Guitar Hero 5. “What?”, “Another one?”, “Why?

Questions we’ve been hearing ever since Activition announced the next iteration of the game. This in conjunction with the announcement of DJ Hero and Band Hero. Isn’t there enough Hero games already? You are right in pursuing this line of questioning. The whole plastic band shtick is getting a little stale. The only additions that seem to come our way is an expanded song list, maybe better animations and more people joining the ‘band’. DJ Hero spins a new twist back to the old school Beatmania roots, and Band Hero tries to shake things up by giving you open control of your band makeup and drop-in/drop-out gameplay.

So, what has Guitar Hero 5 have? Well, I can’t really tell you until we get an extensive hands-on. But what I can tell you is the pure awesomeness that is the Roadie Battle mode of the Wii version of GH5. Why is it specific to the Wii? Because Vicarious Visions has found a way to make it possible to play with the Wii and DS together. Because of this Roadie Battle is exclusive only to the Wii.

Roadie Battle plays out like this: a 2-on-2 competitive co-op mode with one player on each team on an instrument trying to finish the song, and the second player of the team using the DS trying to sabotage the other player, and save his own teammate (when being sabotaged). The DS player will be continuously playing a range of mini-games (not unlike Warioware), that will either save his own teammate or do something nasty to the other team. Instead of the usual four person band trying to get along all the time trying not to kill the inexperienced drummer you have to save all the time, you can now duke it out.

Of course, reading about it an actually getting to try it out is something different altogether. I have to say that Roadie Battle is an ingenious approach and a genuinely fresh mode of play – especially considering that I’m that inexperienced drummer that always needed saving. At least now I can play a GH game and not totally suck at it.