In-Depth Guitar Hero IV Impressions and Preview (Thanks to ScoreHero)

There's been a lot of news this past week surrounding Neversoft and Activision's latest stab at the now-bestselling franchise. But while we've seen the full setlist, there has been precious little information from people outside the game's development on what the finished (or nearly-finished) build plays like.

Recently, the people over at ScoreHero got a chance to sit down with World Tour for a full day and play through almost the entire setlist. They also posted their impressions in a handy article that details everything from scoring to the new song editor mode.

Click Here!

Some highlights:

-Difficulty has been toned down somewhat from GH3, no reports of Before-I-Forget-esque songs with three-note chords out the wazoo.

-Timing window is pretty much the same from GH:A.

-The presentation and menus suck, particularly considering how the songs are tiered in terms of difficulty.

- Hyperspeed is still in the game, and each instrument's chart can be set to a different speed level.

- Some new gameplay elements regarding notes have been included. Note charts now have sustained notes that overlap other notes, so you hold down one button and can hit other ones while sustaining the previous note. Drums have certain notes that will give you bonuses for hitting them harder than normal, and the inclusion of "open notes" in the bass parts is supposed to add more difficulty to those parts to make them more fun to play.

-Because of this added difficulty, they now also have a Bass Career mode, an egregious omission that many people complained about in Rock Band. (The person writing the article here said he failed BYOB on expert bass repeatedly before having to resort to playing it on Hard instead.)

- The good news: there's a seperate button to activate Star Power now. The bad news: it's really stiff and unresponsive.

-A new addition to the Battle mode: if both people complete the song without failing, it will repeat the song, but on Hyperspeed, and with a faster fail rate, instead of doing the "Death Drain."

-Some comments on individual songs for specific parts, not all of them are filled in as of yet. The notes on Tool's Schism made me laugh though: "Also, the ending is fun because you get to watch your drummer have a heart attack."

-"Pull Me Under" by Dream Theater wasn't present on the normal setlist, so they assume that it will be an unlockable track like "Through the Fire and Flames". This also means that it could very well be the hardest song in the whole game. :O



They also have a link to their liveblog and a few screens of the game available.

Personally, I'm pretty reassured after hearing their comments, the game sounds like it's really fun. The people on ScoreHero who demoed this seem to be very positive about most of the new gameplay additions and songs. Can't wait to give it a shot myself!

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!

GameSpy and IGN also have some impressions (and, more importantly, gameplay videos), if you all want a second opinion, or want to see some of the new gameplay elements in action.