Band Hero arrived on November 3, 2009, for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii and Nintendo DS. Activision published it. Neversoft developed it, with Vicarious Visions and Budcat Creations working alongside. It is the second spin-off of the Guitar Hero series, following DJ Hero.
The pitch was simple. Take the Guitar Hero 5 engine and point it at the Top 40.
Trailer, via gametronex.
Taylor Swift and Adam Levine in the Avatar Roster
Band Hero is built on the same frame as Guitar Hero 5. Full band play covers lead guitar, bass guitar, drums and vocals. The drop-in/drop-out menus return, so a player can join or leave mid-song. Instruments and difficulty can be switched inside a song without backing out. The extra multiplayer modes from Guitar Hero 5 carry over too.
The console versions use instrument-shaped controllers. The Nintendo DS version works differently. It takes the “Guitar Grip” introduced with the Guitar Hero: On Tour series, or a new Drum Skin that ships with the game.
Then there are the avatars. Virtual versions of Taylor Swift, Adam Levine and the band No Doubt appear in the game. Previous entries in the series had done the same thing with musical artists, so the move was not new. It was, however, the move that mattered most.
A 65-Song Setlist Against Guitar Hero 5’s 85
The song count is where the value argument starts. Band Hero ships with 65 songs. Guitar Hero 5 shipped with 85. Both games carried full price.
That gap is the whole case against the disc, and it is a fair one. Twenty fewer songs is not a rounding error on a rhythm game. It is roughly a quarter of the library gone.
| Band Hero | Guitar Hero 5 | |
|---|---|---|
| Release year | 2009 | 2009 |
| Songs on disc | 65 | 85 |
| Full band play | Yes | Yes |
| Drop-in/drop-out | Yes | Yes |
| In-song instrument change | Yes | Yes |
| In-song difficulty change | Yes | Yes |
| Multiplayer modes | Same set | Same set |
| Artist avatars | Taylor Swift, Adam Levine, No Doubt | Kurt Cobain |
Look at that table and the problem is plain. Band Hero gives you the same machine with less fuel. Every structural feature listed is shared. Nothing in the engine column separates the two games.
The Case for the Pop Rock Version
There is a real answer to that, and it holds up. Band Hero is an appropriately flavored version of Guitar Hero 5 for “Top 40” pop rock hits. If the Guitar Hero 5 library was not music you wanted, the song count was never the point.
A 65-song setlist you actually like beats an 85-song setlist you skip through. That is not a defense of the price. It is a defense of the game’s reason to exist.
The spinoff had a lane. DJ Hero, the first spinoff, took the series somewhere else entirely. Band Hero took it to the radio.
Aimed at Teenagers, and Not Apologizing
The other complaint was audience. Some reviewers felt Band Hero was strictly aimed at teenagers or children. That reading is hard to argue with, and it is not automatically an insult.
A game built around Taylor Swift, Adam Levine and No Doubt is not pretending to be for everyone. It knows who it wants. The question is whether knowing your audience excuses a thinner disc.
It does not, fully. But it explains the song list, the roster and the tone in one stroke. Band Hero is not a confused game. It is a targeted one.
Downloadable Form Might Have Been Better
Reviewers also asked whether the content would have been better sold as downloadable material rather than a full retail disc. That is the sharpest criticism the game drew, and it cuts deeper than the song count.
If the engine is Guitar Hero 5’s engine, and the modes are Guitar Hero 5’s modes, then the only new thing on the disc is the music and the avatars. Charging full price for that is a harder sell than charging full price for a new game.
The downloadable argument also ages well. A player who already owned Guitar Hero 5 was being asked to buy the same framework twice. The 20-song gap made that ask look worse, not better.
No Doubt File Suit Against Activision
One day after release, No Doubt sued Activision. The band cited misuse of their avatars, pointing to the same problem as the Kurt Cobain avatar in Guitar Hero 5. The source material does not record how that suit was resolved. It is unresolved in the record we have.
That suit is the detail that outlasted the review scores. A game about letting players perform as their favorite artists ran into artists who did not agree to how they were shown. The Cobain case had already put the industry on notice. No Doubt made it a pattern.
Whatever a player thought of the 65 songs, this is the part of Band Hero’s history that still reads as a warning. Virtual likeness in a music game is not a licensing formality. It is the thing artists will fight over.
What Band Hero Gets Right
Set aside the price argument and the litigation and there is a working game underneath. The Guitar Hero 5 structure was solid in 2009 and it is solid here. Drop-in/drop-out play is the right call for a party game, and Band Hero is a party game.
The split-screen and multiplayer support fit the theme. This is a disc you put on when people are over. The single-player mode exists, but nobody bought Band Hero for a quiet night alone with it.
The DS version deserves a note for trying. The Guitar Grip and the bundled Drum Skin are workarounds for hardware that was never built for this. They are imperfect, but they are not lazy.
The Verdict on Band Hero
Band Hero is a good game sold at a bad price. The engine is proven, the multiplayer is proven, and the pop rock lane is a legitimate reason to exist. What is not legitimate is 65 songs against Guitar Hero 5’s 85 for the same money.
The mixed reviews were right to split. The people who called it a well-flavored Guitar Hero 5 were correct. The people who called it a teenager’s game were also correct. The people who said it should have been downloadable had the strongest point of the three.
What tips Band Hero over the line is that it still plays well. The drop-in/drop-out band setup holds up. The in-song difficulty and instrument changes are genuinely useful. The avatars of Taylor Swift, Adam Levine and No Doubt give the game a face, even if one of those faces ended up in court.
The No Doubt suit is not a reason to skip the disc. It is a reason to remember it. Band Hero is the moment the series’ avatar gimmick stopped being a feature and started being a liability.
Buy it for the party, not for the library. At 65 songs, the disc is thin. At full band, it is still fun.
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