The Guitar Hero is a series of music video games – four for play on video game consoles and one for mobile phones. The inspiration behind this game series is Konami’s GuitarFreaks arcade game. It was first developed by Harmonix Music Systems in 2005 and then taken over by Neversoft, a subsidiary of Activision. Neversoft came out with Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock in October 2007.
Harmonix brought the first Guitar Hero out in the market as a game developed for the PlayStation 2 in November 2005. It immediately caught the attention of game buffs for its unique use of guitar-shaped exterior to copy the playing of rock music – modelled after a black Gibson SG. The user plays the game with the guitar controller and uses five coloured fret buttons and a strum bar. This gives the feeling of actually playing a guitar.
Rock music tracks, from the 1960s through modern rock, feature in the Guitar Hero series. The first game of the series has 47 rock songs several of which are master tracks from popular bands.
The Guitar Hero series allows for toggling the hand use of the instrument. This makes it easy for both left-handed and right-handed players to manipulate the guitar controller. The main mode of play is Career Mode. With Quick Play mode, the user can select a song and difficulty level. The former mode allows the player and the in-game band to sing a set of 5 to 6 numbers, performing at various gigs. On completion of a song, the player is given a score plus a rating – from 3 to 5 stars. He can also earn money for his performance and this is redeemable at the fictional store in the game. This allows for the player to unlock bonus songs and content plus additional guitars and finishes.
The series popularity hit an all-time high with the launch of Guitar Hero II for PlayStation 2 in the year 2006. This game had multiplayer gameplay and featured 64 music tracks. It was later released for the Xbox in April of 2007. This version had a Gibson X-Plorer guitar controller and 74 songs.
Three months later, Harmonix released Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s - developed for the PlayStation 2. When Neversoft took over in 2007, it came out with Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock for PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, PC and Mac platforms.
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