Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s

Get out your aquanet: It's time to rock the 80s! on August 01, 2007

If you are as addicted to rocking in your living room as I am, then you should get this title. However, it is not without flaw and I certainly don't recommend it as your first purchase in the GH series. It plays the same as Guitar Hero II, but with an 80s theme, both visually and musically. The problems lie not in gameplay, but in sound, something that I feel is critical for a successful music game. Most songs featured in the GH series are covers, but I feel GH: Rocks the 80s has lower quality covers than the other two games. Additionally, some songs suffer from poor production, the guitars are too loud, drowning out the vocals. This can be adjusted in the options menus, but its a hassle to fine tune each song, something that didn't need to be done in the past. Another place this game is lacking is bonus content. Aside from the encores unlocked by beating levels, there are no additional songs available for purchase, meaning there are far fewer songs on this disk than you may have come to expect. Overall, it's still a fun game and will bridge the time to GH III's release, but don't expect too much.