After Harmonix announced that Rockband is making a return, Guitar Hero is following suit. Guitar Hero Live has been announced as the next installment into the franchise and this time around things are a little different.
Changes have been made across the board but just enough changes to make the game new yet familiar. The biggest changes include a new style of physical guitar and the substitution of animated surroundings for a pre-recorded, live-action band, with you as the lead guitarist.
Starting with the new guitar controller. The overall style is familiar, until you look at the neck buttons. There are no more brightly colored buttons taking up an entire fret. Now there are 6 buttons total; using the first 3 frets, split down the middle making two buttons per fret. The top 3 are black and the bottom 3 are white, as seen in the picture below.
The other big change looks to be the main advertising point for the new game, the new live-footage surrounding. Instead of animated cartoon characters playing in front of a crowd with you looking through cameras recording the performance, you will be looking through the eyes of the guitarist for the band that is playing on stage. You will see your band mates on the side and behind you, and they will be real people. You will look out in front of you and see thousands of people, and they will be real people. The whole time you will see the familiar on-screen fret board, but behind it is a sea of actual, pre-recorded people. How everyone, band and crowd, reacts is based on how well you are doing. If you are doing bad everyone will look at you and boo you. If you are doing great, everyone will be rocking out! Just take a look at the official announcement trailer:
Guitar Hero comes out this fall.
Source: IGN
