Nothing changed (cntd)

Unlike Britney's 2004 Greatest Hits album, Smash Hits is not a cheap cash-in, even if it does look like it on the surface. It is a very nice package and some work has obviously gone into making it that way. All the songs are now master tracks, everything has been re-charted to better reflect the band nature of the game and it all plays very much like Guitar Hero: Metallica, which itself was an improved version of Guitar Hero: World Tour. Gone is the odd set list set up of Guitar Hero: World Tour and in is the star based progression system introduced in Guitar Hero: Metallica. This all makes for a more streamlined career progression and if you just want to play the songs the game offers you the chance to play them all immediately in the quick play option.

Smash Hits features a thoroughly fleshed out multiplayer which is more competitive in nature than its rival Rock Band's and the love-it or hate-it music creator. Interestingly though for the third straight game, Smash Hits allows players of differing difficulty preferences to play competitively against each other. While it does certainly help to get players matched-up, a nice thing considering the fragmentation of the audience between five online games, it also can result in some very angry individuals who don't appreciate people playing on lower difficulties than them. The music creator is just as arcane and cryptic to use as it was when it was introduced in World Tour but searching the user-generated content can reveal some very creative pieces of synthesized music.

Graphics

Graphically the game is good. The environments look nice, the player models are decent if a little robotic and all in all, it is exactly what you would expect from a Guitar Hero game, nothing more and nothing less. In fact everything in the game is exactly what you would expect from a Guitar Hero game, nothing more and nothing less and that is the prime problem with Smash Hits. As much fun as the game can be and as much effort went into making a stellar presentation, the game feels like we have done it all before. There is just nothing new or exciting about Guitar Hero: Smash Hits.

Hope for the franchise

Guitar Hero's star might be starting to wane a little bit and while it will probably always maintain its core group of fans it is in danger of going down the same path as Dance Dance Revolution. However there is a spot of hope for Activision's music franchise, Britney managed to rekindle her flame and make herself relevant in the music industry once again so Guitar Hero can do the same. It just needs to think outside the box and make people look at the series in a different light. Hopefully Smash Hits (and August's Guitar Hero: Van Halen) won't signal the point where Guitar Hero stops being relevant and instead is a turning point to brighter things.