VS.

Throughout the dawn of time there have been adversaries…Triceratops versus Tyrannosaurus Rex, Alien versus Predator, Batman versus Joker, Peterborough United versus Cambridge United, ok so the last one was complete bollocks and totally ficticious. It’s like saying there’s a rivalry between Mordor and Narnia! Anyways, when it comes to the rhythm games, both franchises were the brainchild of Harmonix, the lovely people who induced epilepsy to a generation via Frequency and Amplitude back in the PS1 days.

When Activision took over the Guitar Hero series, Harmonix ran off and created Rock Band of which you could sing and hit things as well as strut about the front room like Richie Sambora with a butt plug. So GH stepped up and released GH:World Tour and GH5 to rival RB1 and RB2.

So which is better then? Well in truth they’re both GOOD but the best way of comparing is to highlight the worst bits and accumulate them that way. And with that taken into consideration it’s clearing a landslide win for Rock Band 2.

The first difference is the way the dynamic is between the band members. Rock Band is genuinely more co-op based as you can save ailing band members when they fall out of a two hour Dream Theater solo. Guitar Hero on the other hand will punish you and throw youu out of the song if one band member has a funny five minutes (or 25 minutes if you’re still on Dream Theater).

The DLC is really where Rock Band reigns supreme as the weekly dose of new tracks for the masses emerges every tuesday and while Harmonix seem to have a Foo Fighters fetish, the vast majority of songs are very good. Guitar Hero on the other hand suffers from a perpetual brain fart as they constantly seem to think that the millions of fans all like inbred country music. Seriously if you wanted to buy banjo hero you would, but nobody would because that’s an utterly pap concept. The on disk music of both ranges from totally awesome to WTF?! Rock Band 2 does tend to push Harmonix’s favourite unknowns into your lap but at the very least they’re in English. Guitar Hero on the other hand tends to throw a plethora of stupid foreign songs in either french, spanish, swahili, etc

The tabbing on Rock Band in general is better, Guitar Hero is not bad but does have a tendency to be ridiculous in the name of creating a challenge. There are more songs which are actually easier to play on a real guitar than on the five buttons and the only people who could possibly do those songs would be a cybernetic Herman Li from Dragonforce on 5 litres of Red Bull. You know the videos on youtube that can play Through The Fire and Flames on expert? They’re cheats. The star power is activated and the guy doesn’t cock his guitar. Virgin.

I think in terms of instruments, Guitar Hero’s drums are better as they actually feel like a drum kit rather than Rock Band’s swimming biscuits of which you will have to beat the shite out of just to get a recognition out. Plus the foot pedal is the best way of getting cramp in your calf! The vocals on Guitar Hero are just shite as is evident as the castrated chimp noises you have to make to stop your whole band failing on Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”.

Both add-on games for each franchise is good to be honest, GH had a Metallica version (which is close to my heart) and Rock Band are shortly releasing a Green Day version which is going to be good! This just adds great diversity to the game.

In summary Rock Band is the better game and feels like you’re more in synergy with your band mates, which is where Guitar Hero encourages you to lose friends by ostracising anyone who causes the whole song to fail.