Guitar Hero Live

One of 2015's biggest surprises. [Christmas 2015, p.74]

FreeStyle's greatest achievement is that it's made the rhythm-action genre feel fresh again. [Christmas 2015, p.102]

A bold experiment that pays off, Guitar Hero Live moves in a new direction that's vibrant, exciting and contemporary.

Guitar Hero Live is both modern and clever in its design, with cool FMV and a new guitar to bring the immersion to a whole new level. GHTV is a great new addition to the franchise, and with a long and varied song library to choose from you'll be hard pressed to not have a good time here.

It's good to have this franchise back and Guitar Hero Live successfully tweaks the gameplay by giving gamers a more fulfilling experience.

Guitar Hero Live brings Activision's former fan-favorite franchise back to the fold in new and impressive ways. Handing over the reigns to the DJ Hero team was probably the best decision the publisher made in the rhythm game department since agreeing to publish the very first Guitar Hero a decade ago.

Guitar Hero Live is a bold new step forward for the series, as well as peripheral-based music games overall. While Rock Band 4 stuck more rigidly to tradition and provided a solid party game, Live delivers a more personal game, albeit one with a lot more going on under the hood.

Guitar Hero Live feels more like a new song rather than a tribute. Its new guitar makes it feel original and fresh, and we would only ask for a bigger multiplayer component to enhance the experience.

Guitar Hero's long-awaited comeback hits every necessary mark and will have you rocking into the sunset for ages to come.

Guitar Hero Live isn't just well-executed; it's clever and innovative in ways that no one other than FreeStyleGames ever imagined.

Guitar Hero Live is exactly what the franchise needed after its five-year hiatus, and I’d go as far to say it’s what the whole genre needed. Although naysayers will lament the lack of more instruments or complain about the non-permanence of extra songs, for many, Live will become the quintessential party game and is already set to be a permanent fixture in my sitting room.

A truly fresh, innovative take on a genre crying out for something new. Freestylegames has utterly succeeded in making Guitar Hero relevant again.

The changes in Guitar Hero Live are very strong, but this business is for the brave. The new guitar offers new challenges and is a much more realistic and graceful instrument. GHTV mode offers endless possibilities and hours of play without payment. Guitar Hero Live may have left things behind, but shows a promising way.

Though I was a bit disappointed by the Guitar Hero Live portion of the game, Guitar Hero TV is onto something special with a lot of potential longevity.

The old archaic way of playing with the five button layout and waiting for DLC drops are gone. Instead you get a magnificently redesigned controller with a music streaming service designed to give you an infinite amount of hours to get your jam on.

It’s not better or worse than the old method, but it’s new, and at times it’s incredibly taxing on the brain - in a good way.

Yes, things feel a bit different this time around but do yourself a favor and give it a chance. Once you find the groove in Guitar Hero Live, which is the new GHTV mode, you won’t look back or think about the way things used to be again. This is the future of guitar-themed video games.

Hey, music lovers - The time to feel like a real rockstar has come with different guitar gameplay, and a bunch of live action scenes. It's definitely the perfect choice to spend good time with your friends and listen to versatile music.

Guitar Hero Live has finally comeback to it's former glory thanks to the amazing work put in by FreeStyleGames. The new improved buttons on the guitar rejuvenates the gameplay, and the only flaw we can think of is that you can only rent online songs, even if you paid for it with your own money.

Guitar Hero Lives breaks with previous iterations in many ways, from the controller to the gameplay modes, and it succeeds in many ways. GH TV is probably the most refreshing feature, but at the very same time, one that the most hardcore fans probably won't enjoy because of its F2P rules (you can't repeat the very same song 100 times without playing others... or without going behind a paywall of microtransactions). Besides that, FreeStyle Games did a great job bringing new life to a genre that was already dead.

Guitar Hero Live brings a welcome challenge, fun, and excitement with its new guitar controller and a new interesting system to experience new songs via GHTV.

Guitar Hero Live puts the franchise back on the map. It's more realistic than ever with a new guitar and with a highly addicting Guitar Hero TV mode. It's too bad the rest of the band can't join in and that there's only 42 songs you can play offline.

Add in the brilliant new game mechanics that come from the reconfigured guitar controller, and combining our old love of rhythm games with the modern way we consume music, and Guitar Hero Live is the worthwhile reunion of an old favorite that we’ve all been waiting for.

You know what it's like when a band you like comes out with their first album in years and it's completely different than anything else they've done before? Guitar Hero Live is like that.

Guitar Hero Live brings to the table some new ways to play, a new immersive mode that has been revamped from its original rooted concept and provides some hope that the game is only going to get better. I’m really happy that FreeStyleGames thought outside of the box with GHL, as the way it was going up to this point (or around 2010) was honestly quite stale. Credit them for taking some risks, praise them for achieving some of their goals, but feel free to be a tad bit cautious at the idea of paying for anything extra outside of the actual game.

Guitar Hero Live provides a whole new experience to veterans, yet manages to be accessible enough for those who are only just starting their digital rock careers. It’s a solid title,though the streaming service GHTV could use some tweaking to make the game an absolute must-have.

GH Live brings plenty of fresh ideas, but a few annoyances stop it short of achieving true greatness. [Christmas 2015, p.]

This is a good re-start with a lot of ideas and new promising features. We have to see what will happen in the future with the game and the DLC formula.

The alternative to Rock Band focuses on the single player experience and offers a lot of fun. It's a shame that Activision uses absurd microtransactions which makes the game look a bit like a rip off.

Between a clever mixture of single-player only score-chasing, fun co-op modes, light karaoke functionality, and a levelling-up system that’s incremental and actually pushes you out of your comfort zone, this is a game that repairs all the wrongs the peripheral-based rhythm action genre fell foul to last gen.

Guitar Hero Live is a great way to revive a dead franchise, adding interesting new elements and twists the original formula. This time both beginner and veteran players will have to learn their way through the new plastic guitar. And that sounds amazing!

FreeStyle Games managed to make a good guitar game for people who aren’t all that awed by rock-lifestyle while keeping long-time fans of the series content. [Issue#203, p.84]

New guitar offers fresh mechanics and combinations. Live-Action style looks pretty (at the same time;so cool!). But the new microtransaction stem can ruin everything.

Guitar Hero Live does not reinvent the guitar, but it does bring enough fresh elements to make even the classics feel brand new. The FMV-gigs are both cliche and entertaining, and Guitar Hero TV shows that that Guitar Hero is still relevant in 2015.

Guitar Hero Live is the comeback the franchise needed. FMV is used well and the original way of letting you play two hundred songs of free DLC is great. It is a pity though that it does not really feel like you are playing the songs yourself.

Somehow, against the odds, Guitar Hero: Live has given life back to a series thought long dead. I laughed like a pissed hyena when it was announced, but Freestyle has achieved something close to excellence here.

A brave and successful reinvention. Guitar Hero lives!

The new guitar and gameplay mechanics work really well together, and will have even hardcore fans start from scratch. On the other hand the basic tracklist is really weak. The streaming on the TV channels is a great idea, and microtransactions shouldn't spoil it too much.

Guitar Hero Live's new guitar helps bring something fresh to the genre, and offers a new challenge for both beginners and veterans alike. GH Live is fun, though a little cheesy, but it's in GHTV where the game's most interesting aspect is found. If this continues to be built out as Activision has promised, it should deliver long-term appeal - and a great way to discover new music.

You'll love the new guitar and its scheme, and you're probably goin' crazy over the GH TV. On the other hand, the GH Live mode is shallow and the multiplayer options are a step back for the series.

The commitment to its ideas makes Live a confident, bold and stylish game.

Guitar Hero Live combines innovation with the guitar as much as its content, with modern methods (but dangerously similar to the Free to Play schemes) to manage its powerful tracklist.

Guitar Hero Live is a pop-rock surprise, specially in GHTV mode which contains more than 200 songs and videos, progression system, real time rankings... A truly fresh, innovative take on a genre crying out for something new. We want more channels and tracks, Activision. This game is a hope.

Guitar Hero Live is a bold step in a new direction for Rhythm games. While everyone might not take kindly to the restrictions put on players in Guitar Hero TV, there's a seemingly endless number of playlists and challenges to complete, with room to grow going forward.

The song selection is impressive, the FMV videos are well produced and the GHTV concept is incredibly exciting. While there’s still trepidation due the fact that much of its appeal rests on unproven promises and its currency system is needlessly complicated, the idea of new songs being added on a weekly basis could render Guitar Hero Live into a persistent experience for rhythm and music lovers alike.

Even though you can play with a couple of guitars co-operatively, it doesn't offer the same group-based action that makes Rock Band 4 such a party favorite, but it does provide something that's radically different to anything that has come before.

Guitar Hero Live might not return the series to the heights of its heyday, but it’s definitely the freshest and boldest Guitar Hero game in a very long time.

GHL is a great game if you’re playing it alone. I appreciate all the new ideas but I’m really disappointed that it is no longer a party game. [13/2015, p.62]

Even with some omissions in game modes and questionable microtransactions policy, new Guitar Hero is simply a blast to play and brandishes an improved plastic guitar.

A decent reincarnation of one of the biggest console hits of 2000s.

Guitar Hero Live represents a re-release of the franchise, bent on bringing innovation and relevance back to a lost genre; its production values are off the charts, but the game leaves behind some essential features such as challenge, social gameplay and content preservation.

At the end of the day, it’s just not innovative and fun enough for me to heartily recommend it, and that’s largely because of the cost.

I like Guitar Hero Live; FreeStyle has crafted an innovative and intriguing variation on the standard music game formula. But as I played, I couldn’t help feeling like my enjoyment was on a slowly burning fuse, and the inability to play my favorite songs was waiting to blow up the fun.

More accessible than Rock Band 4, and there are odd endorphins to be had from actors praising your efforts. It’s the tight-fisted nature of DLC that holds this back from greatness. [January 2015, p71]

A great innovative guitar is the main advantage of Guitar Hero Live, which shines especially at the moment when played together. However, some elements do not work in real life as well as they should and microtransactions in GHTV mode are downright unpleasant.

Guitar Hero Live is a classic rock star: talented, interesting, bipolar, and filled with questionable ideas. The new guitar is a hit and the streaming mode is plenty of fun, but the full-motion video fail and annoying song rental model mar what could have been a legendary comeback album.

There's no kidding that Guitar Hero Live is a very fun game, it just feels like it cares more about the money than it does about the fans.

Tracks are banging, the peripheral's bold and performing feels brilliant, but TV mode is a bust, making you rent songs rather than own them outright.

Guitar Hero Live offers great innovations compared to its best enemy Rock Band 4, and this is great, but the microtransactions policy that won't let you permanently buy any song is really frustrating, spoiling the rest of the experience.

The changes made to Guitar Hero: Live go a long way in giving the series its own unique identity, but at the cost of making the game less fun to play than its competitors. An innovative post release content delivery system of streaming music elevates what's otherwise an average and expensive rhythm game.

Guitar Hero : Live is a comprehensive title, with several really interesting features. It contains a really entertaining online mode, and a pretty nice new guitar. But at the same time, we learned this concept already several years ago, and despite a long break, it is doubtful that the craving has come back.

Though Guitar Hero Live is rough around the corners and may not convince casual Guitar Hero players to return to their guitar-shredding ways, it sets a new standard in technology for peripherals, presentation, and online connectivity.

A spirited attempt to reinvent Guitar Hero and the music game genre, but the freemium approach to additional content has its obvious drawbacks.

It’s a breath of fresh air. A true next-generation rhythm game...But it’s not going to be for everyone.

Guitar Hero Live takes some chances and is a better game for it. The campaign and local multiplayer offerings are pretty weak, but GHTV's rotating channels are addictive. It's a shame the game's extra songs aren't available as DLC.

The gutsiest Guitar Hero yet, but an imperfect title that you will both love and hate.

If it wasn’t for some questionable design choices with the game’s most important element, it could have been a flawless experience.