The other major change from past games is that FreeStyle is changing up the DLC model significantly. That's the spirit of what makes these types of games so great and FreeStyle appears to have truly grasped that. For music fans, there's high nostalgia value in seeing classic music videos intact and FreeStyleGames picked some of the best, like Weezer's iconic "Buddy Holly" and The White Stripes' "Fell in Love with a Girl." But more than that, with a concurrent channel of curated programs, it allows players to constantly discover new music that they may not have given a second look to before. In terms of gameplay, it's a simple "pick-up-and-play" atmosphere. There's a high competitive element that shines through here, with asymmetrical multiplayer pitting players against seven other players and their best scores. GHTV is where Guitar Hero Live really shines, allowing for players to casually jump into songs as they're already playing. It's classic MTV as many people will remember it, right down to its simplified transitions in-between songs and programs. The mode runs on two (soon to be three) concurrent 24-hour channels with dedicated blocks of programming dedicated to song genres or themes. Where Guitar Hero Live particularly stands out is with GHTV, a game mode that focuses on playing along with actual music videos. If anything, I mostly ignored it all and just focused on the notes, just as I have since day one. Whether it's the fictional bandmates staring you in the "face" and addressing you directly backstage or whether they're shrugging at you over a bad performance, I didn't quite get the first-person sensation that the game was aiming for. While I laud FreeStyle's efforts to make the live concert feel an immersive experience, it does start to feel a little hokey at times. This reduces much of the pressure in playing and actually makes the experience feel more relaxing. While the backgrounds will adjust to ineptitude accordingly, players cannot fail songs at any point and instead are trusted to eventually win the crowd back over. This is where it should be noted that fail states have been removed completely. Poor performance turns the crowd hostile and gets the ire of bandmates, while good performances create a raucous atmosphere. Crowds and band members react accordingly to performance. The "Live" element of Guitar Hero Live focuses on live concert footage, meant to evoke a feeling of playing an actual concert. The other major innovation is the formal end of animated backgrounds. Despite that, the adjustment to three frets isn't as daunting as it looks and it should be easy enough to grasp after a couple of sessions. There doesn't seem to be happy medium between Regular and Advanced, with the former feeling too easy and the latter feeling like too high a leap. The only grievance here is that the jump from Regular to Advanced seems to be a steep one, with the number of difficult chords increasing more than expected while also throwing in chords that mix up higher and lower frets. That proves to be the case in Guitar Hero Live, as I never got the sense that I couldn't do better or that I couldn't eventually full combo a song with some time and effort. No one should be an expert out of the gate, but with practice, there should be a sense that progress is being made. Gutiar Hero Live does retain an important element of the series and that's the sense that it is completely possible to get better over time. The tutorial is friendly enough to get players started, though it won't deal with many of the more advanced techniques that will get players passed Regular difficulty. It wastes no time in introducing the new normal: three two-layered frets, instead of the standard five colored buttons. The "newness" of Guitar Hero Live takes hold immediately, throwing players right into a lengthy tutorial before ever seeing a menu.
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