Damn. I don't think sequels, or even games in general, come around like this very often. Basically improves upon the original in so many ways. While I think the source engine is easy to overlook nowadays thanks to games like gmod being ingrained in the internet consciousness, it is a revolutionary engine for its time, and this game uses it to its fullest. Whether it being destroying zombies with the gravity gun, fighting combine in the sewers, going on a cliffside drive, or storming the giant tower at the end, there's never a bad moment.

ooooooooooooooooohhhh dear. This game is like a stylish character action shooter, reminded me of P.N. 03 in that kinda sense. The game has a cool art direction and the vibes are absolutely on point. The problem is the controls and mechanics are waaaaaaayyy too wack for their own good. I had to make my own custom button mapping on my Xbox to have this game control comfortably. I'd also recommend using a guide to play this, just to understand the mechanics and controls that the game doesn't teach properly whatsoever. The movement is too slippery to be precise and the combat requires constant air dashing and rotations which on the default control sheme means frequently pressing the triggers, sticks, and face buttons to do what you need to do. It's kind of a sensory overload in that sense. If you can somehow wrangle the controls, there's probably a fun and rewarding little time here. But I think for most people this games probably a bit much.

The game that started Treasure's history of never missing when it comes to making games. there are EXPLOSIONS EVERYWHERE. This game and ikaruga are probably treasures two most known games, and for good reason. This game basically sets the standard of charm, creativity, fun, and hardware pushing that treasure would eventually become renowned for. While this game is fantastic, i personally prefer some of treasure's later mega drive games to this one. This game is still a must-play, especially with a friend if possible. btw beam/homing is an absolutely broken combo.

Fun little mobile game port of an idle game. You turn everything into some random prefecture in Japan, learn about the other prefectures, their populaces, and their meibutsu on the way, and eventually convert the entire planet earth into Gunma. Everything is Gunma. You are Gunma. I am Gunma. They probably used Google Translate to bring the game to western switch shores, because the translation is godawful. Despite that, it still has this dumb charm that fits in with everything else so can't complain. I literally got my copy on a sale for 2 bucks, so I can't not reccomend giving it a try for that price.

Holy SHIT. After playing through all the games from the great guitar hero mediocrity wave of '09, I had middling hopes for this one. I had heard that the game was a fan-favorite for some reason, so I was cautiously excited and boy were the fans right. The setlist is full of bangers, the difficulty is there for the players that can take the heat (EXTREMELY REFRESHING AFTER PLAYING SO MANY BRAINDEAD EASY GAMES), there are power up mechanics so that even the newcomers can still clear songs, yet only the skilled will master them, and I think that's a really cool evolution from the whole pass/fail system that all previous games had done. There's even a story that, while simple, is actually there unlike a bunch of other GH and RB games just being more songlists than adventures. All in all, this is definitely a game on par with GH3 and that isn't something I say lightly. For a swansong of the series, they absolutely went all out.

Weird. For some reason the engine regresses to the GH4 engine instead of the new one they used for GH5 and band hero despite coming out after those two games...? I thought I liked Van Halen music more than this game ended up actually making me feel, considering the fact I was way more hyped for the guest acts in this games setlist instead. The engine also kinda felt weird, felt like I could mash and get away with it a lot more in this game. Challengewise, this is very servicable as songs will definitely not be boring, so that's good. Like GH Metallica, the only band history stuff is stored in an inconvenient slow rock fact drip feed, so I learnt absolutely nothing about Van Halen as a band. If anything, with how the characters in the game look and animate, I think I can safely say that vibe-wise Van Halen is not my jam. All in all a very take it or leave it GH game, much like the other band-centric ones. This one might be my least favorite though.

Kid me played the SHIT out of this back in the day. When they first announced that guitar hero was coming to the DS I was extremely excited since I was a big guitar hero fan and had the proper DS to play the game on (sorry, DSi owners), and I'm pretty sure I got this game day 1. The songlist is pretty compressed due to the fact that it needs to fit inside a DS cartridge and the fretboard peripheral you stick in the gba cart slot is definitely not good for human wrists, but as a kid the game was everything I wanted; a way to play guitar hero anywhere, and even be able to play on the hardest difficulties due to the fact that the controls are more simplified this time around, with no orange fret and strumming being easier on the touch screen. This game really is a port that shouldn't have worked, but somehow they figured out how to do it right. If you have the means to play this, like guitar hero, and don't mind carpal tunnel, then give this game a shot

It's definitely more guitar hero. I'm not the biggest Metallica guy, and while this game didn't really convert me into liking the band the same way guitar hero aerosmith did, it certainly shows that the people that made the game care a lot about metallica. There are a ton of metallica facts that you can read and a bunch of videos of live performances and what not you can view. Despite that, I still don't think I know very much about metallica besides a couple random fun facts on certain songs. It certainly doesn't have a "playable documentary" feel that they did with GH aerosmith. Other than that, the setlist in this game certainly goes hard. Metallica music makes for awesome complicated difficult note charts which in turn makes a guitar hero that is fun to play. While this game didn't make me more of a metallica fan, I still had fun with it and would suggest anyone thats into guitar hero, especially difficulty-seeking GH3 fans, give this one a shot for its charts.

I played this game back in the day as a kid right after playing guitar hero 3 and remember being disappointed, but since coming back to it I think I was a little bit harsh on the game. Yeah, this game isn't as good or nearly as memorable as guitar hero 3, and I think that a lot of people probably bought this game back in the day thinking it was gonna be as good as 3 (myself as a kid included). But nah, this is just a short side game that focuses on aerosmith and not much else. I thought it was pretty cool to see the interview-style cutscenes with the band members as they talked about their history of the band, which was definitely something kid me did not have the attention span for back in the day lmao. As for the setlist itself, it is like 75% aerosmith, as to be expected, so if you don't like aerosmiths music, you won't have a good time here. I personally think their music is alright, if not a bit on the easy side in terms of guitar hero, so I was just kinda crusin. There were a surprising number of tracks in this game that I actually remembered, as one concern of mine when I went back into this one was how much of the setlist I actually remembered, and it was actually more than I was expecting. All in all, this game isn't the huge disappointment that I originally remembered it to be, but it's still not as good as guitar hero 3, and if you don't like aerosmiths music, this is an obvious pass. otherwise go for it lol. This game made me like Aerosmith more than I thought I did, so mission accomplished.

This one is a bit of a tough one, see. As a game, this definitely is an upgrade from the previous guitar hero games. Not only do you now have drums and vocals to keep up with rock band, but you also have a lot more interesting and difficult beatmaps to a larger and more diverse setlist of songs that you absolutely will know at least one of. There's even a character creator too for you to make your own rock guy or customize one of the existing guitar hero characters. Despite all this though, as a VIBE, this game was pretty underwhelming. It felt corporate as all hell. There's tons of product placement everywhere, random celebrity band members from various bands just pop in and out from songs to do their things, and there just doesn't feel like there's a lot of soul to it. I had a similar complaint with the vibes of rock band since that game also felt rather soulless, so I guess it's in character for this one to have that same problem since it's trying to steal its thunder? You also have to play entire setlists instead of individual songs for some reason, which means you better have 30 or so minutes open at least if you wanna play, which is kinda lame ngl. As a game and setlist this is good but the vibe i mostly got from the game felt like "we made this because guitar hero 3 and aerosmith made a shitload of money and now everyone in the music industry wants a piece of the pie plus rock band is doing what we do except more so we gotta do what they are doing too". And for that reason it just felt more bleh than the previous guitar heros. I hope the games after this have a little more soul in them (EDIT: LOL I THOUGHT). Misery business and hot for teacher bang tho

Good, but definitely unnecessary. This game compiles various random songs from guitar heroes 1-3, rocks the 80s, and one song from aerosmith to make up its setlist. I guess the point of this game was to update those songs from those games by not only giving them full band support with new notecharts for all instruments, but also using the master tracks instead of the covers that the original games used. In that sense, this game has its purpose, and for some consoles this is the only way to play certain guitar hero songs from games locked to the PS2/X360 which is cool i guess. The PS2 version seems kinda pointless though, again unless having the masters and full band support matters that much to you. The career mode definitely gets rather challenging near the end, as you will be playing all the hardest songs from GH1, 2, 80s, and 3 all in a row, ending in a run of TTF&F that while definitely nerfed compared to its GH3 counterpart, you actually have to clear it to win this time so buckle up. All in all, def an inessential GH game but I still kinda had fun with it