Guitar Hero - Complete all songs on hard difficulty

Last weekend, I visited my nephew who is newly obsessed with Guitar Hero, having had the game for the week. He was still playing on medium difficulty, so to make it fair, I played against him on hard even though I hadn't fully gotten through hard mode on any version of the game. Despite that, I still managed to beat him about half the time. This inspired me to think that I was pretty good at the game and want to play more of it when I got back.

While I initially thought I would go through Guitar Hero II first because there were improvement to the play (easier hammer-ons and pull-offs) and the ability to practice specific sections of songs. But I have also heard than, in general, the songs in the first Guitar Hero are easier than those in the second. So I decided I'll try to get through this one first.

I started not having done any songs on hard mode and got through the first four tiers with little trouble. I think it was the fourth tier where I first failed to get five stars on a song. In the fifth tier, I got a three star or two and may have actually failed a song once. By the fifth tier, songs were kicking my ass. I think I got three stars on most of them. Cowboys from Hell and Bark at the Moon owned me for several times and I was only able to pass the both with judicious use of star power.

It is my eventual goal to five star every song on every level. I can't imagine ever getting five stars on the songs at the highest tier. It isn't like when I wondered whether I would ever be able to make the transition from medium to hard. There, I felt that with practice I could five star the medium songs, but I wondered if I would ever get decent enough at hard mode to regularly pass songs. Here, I think I can probably pass all the songs on expert difficulty, but I still don't have any faith I can get good enough to five star all the songs on hard (let alone expert). I seriously am not able to strum fast enough to hit all the notes in rhythm and when I try to do up and down strumming it just doesn't seem to be registering it correctly. I'll be curious to look back on this if I ever manage to master the songs well enough to five star them.

Guitar Hero - Completed all songs of medium difficulty at 5 stars

I bought this game at full price - mistakenly since I thought I was getting an amazing deal on the Guitar Hero bundle. I meant to return it, but put it off too long and it was too late so I held onto it, thinking I might sell or trade it once I found a great deal on the original Guitar Hero bundle. I finally ended up getting a good deal on a plain controller so now this game once again had merit.

What prompted me to play it was talk of doing a video game party at some point and Guitar Hero is a great party game. But... at least in Guitar Hero II, you need to unlock some songs before they are available so I figured I should do that for the first game. I have now gotten as far in this game as I have in Guitar Hero II so I have some interested impressions on the differences between the two.

Guitar Hero II is definitely more of a polished game. The biggest issue is the control difference. The first Guitar Hero feels a bit more mushy in the controls. It's hard to explain - maybe just slightly less responsive or not handling the transitions between chords or strums as well? It definitely doesn't handle hammer-ons and pull-offs as well. There are little things too. Llike the way you progress between song tears and the fact that you get encores. Guitar Hero is still very fun, but I think they really got the formula right with the second game.

Some people (that I remember, those who do the Player One Podcast) have remarked that the song list in Guitar Hero is better than the one in Guitar Hero II. I'm just not seeing it, unless you are really into heavy metal. To me, they both have the about the same appeal in terms of songs. Each tier of songs has one song I really like, another song I think is good, one or two more that I have heard before, and one or two that I have never heard (or only heard in passing). This holds across both games. Guitar Hero II get some props because, though I am unfamiliar with the independent band bonus songs on each game, I do know the Trogdor song.

Because of its lack of practice mode and more difficult hammer-ons and pull-offs, this Guitar Hero seems like the more difficult one. Since I am just learning how to do hard mode in both games, I think it might be to my benefit to go through Guitar Hero II first before coming back to this one. We'll see.