Hits is a welcome return to familiar territory. Playing “Mother” on vocals and “The Trooper” on drums was way rad. My lady piece, who claims to be “sick to f**king death of goddamn Guitar Hero” (her words, not mine) played drums on like five songs and then went on to sing maybe ten more. So I suspect that this would make a great party game, as usual. Plus, the addition of open-note strumming for the bass guitar, the slide bar on guitar and competitive play add a whole layer of depth to the experience that wasn’t originally present. In fact, some of these additions make the tougher songs a lot easier to pull off than they were originally, which is nice. I've been missing "Cowboys From Hell" and "Bark At The Moon" for quite some time now, so it was very satisfying to play them again on guitar, bass and drums.

In conclusion, I award Guitar Hero: Smash Hits 7 out of 10 Unicorns Fighting a Robot Dolphin:



+ 1 if you really dig the OG fan service
-1 if you’re seriously butthurt by the fact that there’s no Rolling Stones, Megadeth or Guns N’ Roses in this particular edition.