Let me preface this entire review by saying that I suck at Guitar Hero. Seriously. If someone took me hostage and forced me to play GH in order to save my life, I’d be a dead man—and don’t anyone get any ideas either. I’ve tried it on every platform around; it’s especially funny if I try to play in public, say, in a big department or electronics store where they have a demo unit set up. I usually try to resist the pull, but sometimes I just can’t and find myself approaching that little guitar, queuing up a song I love and thinking that maybe this time it will be different. It never is, and I inevitably end up surrounded by a small flock of smarmy looking twelve year olds waiting for me to get out of the way. I have yet to hit any of their young, smirking faces with the controller, so I think I can take that as a sign of growth and maturity even in the face of such open derision.

So anyway, it’s not that I’m not musically inclined, it’s just that I have about as much rhythm as a can of unopened pinto beans. Still, I must admit to being impressed by the port of Guitar Hero over to the iPhone. Anyone familiar with the game can safely skip over the tutorials, though they are quite helpful, and after jumping into the game to try my hand, I found myself going  back and actually reading through a few of them. It didn’t help my performance any, but at least I had a better idea of just how badly I was really doing.

The game’s graphics are beyond decent, meaning they’re pretty good, which is what we’ve all come to expect from the iPhone anyway. GH looks and feels right at home on an iPhone screen, and the game’s controls and interface are slick and intuitive. One of the things that impressed me the most with GH, however, was the sound. The sound quality of the game, especially the music, was excellent even when piped through my $50 Sony earbuds. And you’ll definitely want to use headphones—even the game tells you this as it’s loading—the sound experience just isn’t the same when played through the iPhone’s unimpressive external speaker, not to mention the possibility that those around you may not in the mood to rock out with you. I found myself really enjoying moving about the interface—which to me has a very cool and somewhat grungy, steampunk look to it— and awesome little background sounds with each click and selection.

When you first start the game it will ask to scan the music you have on your phone and add it to the game’s library of songs. If you want to further expand your library you can visit the in-game store and purchase additional songs. The store doesn’t really have much of a selection at present, but the game was only released a few weeks ago so I’m sure that will improve. If you’re feeling kicky you can share your scores with your friends on Facebook or compare yourself with other users via the Leaderboard display. I, of course, did neither of those things as I have enough sources of embarrassment in my life without unduly exposing my complete lack of timing and coordination. A guy has to keep some things secret, right?

The gameplay in GH, despite my jerky, zombie-like thumb action, is quite easy to get into and the game’s controls translate quite well with the iPhone’s touchscreen. Even if you’ve never played the game before you should have no problem getting comfortable with the simple controls and you’ll be getting your groove on in no time. Guitar Hero, as many people already know, is ridiculously addictive and fun even for someone with considerable lack of talent (me). It’s $2.99 at the App Store and well worth it in my opinion. I’m sure it will see plenty of play on my phone if for no other reason than to prove to myself that I’m not the uncoordinated goob the game makes me look like.

During the WWDC 2010 keynote, Activision announced and released Guitar Hero on the iPhone. This game is well made and provides a lot of enjoyment for players as they strum, tap, slide and whammy to the beat of popular rock songs.

The gameplay of Guitar Hero is fun, unique and includes much more than tapping notes. An arrow pointing left or right indicates that you need to tap the note where the arrow begins and slide your finger to where the arrow ends. This action needs to happen fairly quickly. If two or more notes are connected by lines, then you must tap the first note and slide your finger to the next notes. Your finger needs to reach each note connected in the line at the appropriate time that corresponds to the beat of the song. A vertical line means that you must hold down the note until the line ends. Sometimes these appear at the end of an arrow which mean you must slide and hold. The last thing that comes up is an orange bar that is the length of all four notes. This bar simply needs to be tapped at any location.

Some notes have stars on them. Successfully hitting all these notes in a sequence adds to your star power. There is blue bar on the right of the screen which indicates how much star power you have. Once it reaches half-way, a blue bar will appear above the note catchers. Tapping this activates your star power and doubles your score multiplier. The more star power you have, the longer it lasts.

Guitar Hero also offers character customization, leaderboards, Faecbook sharing, and in-app purchases. If you want more than the 6 songs included with Guitar Hero, then you must purchase songs in bundles of three. Each song pack costs $1.99. There are no free songs available for download.

Guitar Hero includes the following 6 tracks:

• Queen – “We Are The Champions”
• Rise Against – “Savior”
• The Rolling Stones – “Paint It Black”
• Vampire Weekend – “Cousins”
• Weezer – “Say It Ain’t So”
• The White Stripes – “Seven Nation Army”

The downloadable song packs via in-app purchase are grouped by the following artists:

• The Faint, Minus the Bear and Silversun Pickups
• Band of Skulls, Obits and The White Stripes
• Darkest Hour, The Dillinger Escape Plan and Protest the Hero
• A Day to Remember, AFI and Breaking Benjamin
• Vampire Weekend
• Queen

I have thoroughly enjoyed the short time I’ve spent playing Guitar Hero and don’t plan to stop playing anytime soon. The game runs great, looks great, and is very well designed. It’s only a matter of time before I become a famous rock star!

Videos and screenshots after the break!

Pros

• More than just tapping and holding involved in game play
• Character customization
• Leaderboards and Facebook sharing
• In-app song pack purchases
• Looks and runs great

Cons

• Cannot purchase individual songs
• Photo Booth photos are poor quality
• No downloadable free songs

[$2.99 - iTunes link]

Guitar Hero for iPhone – app review is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

As announced during the WWDC 2010 keynote, the widely popular guitar game Guitar Hero is now available for iPhone and iPod touch.

With Guitar Hero, you will be able to “play” songs from multiple rock artists by tapping, strumming and sliding to the music. It also features robust avatar customization and social integration so you can share to Facebook and view leaderboards.

Guitar Hero will include the following tracks:

• Queen – “We Are The Champions”
• Rise Against – “Savior”
• The Rolling Stones – “Paint It Black”
• Vampire Weekend – “Cousins”
• Weezer – “Say It Ain’t So”
• The White Stripes – “Seven Nation Army”

In addition, you will be able to download song packs via in-app purchase. Each song pack contains three songs and is grouped by the following artists:

• The Faint, Minus the Bear and Silversun Pickups
• Band of Skulls, Obits and The White Stripes
• Darkest Hour, The Dillinger Escape Plan and Protest the Hero
• A Day to Remember, AFI and Breaking Benjamin
• Vampire Weekend
• Queen

If you pick this one up, let us know what you think! Are you a rockstar yet?

[$2.99 - iTunes link]

Guitar Hero now available in App Store is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Steve Jobs made millions of iPhone app lovers happy today during the WWDC 2010 keynote by bringing development houses up to introduce Netflix, Farmville, and Guitar Hero.

• Netflix, already on the iPad, brings the same great search and adaptive video streaming technology to the iPhone, which means 3G (and AT&T data caps make sense now, right?). Available this summer.
• Farmville goes Flash-free and today invents farming- – with push — for the iPhone. Available end of June.
• Guitar Hero, with Queen, Rolling Stones, Vampire Weekend. Available now!

[Images via Engadget]

New iPhone apps: Netflix, Farmville, Guitar Hero is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog