A completely unbiased review of Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80's
Okay, I lied. I am biased. I grew up in the 80's as my formative years (8 to 17) so I am predisposed to either: 1) Love anything dealing with 80's music
2) Be dissapointed if my beloved 80's music is spoiled or despoiled in any way.
Curiously, Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80's doesn't do either of them. It comes closest to the second option, but expands on that to become:
3) Be appaled, disgusted, and utterly hate-filled at the pure audacity of a company making such a low-quality, loathesome piece of garbage that completely sh*ts in the face of the music they're trying to "honor" and for the sole purpose of soaking money from the easily duped consumer at the price of 50 BUCKS.
There. I think that about sums it up.
Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80's (hereforth known as GH80s) costs 50 bucks. The same price that you could expect to pay for a stand-alone copy of Guitar Hero 2. However, it has: 1. Fewer characters (6 vs. 11 in GH2)
2. Fewer songs (30 vs. 40)
3. No final (Stonehenge) stage
4. No unlockable songs (as opposed to GH2 which had 24, bringing the total songs to 64)
5. Fewer unlockable guitars and skins
Some people argue that the songs are only about $1.60 per song, making them pricier than just buying the tunes in something like iTunes, but you can PLAY them, so it's a lot more fun! You'd think that, but the unfortunate fact is - In opposition to the creativity of the first two games in the series, there seems to have been little or no care given to the quality of the songs in GH80s. Most of the songs are covers (as was the case in the earlier games) but in this case, the covers are universally TERRIBLE. They go from passable (Only a Lad) to utterly unlistenable (Radar Love). I simply cannot play through the full game again on a higher or lower difficulty because I can't stand to listen to the absolutely abysmal version of Radar Love.
For some reason, they decided to include a cover of "Police Truck" by the Dead Kennedy's (made famous again a few years back by one of the Tony Hawk games). Unfortunately, the song - being about people dressing up as police officers to go gang-rape a prostitute - has had its lyrics changed. A lot. To the point where they don't even rhyme anymore. And the irony of them changing 'beat up drunks' to "beat up punks' in a punk song is delicious.
Some of the songs are original recordings, though. Including "I Wanna Rock" by Twisted Sister. The original version of this song was good fun. But oh... wait... they didn't use the original version. They used a much (as in decades) later recording by the band, which is just terrible. Message to Twisted Sister: What the hell, guys? You let them use the song, but not the original version that everyone remembers and wants to play?
Let's not stop there. Honestly, if you're going to make an 80's collection of this sort, you'd think that they would pack it with hits. You know... songs that people who were teens in the 80's would have heard of. But unfortunately not. Of the 30 songs on the collection, twelve of them were hits - songs that I recognized. The rest made me either say "Huh, well, yeah, this was an 80's band, but I've never heard this song of theirs." or "who?!" Seriously. Who the hell is "Faster Pussycat", "Accept", "Extreme", or "X"? Has anyone heard of these bands? Well, more than 5 people? The last song, the one they hype up at the end and present as the greatest tune on the collection (this games version of "Free Bird") is something called "Play with Me" by a band named "Extreme". Seriously... W. T. F?
All in all, this game is a complete coaster. These days, I can only afford about 1 game a month... and I picked this one (forgetting that Bioshock was coming soon). I feel like I've been beat in the head by this flotsom. I implore all gamers out there to avoid Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80's. To Activision: I hope your enjoying the pile of money you've squeezed out of hapless GH fans by fooling them into getting this trash. I hope you rot.
To my fellow gamers: Keep getting your fix from GH1 and 2, and get Rock Band when it comes out. The Guitar Hero franchise is dead.