Anyone can be part of the band...and I do mean anyone.

Author's Rating:

Pros: Fun for the whole family.  All songs and Downloadable content are available immediately.

Cons: Feels too easy. Not enough (hit) songs,  CENSORSHIP

The Bottom Line: 
Band Hero targets the casual play audience who wants to get in on the rhythm game fun, but, it would have been better if it had more hit songs.

Author's Review
As we in the Guitar Hero and Rock Band communities await a new release from our respective production companies this fall, we anxiously await new downloadable content  to be available and are picking up rhythm games we haven’t tried before to help kill time.   I happened to see BAND HERO on a Gamestop shelf for around $26 and decided to simply buy it to check and see how good it was. I love practicing my drumming skills using these games.  I currently have a fully upgraded ION ROCKER drumset, available for $300 ~ $500 on Ebay - which I use to play these games.

http://www.epinions.com/content_497702768260
 
BAND HERO was released shortly after Guitar Hero 5.  While the two games are functionally the same,  Guitar Hero 5 targets hardcore Rock lovers while Band Hero targets a mainstream audience and is designed to be more accessible to those who may or may not have ever played a Guitar Hero game before.



GAMEPLAY

BAND HERO uses a similar mechanic to the GUITAR HERO games. Colored gems which represent notes scroll down from the top of the screen down a “highway” of notes towards an indicator which tells when to hit the note on the instrument.
 
The Drum notes will take the likeness of your drum set. If you have the Rock Band drum set, you’ll get 4 colored gems representing each drum pad. There is also a colored bar representing a kickpad note.   One problem I had was that the background had graphic  lines too similar to the kickpad notes and determining which was which was hard to do.
 
To play with the guitar, you need to hit one of the 5 colored buttons (keeping with the rhythm codes on screen) and at the same time fiddle with a long black lever on the guitar called the strumming bar. For sustained notes (with visual ropes signaling they need to be played longer) the player can also hit the whammy bar to continue playing it. This can also activate “star power” to increase the amount of points earned.
 
The vocalist who sings on the microphone does the smallest amount of physical work, they are still graded by the game as to how well they can keep up with the rhythm of the song. There is a scrolling bar on screen at the top for both lyrics and rhythm. The point is for the singer to speak the tunes in different tones in order to keep the ticker inside the rhythm bar. This is actually almost as fun as Karaoke cause many of us can’t sing very well, but, as this is a team effort – its good for a few giggles.

The players will be judged on accuracy, but, will get a specific number of points so long as they can hit the note inside the marker – even if they’re slightly off. If a player misses notes, the music will start to loose components to correspond with the missing notes from that instrument. This will also cause a meter that rates the players to decrease from Green to Red. Once it falls below a certain point, the player fails the song. If however the player scores continuously in a long line of consecutive notes – he/she will increase their score multiplier and earn points faster.

There are also special notes, indicated by “stars” on them which if hit properly activates “star power” which doubles the multiplier and can also be used strategically to play difficult parts of a song which might otherwise cause the player to fail.
 


GAMEPLAY CONTINUED

Players can choose to play individually or in "band" mode. The game's main modes are Party Play, Career mode and Quickplay.
 
Career mode allows you to progress through several venues unlocking new gigs as you move along.  You earn up to 5 stars per gig for each performance. By performing  your best and earning 4 or 5 stars, you easily unlock a new gig. Some songs have special bonuses that allow you to earn more than 5 stars if your performance is around 98% satisfactory. Similar to Guitar Hero: World Tour, excellent performances can also unlock new clothing and new equipment with brand names on them to make your band look cooler. I was also surprised to see that you can use your Xbox 360 Avatar if you want, rather than the dull looking characters in-game.
 
Party Play mode allows you and your friends or family to play in a casual manner. Anyone can drop in, anyone can drop out – at any time. You can use any combination of instruments you’d like. Everyone can use guitars; everyone can use drum sets; everyone can use microphones.  However you want to play, is up to you. In fact, the game is very loose when it comes to scoring. The song plays from the moment you start the game and will even play during game pauses as you move through menus.  You can even change your difficulty levels  without stopping the other 3 people from playing since only your own note highway will be affected. This means you can stop and take a bathroom break while everyone else plays…or even swap out players.  Party play mode does not fail anyone if they stop playing notes.
 
Similar to other Guitar Hero games, Quickplay is where you’ll want to be if you just want to hop on, play a few songs and then go do something else later, without being forced to play gigs.  Quickplay is the easiest way to test new songs or simply kill some time.  In Quickplay, if one bandmate fails, the others can actually bring him back into the game if they continue to play accurately for a little while. This way, even a newbie won’t feel as if they are bringing down the band.

XBOX 360 achievements are also handed slightly differently than the other Guitar Hero games. In Band Hero, you need to hit special notes hidden in the track to unlock an achievement. If you manage to hit all these secret notes, you’ll unlock an achievement rewarding you for finding them all.
 

GRAPHICS

The game's graphics are very bright and look considerably sharper than they did on older Guitar Hero games. The lip synching of the characters is smoother and their body art is very well done. You'll probably be too busy staring at the notes to actually notice what's happening in the background, but, for those people watching you perform, they'll be mesmerized by the lifelike cartoons singing and playing their instruments while you play yours.

The only dissapointment I had is that the rhythm highway seemed a bit confusing due to background line graphics and the freestyle cue is now a wavy purple graphic rather than a background image which could cause you forget to play freestyle notes for more points.



MUSIC
 
Obviously, in a game like this, the music track quality  and SOUND  is the most important feature.
 
The first problem I had with Band Hero is that there aren’t enough good tracks, or, at least, not as many as were found in Guitar Hero: World Tour.  The standout  tracks available are:  “ABC”,  “Bring Me to Life”,  “I heard it through the Grapevine”,  “Kung Fu Fighting”, “Wanna Be”  (Spice Girls),  and “YMCA”.  There’s even “Whip It” by Devo.
 
Now, I’m a person who typically listens to Hip Hop, Dance, Gangsta Rap and only loves Rock I hear in soundtracks that I connect with.  That is, with the exception of Metallica.  There are roughly 65 tracks included in this game, which includes music from groups like:  Duran Duran,   Taylor Swift,  Cheap Trick, and  Janet Jackson, but, the problem is, most of these songs, I’ve never listened to. I would in fact have to play through career mode just to give the songs a chance – which is exactly how I realized how good World Tour’s track pack was.
 

This is the full soundtrack:
 
- 3 Doors Down, 'When I'm Gone'
- The Airborne Toxic Event, 'Gasoline'
- The All American Rejects, 'Dirty Little Secret'
- Alphabeat, 'Fascination'
- Aly and AJ, 'Like Whoa'
- Angels & Airwaves, 'The Adventure'
- Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals, 'Steal My Kisses '
- Big Country, 'In a Big Country'
- The Bravery, 'Believe'
- Carl Douglas, 'Kung Fu Fighting'
- Cheap Trick, 'I Want You to Want Me (live)'
- Cold War Kids, 'Hang Me Up to Dry'
- Corinne Bailey Rae, 'Put Your Records On'
- Counting Crows, 'Angels of the Silences'
- Culture Club, 'Do You Really Want to Hurt Me'
- Dashboard Confessional, 'Hands Down'
- David Bowie, 'Let's Dance'
- Devo , 'Whip It'
- Don McLean, 'American Pie'
- Duffy, 'Warwick Avenue'
- Duran Duran, 'Rio'
- Evanescence, 'Bring Me to Life'
- Everclear, 'Santa Monica (Watch the World Die)'
- Fall Out Boy, 'Sugar, We're Goin' Down'
- Filter, 'Take a Picture'
- Finger Eleven, 'Paralyzer'
- The Go-Go's, 'Our Lips Are Sealed'
- Hilary Duff, 'So Yesterday'
- Hinder, 'Lips Of An Angel'
- Jackson 5, 'ABC'
- Janet Jackson, 'Black Cat'
- Jesse McCartney, 'Beautiful Soul'
- Joan Jett, 'Bad Reputation'
- Joss Stone, 'You Had Me'
- Katrina and The Waves, 'Walking on Sunshine'
- The Kooks, 'Naïve'
- KT Tunstall, 'Black Horse and the Cherry Tree'
- The Last Goodnight, 'Pictures of You'
- Lily Allen, 'Take What You Take'
- Maroon 5, 'She Will Be Loved'
- Marvin Gaye, 'I Heard It Through the Grapevine'
- Mighty Mighty Bosstones, 'The Impression That I Get'
- Nelly Furtado, 'Turn Off the Light'
- N.E.R.D., 'Rockstar'
- No Doubt, 'Just a Girl'
- No Doubt, 'Don't Speak'
- OK Go, 'A Million Ways'
- Papa Roach, 'Lifeline'
- Parachute, 'Back Again'
- Pat Benatar, 'Love Is a Battlefield'
- Poison, 'Every Rose Has Its Thorn'
- Robbie Williams and Kylie Minogue, 'Kids'
- The Rolling Stones, 'Honky Tonk Women'
- Roy Orbison, 'Oh Pretty Woman'
- Santigold, 'L.E.S. Artistes'
- Snow Patrol, 'Take Back the City'
- Spice Girls, 'Wannabe'
- Styx , 'Mr. Roboto'
- Taylor Swift, 'Love Story'
- Taylor Swift, 'Picture to Burn'
- Taylor Swift, 'You Belong With Me'
- Tonic, 'If You Could Only See'
- The Turtles, 'Happy Together'
- Village People, 'YMCA'
- Yellowcard , 'Ocean Avenue'
 
But, why can’t I pay a few bucks to download songs from the Nintendo DS’s BAND HERO trackpack like Avril Lavigne’s “Girlfriend”?
If you have other guitar Hero games on your hard drive, you’ll need a simple update to allow some of them to work with this game, but, you still need to use that game disk to access them. Its one of the most annoying aspects of these music games which repeats itself in virtually every game of the DDR series and now the Guitar Hero series.
 
Another thing some people will disagree with is the censoring of select lyrics. I downloaded Disturbed  “Down with the Sickness”  and notice some curse words were silenced while others were left in.   Why censor  b_ _ _ h if you are going to leave in d_ _k?
In order to add songs you’ll need to buy Xbox360 points. Then you can download albums such as Metallica’s Death Magnetic.  Thing is, at $15 these add-ons are a bit expensive unless you’re a die- hard fan.


MUTLIPLAYER is also available. Unfortunately, there are very few people still playing this game and if you are lucky enough to find someone, they are usually experts who will quickly destroy you with their professional drum sets, while you play on the crappy instruments included in the boxed Band Hero set.  People like me  :)



OVERALL
 
BAND HERO’s  targeting of the casual play audience makes it feel slightly less challenging than other Guitar Hero games such as World Tour and  Metallica which are intent on punishing you for missed notes and failing you for missing too many riffs.   It’s a good game, but the track listing is so tame you could play it at a middle school picnic.
 
In Guitar Hero  and Rock Band games, each instrument had its own Career Mode tailor cut to specific characters. In this game, you can use any device and progress through the entire Career mode.  This aspect forced you to bother to develop each instrument to unlock all the achievements. Band Hero does not offer that type of challenge and lends itself too easily to the casual gamer. That’s not a bad thing, but I wish the game was designed more for the casual listener.   I’d have preferred this game have nothing but top hits. It feels like a large portion of this game is filler unless you’re the type of person who actually loves all the songs I’ve listed above.



RELATED REVIEWS

ION Rocker - http://www.epinions.com/content_497702768260

GH: World Tour -  http://www.epinions.com/content_496809053828

GH: Metallica - http://www.epinions.com/content_502445411972