Guitar Hero 5 set to rock the band

Guitar Hero 5 has moved away from its metal roots - but not too far.

As a big fan of music games, let me sing this out loud. The improvements to Neversoft's Guitar Hero 5 are awesome. The game has been made much more fun.

Here are some of the reasons:

- You can customise the band by using any combination of character and instruments (e.g. Guitar Hero World Tour)

- The boss battles have gone

- With Party Play you can start any song playing in the background by just hitting the play button

- Party Play mode allows anyone to jump in with any instrument

- You can access every song in Quickplay without unlocking them first

- It's easy to navigate menus and purchase via the Music Store

- Star power is calculated separately for each player instead of a collective band

- You can import at least some of the tracks from World Tour

- Guitar bundle new guitar has a whammy bar, Soft touch buttons (for inner fret work) and Select key in easy positions

The biggest pluses are being able to change instruments and difficulty levels mid-song (any song) and playing solo or with as many instruments as you wish (4 local, 8 online).

In Party Play mode, it's a real bonus to realise you have selected too high a difficulty and being able to change down difficulty without restarting the song.

But with stiff competition out there, the game is only as good as its songs and that's always a personal choice.

There's an impressive tally of 85 provided with the game and many more in the music store if you want more.

It's a bit of a mixed bag, not as heavy as rockers might like and more catered towards classic rock of the 70s and 80s, with a touch of light funk, which should appeal to baby boomers and those who tap their toes to Stevie Wonder's Superstition, David Bowie's Fame, Elton John's Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting, Bob Dylan's All Along The Watchtower and Kiss' Shout It Out Loud.

Especially challenging is one from guitar maestro Santana - No One To Depend On. Let's hope theres more of him to come. He is one of the game's unlockable characters.

I'm more familiar with more recent material so a lot of it's new to me but the strength is obviously the fact that so many historically big music names are in the line-up.

Guitars are a bit like cars and a matter of personal choice. The guitar didn't mould to my fingers as much - my personal favourite is still that Les Paul replica that came with Guitar Hero 3. All Guitar Hero controllers are compatible.

It's a good looking game with 14 venues, the note streams feel realistic and the audio quality and on-stage performance is impressive. S

Scatterbrain (Jeff Beck) is a random song but Du Hast (Rammstein) played much better. These are offset by Kings of Leon's Sex On Fire and John Mellencamp's Hurts So Good. You'll find yourself switching down the difficulty at the last 3 venues.

Guitar Hero 5 (PS3, PS2, Xbox 360, Wii: Activision) is a solid party game or solo performance. The presentation has been 'vamped up' - specialised with custom expressions for famous musicians and better lip synching of the performances.

The Guitar Hero Creator kit really does it for the girls and with that many style choices and custom art decals (make your own) it's a big hit. It's a more enjoyable strum with appropriate challenges and band objectives with a new focus on having fun that gives the franchise a new lease on life. Long may it continue.

MadGamer rating: 9.5 / 10