Synyster Graves

While My Guitar Hero Gently Weeps…

by on Feb.11, 2011, under Gamer Rages

So it’s all over then news this morning is it? (Although I read about this a few days ago), but Activision are shit canning the Guitar Hero series are they? Well personally as a fan of the series, that’s quite disappointing. If you’ve read any of my reviews you’ll know that specifically after the releases of Rock Band 3 and Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, I felt that the GH series had gained a lot of ground on Rock Band due to RB’s sub-standard implementation. But it appears now that the battle is over.

Activision themselves issued the following statement to announce the closure of the Guitar Hero and Chav Hero DJ Hero franchises:

“We simply cannot make these games profitable given the current market,”

“Due to continued declines in the music genre, the company will disband Activision Publishing’s DJ Hero business unit and discontinue development on its DJ Hero game for 2011.These decisions are based on the desire to focus on the greatest opportunities that the company currently has to create the world’s best interactive entertainment experiences.”

Even turning Johnny Napalm into a super undead couldn't save Guitar Hero. Shame.

Personally I think this is a huge mistake. The Guitar Hero franchise is iconic and is a household name. Granted it was first created by Harmonix and while they branched off themselves to create Rock Band, they’ve gone completely mad with Rock Band 3’s setlist by throwing in loads of crap music, Guitar Hero has stayed true to it’s brand by putting in songs which you can actually rock out to, the entire ethos behind the game! Now if you’re playing a music game, would you rather play Amy Winehouse or Bullet For My Valentine? I know which one I’d rather have!

One rumour which is why they’ve taken this rash decision is due to poor sales of Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock. I thought that was actually the best installment of GH as it had something different. I wasn’t just advancing from gig to bigger gig to become “best band on the planet”. No, this actually had a cool storyline which was almost RPG-esque in approach and gave a huge injection of diversity to the series. Every other music game I have played pretty much is the gig based progression, except for LEGO Rock Band, which had gig progression in really stupid scenarios, but I guess it’s supposed to be silly, because it’s LEGO. But going back to my point, I hardly saw GH:WoR being advertised until it was released. Everyone else was runnign about anally inseminating themselves with the keyboard months prior to RB3’s release, yet GH:WoR seemed to slip under the radar somewhat. That’s crap marketing, not a sign of a crap game.

Guitar Hero wasn’t the only casualty from this, they have also cancelled the development of True Crime Hong Kong also. Is that genre dying as well then Activision? No. Because look at games like Grand Theft Auto 4, Saints Row 2 and Red Dead Redemption. Again, I feel that they have dropped the ball.

Activision instead are focusing all their efforts into the Call of Duty series, which if you look at the face of it are just palette swaps between Modern Warfare 1, Modern Warfare 2, World at War and Black Ops. I know I’m not a fan of ther Call of Duty games, but I just find them a bit tedious and when people question the monotonous format of them, they just chuck in a bunch of zombies, which is a lazy way out unless you’re making a zombie game. Throwing in the undead as some Easter Egg is a bit cheap now and doesn’t carry enough weight to be a deal winner. It’s just I like a bit of diversity and walking around a map shooting the same faceless terroists is brimming with monotony now. Just makes you think that this sounds like an EA title now, you know, same thing, just rebranded with a different year on the end and sold at full retail price?

But I’m not here to condemn Call of Duty or EA, I’m more here to mourn the loss of a great franchise which in my opinion has met its untimely demise. Thanks Guitar Hero for being integral to my gaming life. It’s a shame that Activision don’t consider you to be part of the “world’s best interactive entertainment experiences”, which in other words means a palette swapped FPS dirge. If if wasn’t for GH:WoR, I don’t think I’d have written this, but that game trumped RB3 in my opinion so it’s a sad farewell. You will be missed.

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