Guitar Hero Smash Hits
| Guitar Hero: Smash Hits | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Beenox Studios |
| Publisher(s) | RedOctane |
| Series | Guitar Hero |
| Platform(s) | PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360 |
| Release | June 16, 2009[1] [Aus] June 26 |
| Genre(s) | Music |
Guitar Hero: Smash Hits (titled Guitar Hero: Greatest Hits in the European and Australian region) is a music video game and the fourth expansion game to the Guitar Hero series. The game will feature 48 songs taken from five previous games in the series—Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero II, Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock and Guitar Hero: Aerosmith—expanding them to be based on master recordings and to include support for full band play first introduced to the series in Guitar Hero World Tour. The game is being developed by Beenox and will be published by Activision for release on the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360 systems on June 16, 2009. It is unknown whether the game will be released on this date in Europe as well, or at a delayed date like most other Guitar Hero games have been. In Australia the game will be released on June 26, 2009.
Gameplay
Guitar Hero: Smash Hits will play similar to Guitar Hero World Tour, featuring support for a four instrument band: lead guitar, bass guitar, drums, and vocal. In addition to using master recordings for each song, the songs have been charted to use gameplay features introduced in World Tour including the open bass strumming & slider sections for intense solos using the touchpad on the guitar bundled with World Tour.[2] Certain songs have been recharted or remixed to be more accessible to the full band; for example, "I Love Rock N Roll" includes a drum and vocals solo without guitar portions that was omitted in the original Guitar Hero, while the piano introduction in "Killer Queen" will be tapped out by the lead guitar player.[3] The game will also include the "Expert+" mode introduced in Guitar Hero: Metallica that uses double-bass drum pedals.[2] The game borrows the graphical interface from Metallica, including the rearrangement of on-screen meters for band mode.[3] Smash Hits will have a Music Studio creation mode and will be compatible with the "GHTunes" custom song sharing service already present in World Tour and Metallica. Smash Hits includes all the game modes present in World Tour, including single player and band career modes, and the 8-player "Battle of the Band" mode.[2]
The game presents a story sequence that ties in with the Career mode, as has been present in more recent Guitar Hero games. In Smash Hits, the players are challenged by the "God of Rock" to play at venues at various Wonders of the World. After completing each venue, the players will earn venue-specific clothing to customize their avatars.[3] The career mode will follow the same star-tier system used in Metallica, requiring players to earn a fixed number of stars to proceed from one tier to the next.[4] As with Guitar Hero: Metallica, all songs will be available to play in Quickplay mode without unlocking them through the career mode.[4]
Development
Guitar Hero: Smash Hits was announced in early 2009 along with two additional titles for the Guitar Hero series in 2009.[5] Though the game was initially called Guitar Hero: Greatest Hits, the name had changed to Guitar Hero: Smash Hits when the cover art was released to various vendor sites.[6]
Paul Gadbois, developer at Beenox Studios, identified that their goal for the game was to focus on the music from the past games in the Guitar Hero series, and that the selection of the soundtrack was one of the core features they focused on first.[7] They also thought of playing the "greatest songs" in the "greatest places", and developed eight new venues based on Wonders of the World, including "Amazon Rain Forest", "The Polar Ice Caps" and "The Grand Canyon".[7] The team opted to reuse the original Guitar Hero characters instead of attempting to bring in musical celebrities as was done in Guitar Hero World Tour and Guitar Hero: Metallica, fearing that the star power would have outshone the music selection.[7]
The game's full setlist was revealed over the course of April and May 2009 by allowing users to vote on the order of the remastered tracks from the four previous games.[8]
Soundtrack
All 48 tracks in the game are master recordings of songs previously featured in the first five published games of the Guitar Hero series: Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero II, Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, and Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. While the game will support user-created songs through the "GHTunes" service (common to Guitar Hero World Tour and Guitar Hero: Metallica) other existing downloadable content will not work with Smash Hits.[7] The following songs have been confirmed to be included in the game.[7][8][9][10][11][12]
| Song Title | Artist | Original Game |
|---|---|---|
| "Back in the Saddle" | Aerosmith | Guitar Hero: Aerosmith |
| "Bark at the Moon" | Ozzy Osbourne | Guitar Hero |
| "Barracuda" | Heart | Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock |
| "Beast and the Harlot" | Avenged Sevenfold | Guitar Hero II |
| "Carry On Wayward Son" | Kansas | Guitar Hero II |
| "Caught in a Mosh" | Anthrax | Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s |
| "Cherry Pie" | Warrant | Guitar Hero II |
| "Cowboys from Hell" (Live) | Pantera | Guitar Hero |
| "Cult of Personality" | Living Colour | Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock |
| "Electric Eye" | Judas Priest | Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s |
| "Freya" | The Sword | Guitar Hero II |
| "Free Bird" | Lynyrd Skynyrd | Guitar Hero II |
| "Godzilla" | Blue Öyster Cult | Guitar Hero |
| "Heart-Shaped Box" | Nirvana | Guitar Hero II |
| "Hey You" | The Exies | Guitar Hero |
| "Hit Me with Your Best Shot" | Pat Benatar | Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock |
| "I Love Rock 'n Roll" | Joan Jett and the Blackhearts | Guitar Hero |
| "I Wanna Rock" | Twisted Sister | Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s |
| "Killer Queen" | Queen | Guitar Hero |
| "Killing in the Name" | Rage Against the Machine | Guitar Hero II |
| "Laid to Rest" | Lamb of God | Guitar Hero II |
| "Lay Down" | Priestess | Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock |
| "Message in a Bottle" | The Police | Guitar Hero II |
| "Miss Murder" | AFI | Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock |
| "Monkey Wrench" | Foo Fighters | Guitar Hero II |
| "More Than a Feeling" | Boston | Guitar Hero |
| "Mother" | Danzig | Guitar Hero II |
| "No One Knows" | Queens of the Stone Age | Guitar Hero |
| "Nothin' but a Good Time" | Poison | Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s |
| "Play With Me" | Extreme | Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s |
| "Psychobilly Freakout" | Reverend Horton Heat | Guitar Hero II |
| "Raining Blood" | Slayer | Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock |
| "Rock and Roll All Nite" | Kiss | Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock |
| "Round and Round" | Ratt | Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s |
| "Shout at the Devil" | Mötley Crüe | Guitar Hero II |
| "Smoke on the Water" | Deep Purple | Guitar Hero |
| "Stellar" | Incubus | Guitar Hero |
| "Stop!" | Jane's Addiction | Guitar Hero II |
| "Take It Off" | The Donnas | Guitar Hero |
| "Take Me Out" | Franz Ferdinand | Guitar Hero |
| "Them Bones" | Alice in Chains | Guitar Hero II |
| "Through the Fire and Flames" | DragonForce | Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock |
| "Thunder Kiss '65" | White Zombie | Guitar Hero |
| "Trippin' on a Hole in a Paper Heart" | Stone Temple Pilots | Guitar Hero II |
| "The Trooper" | Iron Maiden | Guitar Hero II |
| "Unsung" (Live) | Helmet | Guitar Hero |
| "Woman" | Wolfmother | Guitar Hero II |
| "YYZ" | Rush | Guitar Hero II |
References
- ^ Faylor, Chris (2009-04-10). "Guitar Hero Smash Hits Arrives June 16". Shacknews. Retrieved 2009-04-10.
- ^ a b c Goldstein, Hilary (2009-04-09). "Guitar Hero Smash Hits Hands-On". IGN. Retrieved 2009-04-09.
- ^ a b c "Encore! Hands-On With Guitar Hero Smash Hits". Game Informer. 2009-04-10. Retrieved 2009-04-10.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ a b Bozen, Mark (2009-05-21). "Guitar Hero Smash Hits Wii Hands-on". IGN. Retrieved 2009-05-21.
- ^ Faylor, Chris (2009-02-11). "Three New Guitar Hero Games Coming This Year, Activision Planning 'Major Restage' of Franchise". Shacknews. Retrieved 2009-02-11.
- ^ Breckon, Nick (2009-04-03). "Guitar Hero Greatest Hits Renamed". Shacknews. Retrieved 2009-04-03.
- ^ a b c d e Brudvig, Erik (2009-03-04). "Guitar Hero Compilation Revealed". IGN. Retrieved 2009-03-04.
- ^ a b "Activision Empowers Fans to Reveal Guitar Hero(R) Smash Hits Set List". PR Newswire. 2009-04-09. Retrieved 2009-04-09.
- ^ Bozon, Mark (2009-04-15). "Guitar Hero Smash Hits: Track Reveal Part 1". IGN. Retrieved 2009-04-15.
- ^ Bozen, Mark (2009-04-22). "Guitar Hero Smash Hits: Track Reveal Part 2". IGN. Retrieved 2009-04-22.
- ^ Bozen, Mark. "Guitar Hero Smash Hits: Track Reveal Part 3". IGN. Retrieved 2009-04-29.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|dat=ignored (help) - ^ Bozen, Mark (2009-05-05). "Guitar Hero Smash Hits: The Full Track List". Retrieved 2009-05-05.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|pulisher=ignored (|publisher=suggested) (help)
External links
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