You're absolutely right about Rock Band drums being able to translate into real drumming. I literally used that game to learn real drums and ended up taking lessons once I realized how good I was getting at Rock Band
When Guitar Hero came out with the drums with cymbals and both titles having the ability to use a splitter to play double kick drums, I directly attribute my immediate ability to play real drums to these games.
I know multiple drummers who learned from Rock Band/Guitar Hero and went on to be career musicians in signed bands. I personally learned from Rock Band and ended up in a touring band for a bit. Now I'm a hobby guy and play 3-5 days a week. None of this would have happened without Rock Band.
As someone who, after 6 years of switching to real drums, is still reeling from how rock band didn’t teach me how to use my left leg for hi hat control and time keeping, I really wish they had something for that on top of everything else though
It neeeeeeeds to come back Rock Band actually got me started on drums in a pretty accurate way. And that led me into other instruments, discovering my favorite bands, and eventually writing and recording music.
@@EmilForsberg_GRYBO They tried to do this with guitar by releasing the pro guitar, but the original pro guitar was just awful, and was only fully compatible on songs that were made for it.
@@EmilForsberg_GRYBO not really. The original pro controller had plastic buttons for each fret, and plastic strings for strumming. The neck was really wide and uncomfortable, and it wasn't even a full set of notes, which meant some songs needed a chart different from the actual song. I'm pretty sure those discrepancies are why the pro chart for Through the Fire and Flames is considered impossible to FC. The only real similarity to Rocksmith is it does have a proper training mode, but nowhere near in depth. They inevitably released a real guitar that had sensors to track your finger placements, but it's not exactly easy to come by these days.
Dude, I remember when Warriors of Rock first came out, they had a stage set up where you can play the game in front of thousands of people. It was me on Guitar and two other people on Bass and Drums. We played Bleed it Out by Linkin Park on Expert and the crowd was going wild because we were able to carry a continuous combo throughout the entire song. Good times.
Growing up my siblings and I had Guitar Hero 3, Rock Band 2, and Lego Rock Band (all Wii versions), and we played all of them constantly. Last year one of my brothers and I moved out of my parents’ house, and we took all the old Wii stuff with us. We decided to most of the games and peripherals and split the money. After over a decade of devouring space in the basement, all the Guitar Hero and Rock Band controllers are just gone, and I find something sad about that. This video reminded me how much I love those games.
Dude...this was a RUSH of nostalgia for me. I adore these games, all of them. I spent 1000s of hours mastering every instrument, straining my voice wailing every song. Destroyed so many Rock Band drum sets and using the Penny Mod trick to attempt to revive them whenever I could. So many nights with friends, so many tournaments competing, and so many deeply fond memories. I could talk about these games forever, and love occasionally picking up one of my plastic weapons and shredding for hours. One of my favourite past times was making a band with my two friends, and playing Expert Bass while also singing with a Mic stand. For me I think my top 3 are Warriors of Rock > Rock Band 3 > Guitar Hero 3. Some incredible DLC was in GH3, including the Top Gun theme, the Halo 2 Mjolnir mix, and I AM MURLOC! Speaking of, you mentioned Pandora looked like she was ripped straight out of Warcraft. You can actually unlock Arthas Menethil, The Lich King, as a playable a character. AND he uses his Frostmourne as a Guitar. A rare Activision W. Thank you for doing such a great job at honouring both of these series. I saw that a premium version of the Guitars was being made, the Riffmaster and I cannot WAIT to get my hands on it and relive these games once again. It's crazy how the Drums, Keyboard AND Mic all truly do teach you have to be a musician. I've always loved music, and especially classic rock, but I think these games really made me appreciate the craftsmanship behind creating and mastering it. Tremendous job dude, very well done. Also RUSH is the best.
My first impression given the difficulty you play was that this would be a recap from a more casual player's perspective that would miss fine details or struggle to present the aura that was present at the time, but my judgements were quickly put in check. You completely nailed the entirety of it in a unique way nobody else has accomplished so far, especially with presenting the monstrous reach it had to all ages and gifting accurate anecdotes in a way that even someone who had never been connected to the genre can empathise with. All the feelings of the magical revolution when Harmonix struck gold, to the worldwide electricity in the air as it peaked and the overwhelming saturation leading to the downfall were captured by you flawlessly.
HOLY MOLY. Now that is a meme and photo I have not seen in a LONG TIME. Totally not related to your comment but gonna go binge some old school The Creatures stuff now.
Man, that rush story got to me hard 😭 I found out about Guitar Hero through a local tech con called Digital Life Expo. I played it, sucked, but I understood what it was going for. Then, months later, there was a demo setup at Best Buy across two TVs. My friend and I just kept taking turns, and we probably stayed there for 3 hours. Then we spent the rest of the day jumping from store to store to find Guitar Hero. We ended up finding it back uptown, and the rest was history.
In December of 2008, my parents surprised my brother and me with Guitar Hero World Tour. That game was played in our house almost every day for years. Sometimes one of us, sometimes all of us. There’s not a video game I have more fond memories of playing with my family, it was one of very few games my parents ever played. Guitar Hero single-handedly taught my brother and me how to play drums well enough to eventually get our own drum kit. I eventually taught myself guitar too. Playing music has remained a favorite pastime for myself and my brother to this day, and I’m certain we’re not the only people who had this same experience. No other game has had a greater ripple effect into my future than this game did.
We're still around an kicking, keeping this community alive however we can! If anyone watched this and got an itch to play, Clone Hero and YARG are clone Guitar Hero and Rock Band games that are free and come with some songs out of the gate! After that you can download whatever songs you'd like from Rhythmverse to play in game!
I've been playing YARG ever since I first heard about it. I previously played Phase Shift which left a lot to be desired to say the least but YARG has improved so much so quickly and unlike Phase Shift it already has vocal support.
For a 34-year old boomer with no talent, discipline and no will to learn real guitar like me. GH and RB were perfect. Had so much fun. Glad to see its spirit lives on with Fortnite Festival. Yeah it's been nerfed af but it's good to see Zoomers or whatever discovering old music and playing their own gen's music
Beatles Rock Band is solidly in my top 5 games of all time. My brother and I have got together and play the whole thing in one session multiple times over the years. Its a true work of art that you can tell is just dripping with love from every pixel, and has left a massive impact on me and my family.
This has to be the best video on the GH / RB series. You perfectly captured the spirit, the message, the flaws, and the good PERFECTLY! You put it in an easily understandable retrospective video, and I salute you for it. And your own story at the end made this game and video more impactful. I discovered so many new bands and music genres all because of this series. I discovered Pleymo, Filter, Dragonforce, Flyleaf, Lamb Of God, as well as a growing appreciation for NIN, KoRn, Rush, and Smash Mouth! I truly appreciate this video. I hope this video can help people explore other music genres and play this game or even take rhythm games further by making new concepts! Thank you for showing the power of music and gaming to light. You deserve so much more attention!
I grew up with Atari 2600, and stopped gaming after SNES. Guitar Hero brought me back to gaming in the PS2 era. A have huge respect and the fondest memories from this franchise
What a fantastic documentary/review of Guitar Hero. I've been a home guitarist for a long time and also a gamer. the GH allowed people who had no musical knowledge to experience something similar to playing a guitar. As a gamer and guitarist, GH will always remain in my heart because it allowed my passion for Rock, music and the guitar to join the challenge, improvement and personal overcoming that games are known for. Furthermore, it gave rock a rebirth for a new generation. Talking about a game 20 years after is first release, with so much nostalgia proves that GH, just like Rock, will never die.
I'm glad you agree with the sentiment of "what if full albums could be used as a narrative in future Guitar Hero games." I would like that too. Or at least songs that are 15 or more minutes in length. *cough* Tarkus. I would really like to see Tarkus have its own event in Guitar Hero.
Your segment about 2112 and your trip… really struck a chord with me. (Pun not intended but appreciated.) Something about Rush, in my darkest moments, has kept me going. This year has been really hard so far, but music/lyrics like theirs and works like yours, Liam, are what slowly reignite that spark in me to create. I had WoR but didn’t know anything about Rush, fumbled my way through most of it. I want to find a copy again and give it the honor it deserves. And play the rest of the series while I’m at it. All of this after your video on THPS opened my mind to a series I never knew I’d love as much as I do. All of that to say, for all your works and writing and such. Thank you. ❤
Your video made me think a lot about those discussions that went on back in the day: was this just the novelty of getting to play along with your favorite songs, karaoke-style? And I had an epiphany while watching this that disproved that and I was nodding along to hear it was the same for you. Before playing Guitar Hero, I didn't have favorite songs. I guess I liked the songs from Disney movies and a few records my parents played, but by the time I was old enough to inherit a wiped version of my big sister's iPod, I only had about 45 songs (and like a third of them were TV show themes). I simply did not engage with music. Then I played Guitar Hero and for the first time I began to *feel* songs. I connected with them and they reached into my core. I didn't just have them as a backing track to something or memorize the lyrics; playing the game made me understand the power of music. Maybe I was just around the right age (Rhythm game-mania peaked when I was in middle school), but to me, every generation has its technology for music. Boomers had the radio. Gen X had MTV. Gen Z has TikTok. And that tiny slice of millennials who were there for the peak, we learned to love music by following those traffic light-esque dots and squares rushing down the screen at us. And we understood. also, yes I did pick up real drums after becoming the designated drummer in the play group. All it took was a few rudimentary lessons before I was confident at being able to keep time on my own. I was probably the worst irl drummer in my high school jazz program, but I played for two years in a quartet and ensemble and we pulled off some great performances.
This just threw me through a loop. I used to play Guitar Hero AND Rock Band with my family when I was younger. For Rock Band we straight up had a full band going at one point with someone on the mic, someone on the drums, and someone on the guitar. Those were fun days.
I grew up playing with my dad, brother, and uncle. And I even remember when my little cousin was around 4 we gave her the drum sticks and just let her go ham on a song with me on guitar 🎸
I got GH Aerosmith for Christmas one year and I loved that game so much I would wake up at like 6:30 on Saturdays to play it. Fast forward a couple years and I’m entering middle school with the option to take some extra curricular classes. My parents suggest I join band. I was reluctant but still did it my 6th grade year anecdotes the rest was history. I did band for nearly 12 years including 5 while in college. I was consistently one of or the best players in my instrument at every level I played, including making All-State in high school. I think my parents saw how much I enjoyed playing GH and saw a passion for music and saw it as a spring board to learning a real instrument. I’m definitely not the only one who became passionate for music because of this game. I can’t imagine what my life would have been like if I didn’t get that plastic guitar
I thought I wouldn’t finish an hour long video about something I already know a lot about. But the Rush part got me in tears. You’re one hell of a video essay-er
Such a great video Liam, I feel it's a bit sad seeing that these rhythm games have ultimately been replaced by Clone Hero, but I think for all of us that grew up with Guitar Hero or Rock Band can appreciate what was truly going on at the time :P
Guitar Hero was something of my childhood ever since I first got that Xbox 360 copy of GH2. Holding the Xplorer guitar for the first time has been such a positive memory of childhood since forever and I still to this day remember how much it hurt when I played the guitar wrong for so long that I got a full blister on my thumb from purely SLIDING the strum-bar. Yet I wanted to just keep playing but all that time waiting for it to heal was so tantalizing! This video has motivated me to revisit all the past games as well, this video was awesome and it was lovely to see another person's perspective on the entire series of these games and remind me of the positive things of my childhood. Thank you.
Ive been playing drums for 14 years and i started by playong Rock Band and Guitar hero on drums. I still use it to this day with Clone Hero. The drums do translate so well when you get the feel for it all
This was a really well made video Liam. It's almost like a documentary going through the history of it all while also being on the receiving end of the product. My family also played this game a lot. We only had Guitar Hero: World Tour and Band Hero but they were still a lot of fun to play and I got into some bands from these two games. They exposed me to pop punk and I got interested in the sound without realizing it. I would discover pop punk on my own later on but it at least got me familiar with some of the iconic songs. See, my family loves classic rock and I grew up sheltered so I didn't really have a music taste of my own and I wasn't really a fan of classic rock and 80's pop. So I played the game because it was fun to play but not because I liked the music. And the career mode wasn't really that much fun to play since the game was more fun with others so I didn't get to explore the songs either. However, with Band Hero that kind of shifted because there was only so many songs on there and I got to explore my own taste on there. We would make a setlist of 5 songs and each person could pick a song and that's how i started to pick more songs I wanted to hear. The story of the music game was also really interesting for picking an instrument. See my parents switched off the singing. My siblings and I tried it but neither of us really liked it nor knew how to sing. My brother started on the drums, I started on the guitar, and my sister played the bass cause the guitar controller didn't really mesh with her and she struggled to play it. As it went on, i started getting better at guitar and got up to hard/expert. I couldn't play expert on the hard songs but I could on the easier ones but I could play hard pretty reliably on every song. My sister ended up learning the drums and got up to a medium difficulty. And my brother liked playing all the instruments (being the one who was in band in hs) but we would regularly challenge each other on guitar to see who could get the highest score since he could play on hard also (though he struggled to keep up with my scores.) And I was getting ready to try vocals while playing guitar on the songs I knew by heart before we all stopped playing it. It's a fond memory I have for a family that's been torn by a late divorce (when I was halfway through college, my brother graduated college, and my sister just finishing hs). These games mark a time when we did feel like a family and doesn't feel like the divorce can touch it. Idk if that's a reason why I want to play them again or if it's because of the gameplay. Maybe both. But I also know the game will never be the same for me, much like for others. It's locked in time. I can say that it hit this itch of me wanting to be a rock star. I mean, how cool is it to play a song in front of people and provide an experience they'll never forget. How fun it is to sing songs and make music together. While I'm not performer, I do think it inspired my love for music but it also let me know that I'm not a musician. It was just a daydream. My guitar collected dust in my room despite these games. But I did fall in love with music partly because of this game and the making of music in a way. This game didn't directly lead me down the road I'm on but I can't deny that there was probably some sort of subconscious influence on me from it. Today, I'm a music producer. I can play guitar to a campfire level and I'm currently slowly learning bass. I did learn piano a decent amount but didn't have a way to practice for some years and I'm trying to get into the habit of teaching myself again. But I always do think back to this game whenever I'm having difficulty with an instrument. Learn it like it was guitar hero. I also feel this franchise is done for and possibly at home rhythm games as a whole. The amount of money to buy these controllers is a lot and then you also have to think about the space they take up, especially the drums. Most people got rid of these and or used them until they couldn't and then they weren't replaced. Like this type of thing just doesn't seem possible to happen again to me. It seems like a relic of the past to be able to get families to purchase all of this. You need a console, a decent size tv, the game, two guitars, a drum set, and a usb mic to play as a full band. It's just so much. Clone hero feels like the future of the series for a long time.
Man I was just talking about this with my friends last night, the timing of this video is amazing. I miss the days of Rock band and DJ hero soooo much. I would play it for hours and hours growing up. Thanks for letting me remember it again to remember the good old days when Rhythm games were in mainstream for just a little while.
I remember my first experience with Guitar Hero. It was at the peak of 2's popularity and my nephew who is a savant invited me over to try it. As soon as I sat in front of the TV, he slapped a plastic guitar into my hands and put it on hard difficulty. Being a guitarist already, I was familiar with the game on a mechanical level and it was so addictive that once preorders started for Guitar Hero III I pre-ordered it and on the night I got it, we stayed up all night playing it on expert. I also thought it was really weird that there were so many songs shared between GHWT and Rock Band 2. In fact I work at Walmart and we had a drum set and guitar set up for people to play a demo version of RB2. I also wanna say that I was a GH loyalist but I absolutely loved Rock Band's diversity. I never would have known about Garbage, Modest Mouse, and many others had it not been for that game. Warriors and Metallica are my favorite games overall.
Just wanna say your video essays are some of the best out there. I never really played guitar hero aside from one night camping with my high school girlfriend (A very fond memory) but the way you pace these videos keeps them informative, entertaining, and heartfelt without feeling the need to use dramatic music or put on a sad voice. You're probably the only video essayist I know that can make me tear up a bit over a game series I've barely even touched aside from Fortnite festival. Good stuff as always, keep it up
Man... I've spent so many hours with guitar hero and rock band through my high school and college years. So many great times with friends jamming out. A great little setup at parties. This stuff inspired me to pick up the guitar and drums for real. But sometimes I still get the urge to break out the plastic instruments lol.
I just had a crazy idea that I wish the genre were still around for. Imagine this game - Rock Band: Live Aid. Imagining the Queen set alone makes me misty-eyed. Someone needs to make this happen.
Seeing as how you lightly touched upon guitar freaks, I'd like to mention that by GFDM XG, the games had included a 4th and 5th fret button on the guitars with another rebranding into Gitadora not too long after. The series still lives on to this day, with the latest installment; Gitadora Galaxy Wave having been released about a month or two ago. The major difference between Gitadora and Rock hero/guitar band is the emphasis on strict timing windows, wailing, original music, and a finer detail of keysound quality instead of sheer note density with windows as wide as a bus, emphasis on combo and multipliers, and licensed music. To see a rough equivalent to GH's hardest charts like through the fire and the flames, search either ichimoudajin (一網打尽) or Saiph on master difficulty.
i found this game so cool back then. i grew up with a lot of classic rock and metal so hearing certain songs like War Pigs made me light up. at the time i was looking for some heavier music (still am) so i was pretty into death metal. i ended up falling in love with Dethklok and seeing Thunderhorse in guitar hero 2 made me so happy. most i was ever able to play was hard, but i can play a good chunk of the song on the actual guitar. also i would have cried as well after playing 2112, but cuz it's a 20+ min long epic song
This was a really great watch. That part at the end about listening to Rush in the car hit me quite hard - I know the feeling of music helping you cope with bad health news all too well. As for the games? This was really interesting as I think I have a bit of a unique relationship with the series. I've played guitar since I was quite young so I always found it really frustrating as the charts never lined up with what I knew my left hand should be doing! That being said - playing it with friends was always a lot of fun and World Tour in particular got a lot of rotation because of the track list.
I would like to point out that the “ugly brown color” of the rock band guitar is still accurate to a guitar, guitars often have a maple neck with a maple fretboard like the one rock band guitar, but sometimes the fretboard is an exotic wood that is a darker shade of brown
After listening to the ending before the conclusion, I honestly shed a tear. I have only discovered your channel in the past few months but man, your way of telling stories about games and the impacts they had in your life are so catching and sometimes even greatly inspiring. Without rambling on even more I just wanted to say: You are a real one, thank you for posting Videos! ❤
Man, thank you for this retrospective. These are my favorite games ever, honestly. You echoed so much of how these games made me feel, too, and I was touched by your RNR HOF story and how much Rush's music holds a special place for you. Great video on a series that I also hope will have a revival down the road.
Even though I only played LEGO Rock Band on the DS, I get why are those two series so beloved. I love rhythm games and I had a blast playing LEGO Rock Band. So many amazing songs (compressed by the DS lmao) and I was surprised how good I was getting at those harder difficulties by playing more and more. The DS version only uses LEFT, UP, X and A buttons to hit notes and L, R for changing instruments. And if you change to drums for example, the music focuses more on the percussion, making other instruments and vocals quieter. Also it contains the theme song from my most favourite film The Devil Wears Prada - Suddenly I See by KT Tunstall
Bruh - fanTAStic video. Brings back lots of memories. Just one nitpick: you forgot the whammy bar!! It's a rad little addition and helps you get star power faster on sustain notes.
this was an amazing video! brought back so much nostalgia of me and my family playing all the rockband and guitar hero games my dad collected. i screamed when you mentioned the beatles rock band, its definetly me and my fams favorite being a group of people who grew up and all the beatles music for many years (and being a very music oriented family as well). we still play all these games everytime we go and visit my parents and i think to whoever grew up with these games such as myself theyve become a staple even in the later years of our lives :)
These games really shaped my music journey throughout childhood. I remember once playing GH3 co-op with a friend, we had just finished the last battle and... I was playing on Expert. When Through The Fire and the Flames hit I was nowhere near good enough to beat the song, but I took the challenge and struggled to try. Part of what motivated me was that not only had my friend stopped, but their little sibling came by JUST TO WATCH MY FINGERS and I knew even though I was failing the song I was giving it my best. It was just such a cool little moment. Thanks for bringing back those memories, and hey maybe I'll find a way to play all these games again with a new controller and everything. I missed the later entries, and that's just not right.
I started on GH2 when I was around 6 or 7 and I remember being stuck on YYZ on medium for so long that I hated it for a while. When I eventually got it, I started to love it and since my parents were huge Rush fans since long before I was born, I got to grow up with the band. From elementary school when me and my brother saw our first concert all the way through college. As someone who struggles with mental health often, I find that Rush was the band I could listen to that helped me out. From the two concerts I saw and the live DVDs to completing my CD collection by my late best friend. I even have my own pair of Neil Peart signed drumsticks I got from work once just by a random encounter. To say that Rush is tied to not just my life but also my family's would put it lightly, but for me it's I find it funny that GH2 was how I got introduced to my now favorite band. It was nice hearing that we share a similar introduction to Rush through a GH game and how they've both helped us! I stumbled on this video randomly but I enjoyed it nonetheless, I never knew about the Sex Pistols trivia and I love GH3! This deserves a like and a sub, keep it up!
Thank you for this video, Liam. To say I spent a great portion of my childhood playing these games would be an understatement. I still play Rock Band 4 with friends sometimes at parties. I learned to play every instrument on Expert pretty well except the eventual keyboard. I even used to upload UA-cam videos with my terrible Dazzle capture device back in the day 😂 some were FC videos, some just good rankings of gold stars. It's probably the video game I'm overall the best at to this day. So many great memories with these games!
I got Guitar Hero Aerosmith for Christmas back in 2008 for the Nintendo Wii and I was the first out of my friends to get it because everyone else was playing Legends of Rock. Awesome memories.
Man, we're all starting to get nostalgic about these games! I've been working on starting to make a script for a music games video myself. Good job on this one!
That discussion of your experience with leukemia hit pretty hard for me. I lost my mom last year to an accident related to her AML. The platelets was a constant thing. We went to the hospital every week for a transfusion. I’m glad you made it through.
2008 was an odd case for me, as I knew about DragonForce before ever knowing they were in these GH3. Once I had seen Through the Fire and Flames with my own eyes at the end of the bonus setlist in Guitar Hero 3, I had the drive to work through the game's difficulties to pass not only that song, but future DragonForce song inclusions. Their music more than any other band sound like they were made to be in a video game, and when this genre was in its golden age I was begging for that band to get a whole album released for DLC, if not a whole game. It was disappointing that we only got 3 tracks as DLC (in a time where I didn't have the right console for it, nor convenient internet access) and then only Fury of the Storm over 2 years later. I am so thankful though that the people of the internet put in the work to mod GH3PC and learned to make their own rhythm game engine so that this niche game genre can still exist today, even though it's a shadow of what it was commercially. It's because of them that I am still trying to pass the whole DF discography, which gets extremely demanding if you play it on modded GH3 and not Clone Hero.
Fun trivia. When I first played Guitar Hero I was always on Easy and Medium. But as I started learning real guitar, I started trying Hard and Expert. Learning to play guitar actually helped me get better at Guitar Hero and play higher levels
I never got into these kinds of games but my college roommate was OBSESSED with them - even though I didn't play them much, they REALLY remind me of my last two years of college in 2007 and 2008
I think what's understated about rockband/GH is that it was a lot of kids introduction to a lot of rock classics. At least for me personally I still remember learning some of the rockband 1 songs for the first time, or having my dad come down to want to sing/play one of his teenage favorites. It was a late resurgence for a previous generations music which I think is awesome. Keep in mind the only other way to hear these songs back then was listen to them on classic rock radio, buy them on the early iterations of iTunes, or listen to your parents CDs/cassettes/records hahah
Only time I got to play Rock Band (Or Guitar Hero maybe) was one time when a friend brought it over, It was only that one time but it made such an impact that I still haven't forgotten it almost a decade later. I got DJ hero later and I enjoyed my time with it a lot, as It offered a different kind of gameplay to the other games - even allowing you a bit more freedom in expression iirc which was very cool. Loved the video Liam, can't wait for more!
This video is absolutely amazing. Definitely the best video on these games I've watched. I also love your comment about having a Year Zero chapter in a game. While I would love one to be based around The Downward Spiral, Year Zero would make for a much more epic visual and gameplay experience. Anywho, great video!!! I look forward to your future content.
I couldn't agree more that Guitar Hero not only shaped my music tastes but also made me more open to listening to even more artists as I grew older. I don't think these games will ever leave my heart.
I just started the video Liam, I love your content and just wanted to check in as a die hard rhythm game fan and nonstop GH & RB player who has taken up an interest in CloneHero in the modern day, that I will always have a deep place in my heart for all of these games. Thank you for making the content you make! I'm going to start the video now and listen while I work.
I am 28…played guitar hero 1/2 at a friends house and later my dad got GH3. Then we got Rockband and I hogged the drums in our family for 2-3 years and played solo often…long story short got to expert drums on Rockband 1/2. Ended up buying a kit at 12 years old (saved up $500 of the $750 price tag). At 12 years old finally played a real kit already knowing basic beats. Never played rock band again more than 5 times…real life drums took over. After 5 years I was easily 7,000+ hours on the sticks. Another ten years and I’m fairly seasoned. Thank you RockBand
Never knew Liam cared so much abt music, and particularly Rush and the Beatles. I will admit, they deffo took time for me to be artists appreciated and even enjoyed. It was nice hearing your stories and love for music through the experience of playing/replaying these games.
Guitar Hero is a special time capsule that makes me remember a feeling of comforting distraction I don't know what I would have done without in my middle and high school years. I spent the most time with 3 and 4, since that's what my best friend at the time had at his place, but Warriors of Rock is my favorite. There aren't many times I can remember buying a game on release day, but this was one of those rare times. I was anticipating it and begged my dad, knowing we didn't have that much money, to get it. Just practicing to the point of reaching perfection on so many songs was such a special feeling, and the custom songs and DLC packs made it all the more memorable. The social aspect wasn't as strong for me, but I certainly remember my uncle super drunk singing hotel california when we had world tour on at a party.
I started with Guitar Hero 2. It was my introduction to music outside of Rap and R&B. I had no idea there were so many music genre! I swiched over to Rockband becaue I hated Activion (they blocked a patch that would allow Guitar Hero controllers on the PS3 for working with Rockband (this couldn't happen on 360 because that controller was a wires USB cable) I had no idea their was a Guitar Hero 5 or Rockband 3
I saw a great reddit post about the lawsuits over the original Guitar Hero controller a few months ago. Basically while Guitar Freaks only used 3 buttons, some 3rd party controllers included 5 or even 6 buttons either in anticipation of new features or to not be sued for completely stealing the design. Red Octane originally sold one of those 5 key guitars on their website. Harmonix used GF controllers for testing GH, and there's a good chance it was one of those. Problems arrived when Red Octane started suing a company for making clone GH controllers, and that company counter-sued because they're the ones that made the 5 button controller that Red Octane clearly had beforehand. They alleged that their controller was copied for the GH controller, and this was similarly handled out of court.
I heard it in the background, but holy moly is Big Blast Sonic so much fun to play! I paid a prefessional charter to chart it on expert for Clone Hero (personal use) and geeeez. I still have two xplorer controllers.
GH and RB are simply two of the most fun games series ever. They are so damn rewarding. Going from easy in 07 to hard/some expert in 13 is a great journey
My first uploaded video on my channel is of me completing "Through the Fire and Flames" on expert 15 years ago to use as proof, in case someone of my friends didn't believe me. (That's why I pick up the camera and record my face at the end. 😂) I also have to mention that your video was incredibly touching and brought me to tears, it revived so many fond memories from my childhood, thank you!
You said fill your star meter, but what you really meant to say was you FEEL your star power meter full. Such a fun game. I love how video games as art can really touch the child like nature of our souls.
My wife and I still play Guitar Hero together at least once a month. It was a huge deal to us back in the day, and I will forever consider being able to beat Through the Fire and Flames on Expert a major personal achievement
I love all your retrospectives, so let me give you a giant THANK YOU for doing a retrospective on my 2 favorite 3rd party developed video game series. I could say so much about this video, but just to give the the UA-cam traffic you deserve, beside my like, let me comment with my ranking of the Guitar Hero and Rock Band video gaames on console (seperately, of course). GUITAR HERO: 1. Guitar Hero Smash Hits 2. Guitar Hero 3 3. Guitar Hero 2 4. Guitar Hero 1 5. Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock 6. Guitar Hero: World Tour 7. Guitar Hero 5 8. Guitar Hero: Aerosmith 9. Guitar Hero: Metallica 10. Guitar Hero: Van Halen 11. Guitar Hero Encore: Rock the 80s 12. Guitar Hero Live 13. Band Hero ROCK BAND: 1. Rock Band 3 2. Rock Band 2 3. Rock Band 1 4. Beatles Rock Band 5. Green Day Rock Band 6. Lego Rock Band (I've never played Rock Band 4, so I can't comment on it)
I remember getting the first Guitar Hero as a Christmas present, I was a big fan of rhythm games and when I saw GameSpot's review of Guitar Hero I knew I had to get it. I gave hints to my family and because the game was pretty unknown at the time, it wasn't available at any local places, my sister had to drive 3 towns over to a game specialty shop that had 3 bundles total in stock lol. Guitar Hero, Rock Band (and Tony Hawk) shaped my music taste, it's probably why my taste are so wide. Rock Band 3's Pro mode transition me into learning real instruments, I can play real Guitar, Bass and Drums because of that game was the first steps I needed to let me know it was possible. While I like Fortnite Festival and I'm glad Harmonix get to continue making a video game, it's a shame that Rock Band is truly dead... maybe they'll get in Pro Drums to Festival soon lol.
I'm so glad these games are getting a resurgence lately thanks to the Guitar Hero 2 Deluxe and Rock Band Deluxe games along with Clone Hero, YARG, and of course, the latest Fortnite Festival Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero 2 still the goats Gotta thank the Lore Hero guys, Acai, A Wise Moose, 720 Creations, and Jason Paradise for keeping it alive Also thanks to MiloHax for the Deluxe games
I used to play the Guitar Hero games all the time as a kid with my dad. I mostly did the drums and vocals, while he played the guitar, and other times I would just watch him play. It makes me miss these kinds of games, I have so many good memories associated with them.
I just can’t let Rythm games go. I have a DDR machine in my garage, it’s my main form of cardio, I have clone hero set up. Something about these games always captured me. Years after I got into them, a diagnosis of OCD made it really make sense, I just like them putting things where they belong.
I had always wondered what happened to these franchises. I was a kid when they came out, and my first introduction to them was Band Hero on the Wii. I had the Aly&Aj heart shaped guitar the Wii remote strapped in to, and it definitely appealed to me and my family during our Radio Disney days. We then also got Lego Rockband, as well as the Beatles Rockband. We got the full setup, the one the came with The Guitar, as well as the drums and mic. I was not a fan of the Beatles, so I didn’t play but once or twice. But I thoroughly enjoyed Band Hero and the silly Lego Rockband. I honestly believe this series of games inspired my younger brother to pursue music, and now he can play multiple instruments. Sadly, as someone with small hands, I was stuck on beginner mode because, even with the thinnest possible necked guitar, I couldn’t stretch my pinky far enough to hit the button. So on beginner mode I was stuck 😂
Loved both Guitar Hero and Rock Band as a kid, Guitar Hero 3 was my first entry in the series and I have so many memories of it and World Tour. Also Lego Rock Band on the DS is underrated af, it was a mixture of Rock Band and Frequency that was really fun.
Rock Band and Guitar Hero are such 2000's things to me. When I think of that time and my early childhood I think of Halo, Lego Games, and playing Rock Band on the Wii we also got for christmas in 2007
While I think the analysis of the games is actually pretty good. The number of factual errors in this video really keep me from enjoying it. Like saying that World Tour unlocks all songs by default (it does not, that's a World Tour Definitive Edition feature), mixing up Hammer-Ons and Pull-Offs, saying "Like in Rock Band 2" while showing footage of RB3, saying "each octave on the keyboard is color coded" when each octave has two colors (one for C-E and one for F-B). Also just some weird video-making choices like talking about Tap notes in WT without showing footage of them. Also I think the lack of discussion about of the fan-made revivals of the series outside of briefly mentioning Clone Hero (which is sorta in it's dying years at this point) to be very odd. You didn't mention YARG, Rock Band 3 Deluxe or 2 Deluxe, the old GH3 Customs days, Guitar Hero TV Reloaded (which actually lets you play all of the lost GH Live songs), or even talk about WTDE once in the script despite that being the footage you recorded. That being said, the TBRB part was super well written, and the Rush section was super touching. But the rest of the video I felt could have been better researched and edited.
What an absolutely amazing video! Your passion and personal anecdotes took something that I already love and have connected to from an early age and gave me a new perspective and even more appreciation. Thank you for making this video!
Guitar Hero is the reason I started playing real guitar and today it's such a core part of my life that I cannot even begin to imagine a life without being a musician. This was an amazing video mate, the only bad thing is that I REALLY wanna play the game now, and my old Guitar Hero controller is broken. xD
I always felt fascinated by the way Guitar Hero and Rock Band present themselves. I never hated the guest performers in WT and 5 because I always personally thought Guitar Hero games (at least Neversoft era games) were selling the spectacle. Because Guitar Hero World Tour, while it had a lot of similarities to Rock Band 2's setlist, a lot of the songs on there are powerhouses. They got "Hotel California", a notoriously difficult song to license. But it also was the first game to have mocap performances. Some more than others, but some of the performances straight up felt like a concert, like the vocalist when playing "Beat It" moonwalks on stage or the "Bohemian Rhapsody" having the band sing along in the intro replicating Queen. Rock Band sold more on the appreciation and love for the music. That's why they even gave us Rock Band Network, a way for musicians to put themselves out there by just playing their music. The way you can just find this stoner rock band from your hometown in this network really made connecting with others through music that much more awesome.
You're absolutely right about Rock Band drums being able to translate into real drumming. I literally used that game to learn real drums and ended up taking lessons once I realized how good I was getting at Rock Band
When Guitar Hero came out with the drums with cymbals and both titles having the ability to use a splitter to play double kick drums, I directly attribute my immediate ability to play real drums to these games.
I know multiple drummers who learned from Rock Band/Guitar Hero and went on to be career musicians in signed bands. I personally learned from Rock Band and ended up in a touring band for a bit. Now I'm a hobby guy and play 3-5 days a week. None of this would have happened without Rock Band.
As someone who, after 6 years of switching to real drums, is still reeling from how rock band didn’t teach me how to use my left leg for hi hat control and time keeping, I really wish they had something for that on top of everything else though
Oh this is so true. I taught myself how to play drums entirely from these games (as well as understanding how a hi-hat worked)
Yep, I’ve been drumming for 15 years or so thanks to Rock Band
It neeeeeeeds to come back
Rock Band actually got me started on drums in a pretty accurate way. And that led me into other instruments, discovering my favorite bands, and eventually writing and recording music.
Yup unlike guitar, playing on drums will actually teach you how to play real drums decently well
@@EmilForsberg_GRYBO They tried to do this with guitar by releasing the pro guitar, but the original pro guitar was just awful, and was only fully compatible on songs that were made for it.
@@ohno5507 yeah I haven't used one of those, haven't even really heard much, I assumed it was similar to playing Rocksmith or something
@@EmilForsberg_GRYBO not really. The original pro controller had plastic buttons for each fret, and plastic strings for strumming. The neck was really wide and uncomfortable, and it wasn't even a full set of notes, which meant some songs needed a chart different from the actual song. I'm pretty sure those discrepancies are why the pro chart for Through the Fire and Flames is considered impossible to FC. The only real similarity to Rocksmith is it does have a proper training mode, but nowhere near in depth.
They inevitably released a real guitar that had sensors to track your finger placements, but it's not exactly easy to come by these days.
@@ohno5507 that's very interesting, I didn't know that
Dude, I remember when Warriors of Rock first came out, they had a stage set up where you can play the game in front of thousands of people. It was me on Guitar and two other people on Bass and Drums.
We played Bleed it Out by Linkin Park on Expert and the crowd was going wild because we were able to carry a continuous combo throughout the entire song. Good times.
Growing up my siblings and I had Guitar Hero 3, Rock Band 2, and Lego Rock Band (all Wii versions), and we played all of them constantly. Last year one of my brothers and I moved out of my parents’ house, and we took all the old Wii stuff with us. We decided to most of the games and peripherals and split the money. After over a decade of devouring space in the basement, all the Guitar Hero and Rock Band controllers are just gone, and I find something sad about that. This video reminded me how much I love those games.
Dude...this was a RUSH of nostalgia for me. I adore these games, all of them. I spent 1000s of hours mastering every instrument, straining my voice wailing every song. Destroyed so many Rock Band drum sets and using the Penny Mod trick to attempt to revive them whenever I could. So many nights with friends, so many tournaments competing, and so many deeply fond memories. I could talk about these games forever, and love occasionally picking up one of my plastic weapons and shredding for hours. One of my favourite past times was making a band with my two friends, and playing Expert Bass while also singing with a Mic stand.
For me I think my top 3 are Warriors of Rock > Rock Band 3 > Guitar Hero 3. Some incredible DLC was in GH3, including the Top Gun theme, the Halo 2 Mjolnir mix, and I AM MURLOC!
Speaking of, you mentioned Pandora looked like she was ripped straight out of Warcraft. You can actually unlock Arthas Menethil, The Lich King, as a playable a character. AND he uses his Frostmourne as a Guitar. A rare Activision W.
Thank you for doing such a great job at honouring both of these series. I saw that a premium version of the Guitars was being made, the Riffmaster and I cannot WAIT to get my hands on it and relive these games once again. It's crazy how the Drums, Keyboard AND Mic all truly do teach you have to be a musician. I've always loved music, and especially classic rock, but I think these games really made me appreciate the craftsmanship behind creating and mastering it.
Tremendous job dude, very well done. Also RUSH is the best.
“It ain’t easy being cheesy”
-Chester Cheetah
Havent watched the vid yet but when i saw RUSH in all caps i was hoping for a reference. Best band ever
My first impression given the difficulty you play was that this would be a recap from a more casual player's perspective that would miss fine details or struggle to present the aura that was present at the time, but my judgements were quickly put in check. You completely nailed the entirety of it in a unique way nobody else has accomplished so far, especially with presenting the monstrous reach it had to all ages and gifting accurate anecdotes in a way that even someone who had never been connected to the genre can empathise with. All the feelings of the magical revolution when Harmonix struck gold, to the worldwide electricity in the air as it peaked and the overwhelming saturation leading to the downfall were captured by you flawlessly.
HOLY MOLY. Now that is a meme and photo I have not seen in a LONG TIME. Totally not related to your comment but gonna go binge some old school The Creatures stuff now.
You don't even know how much I needed a proper retrospective video on GH & RB like that.
Thank you so much for making it.
Man, that rush story got to me hard 😭
I found out about Guitar Hero through a local tech con called Digital Life Expo. I played it, sucked, but I understood what it was going for. Then, months later, there was a demo setup at Best Buy across two TVs. My friend and I just kept taking turns, and we probably stayed there for 3 hours. Then we spent the rest of the day jumping from store to store to find Guitar Hero.
We ended up finding it back uptown, and the rest was history.
In December of 2008, my parents surprised my brother and me with Guitar Hero World Tour. That game was played in our house almost every day for years. Sometimes one of us, sometimes all of us. There’s not a video game I have more fond memories of playing with my family, it was one of very few games my parents ever played.
Guitar Hero single-handedly taught my brother and me how to play drums well enough to eventually get our own drum kit. I eventually taught myself guitar too.
Playing music has remained a favorite pastime for myself and my brother to this day, and I’m certain we’re not the only people who had this same experience. No other game has had a greater ripple effect into my future than this game did.
We're still around an kicking, keeping this community alive however we can!
If anyone watched this and got an itch to play, Clone Hero and YARG are clone Guitar Hero and Rock Band games that are free and come with some songs out of the gate!
After that you can download whatever songs you'd like from Rhythmverse to play in game!
I've been playing YARG ever since I first heard about it. I previously played Phase Shift which left a lot to be desired to say the least but YARG has improved so much so quickly and unlike Phase Shift it already has vocal support.
For a 34-year old boomer with no talent, discipline and no will to learn real guitar like me. GH and RB were perfect. Had so much fun. Glad to see its spirit lives on with Fortnite Festival. Yeah it's been nerfed af but it's good to see Zoomers or whatever discovering old music and playing their own gen's music
Beatles Rock Band is solidly in my top 5 games of all time. My brother and I have got together and play the whole thing in one session multiple times over the years.
Its a true work of art that you can tell is just dripping with love from every pixel, and has left a massive impact on me and my family.
This has to be the best video on the GH / RB series. You perfectly captured the spirit, the message, the flaws, and the good PERFECTLY! You put it in an easily understandable retrospective video, and I salute you for it. And your own story at the end made this game and video more impactful. I discovered so many new bands and music genres all because of this series. I discovered Pleymo, Filter, Dragonforce, Flyleaf, Lamb Of God, as well as a growing appreciation for NIN, KoRn, Rush, and Smash Mouth!
I truly appreciate this video. I hope this video can help people explore other music genres and play this game or even take rhythm games further by making new concepts!
Thank you for showing the power of music and gaming to light. You deserve so much more attention!
I grew up with Atari 2600, and stopped gaming after SNES. Guitar Hero brought me back to gaming in the PS2 era. A have huge respect and the fondest memories from this franchise
What a fantastic documentary/review of Guitar Hero. I've been a home guitarist for a long time and also a gamer. the GH allowed people who had no musical knowledge to experience something similar to playing a guitar.
As a gamer and guitarist, GH will always remain in my heart because it allowed my passion for Rock, music and the guitar to join the challenge, improvement and personal overcoming that games are known for. Furthermore, it gave rock a rebirth for a new generation.
Talking about a game 20 years after is first release, with so much nostalgia proves that GH, just like Rock, will never die.
I'm glad you agree with the sentiment of "what if full albums could be used as a narrative in future Guitar Hero games." I would like that too. Or at least songs that are 15 or more minutes in length. *cough* Tarkus. I would really like to see Tarkus have its own event in Guitar Hero.
Your segment about 2112 and your trip… really struck a chord with me. (Pun not intended but appreciated.)
Something about Rush, in my darkest moments, has kept me going. This year has been really hard so far, but music/lyrics like theirs and works like yours, Liam, are what slowly reignite that spark in me to create.
I had WoR but didn’t know anything about Rush, fumbled my way through most of it.
I want to find a copy again and give it the honor it deserves. And play the rest of the series while I’m at it. All of this after your video on THPS opened my mind to a series I never knew I’d love as much as I do.
All of that to say, for all your works and writing and such. Thank you. ❤
Your video made me think a lot about those discussions that went on back in the day: was this just the novelty of getting to play along with your favorite songs, karaoke-style? And I had an epiphany while watching this that disproved that and I was nodding along to hear it was the same for you. Before playing Guitar Hero, I didn't have favorite songs. I guess I liked the songs from Disney movies and a few records my parents played, but by the time I was old enough to inherit a wiped version of my big sister's iPod, I only had about 45 songs (and like a third of them were TV show themes). I simply did not engage with music. Then I played Guitar Hero and for the first time I began to *feel* songs. I connected with them and they reached into my core. I didn't just have them as a backing track to something or memorize the lyrics; playing the game made me understand the power of music. Maybe I was just around the right age (Rhythm game-mania peaked when I was in middle school), but to me, every generation has its technology for music. Boomers had the radio. Gen X had MTV. Gen Z has TikTok. And that tiny slice of millennials who were there for the peak, we learned to love music by following those traffic light-esque dots and squares rushing down the screen at us. And we understood.
also, yes I did pick up real drums after becoming the designated drummer in the play group. All it took was a few rudimentary lessons before I was confident at being able to keep time on my own. I was probably the worst irl drummer in my high school jazz program, but I played for two years in a quartet and ensemble and we pulled off some great performances.
Rush is fucking amazing. Lifeson also guest starred in TPB, so they're legit just legends.
This just threw me through a loop. I used to play Guitar Hero AND Rock Band with my family when I was younger. For Rock Band we straight up had a full band going at one point with someone on the mic, someone on the drums, and someone on the guitar. Those were fun days.
I grew up playing with my dad, brother, and uncle. And I even remember when my little cousin was around 4 we gave her the drum sticks and just let her go ham on a song with me on guitar 🎸
@@kotabear0172 That is epic.
I respect the hell out of the Heavy Day jumpscare around the 10 minute mark
Big Blast Sonic immediately after damn Liam I didn't know your game
I got GH Aerosmith for Christmas one year and I loved that game so much I would wake up at like 6:30 on Saturdays to play it. Fast forward a couple years and I’m entering middle school with the option to take some extra curricular classes. My parents suggest I join band. I was reluctant but still did it my 6th grade year anecdotes the rest was history. I did band for nearly 12 years including 5 while in college. I was consistently one of or the best players in my instrument at every level I played, including making All-State in high school.
I think my parents saw how much I enjoyed playing GH and saw a passion for music and saw it as a spring board to learning a real instrument. I’m definitely not the only one who became passionate for music because of this game.
I can’t imagine what my life would have been like if I didn’t get that plastic guitar
I thought I wouldn’t finish an hour long video about something I already know a lot about. But the Rush part got me in tears. You’re one hell of a video essay-er
Such a great video Liam, I feel it's a bit sad seeing that these rhythm games have ultimately been replaced by Clone Hero, but I think for all of us that grew up with Guitar Hero or Rock Band can appreciate what was truly going on at the time :P
Guitar Hero was something of my childhood ever since I first got that Xbox 360 copy of GH2. Holding the Xplorer guitar for the first time has been such a positive memory of childhood since forever and I still to this day remember how much it hurt when I played the guitar wrong for so long that I got a full blister on my thumb from purely SLIDING the strum-bar. Yet I wanted to just keep playing but all that time waiting for it to heal was so tantalizing! This video has motivated me to revisit all the past games as well, this video was awesome and it was lovely to see another person's perspective on the entire series of these games and remind me of the positive things of my childhood. Thank you.
Got a blister on your strumming thumb? Play with your index and middle fingers instead!
Ive been playing drums for 14 years and i started by playong Rock Band and Guitar hero on drums. I still use it to this day with Clone Hero. The drums do translate so well when you get the feel for it all
This was a really well made video Liam. It's almost like a documentary going through the history of it all while also being on the receiving end of the product.
My family also played this game a lot. We only had Guitar Hero: World Tour and Band Hero but they were still a lot of fun to play and I got into some bands from these two games. They exposed me to pop punk and I got interested in the sound without realizing it. I would discover pop punk on my own later on but it at least got me familiar with some of the iconic songs. See, my family loves classic rock and I grew up sheltered so I didn't really have a music taste of my own and I wasn't really a fan of classic rock and 80's pop. So I played the game because it was fun to play but not because I liked the music. And the career mode wasn't really that much fun to play since the game was more fun with others so I didn't get to explore the songs either. However, with Band Hero that kind of shifted because there was only so many songs on there and I got to explore my own taste on there. We would make a setlist of 5 songs and each person could pick a song and that's how i started to pick more songs I wanted to hear. The story of the music game was also really interesting for picking an instrument. See my parents switched off the singing. My siblings and I tried it but neither of us really liked it nor knew how to sing. My brother started on the drums, I started on the guitar, and my sister played the bass cause the guitar controller didn't really mesh with her and she struggled to play it. As it went on, i started getting better at guitar and got up to hard/expert. I couldn't play expert on the hard songs but I could on the easier ones but I could play hard pretty reliably on every song. My sister ended up learning the drums and got up to a medium difficulty. And my brother liked playing all the instruments (being the one who was in band in hs) but we would regularly challenge each other on guitar to see who could get the highest score since he could play on hard also (though he struggled to keep up with my scores.) And I was getting ready to try vocals while playing guitar on the songs I knew by heart before we all stopped playing it. It's a fond memory I have for a family that's been torn by a late divorce (when I was halfway through college, my brother graduated college, and my sister just finishing hs). These games mark a time when we did feel like a family and doesn't feel like the divorce can touch it. Idk if that's a reason why I want to play them again or if it's because of the gameplay. Maybe both. But I also know the game will never be the same for me, much like for others. It's locked in time. I can say that it hit this itch of me wanting to be a rock star. I mean, how cool is it to play a song in front of people and provide an experience they'll never forget. How fun it is to sing songs and make music together. While I'm not performer, I do think it inspired my love for music but it also let me know that I'm not a musician. It was just a daydream. My guitar collected dust in my room despite these games. But I did fall in love with music partly because of this game and the making of music in a way. This game didn't directly lead me down the road I'm on but I can't deny that there was probably some sort of subconscious influence on me from it. Today, I'm a music producer. I can play guitar to a campfire level and I'm currently slowly learning bass. I did learn piano a decent amount but didn't have a way to practice for some years and I'm trying to get into the habit of teaching myself again. But I always do think back to this game whenever I'm having difficulty with an instrument. Learn it like it was guitar hero.
I also feel this franchise is done for and possibly at home rhythm games as a whole. The amount of money to buy these controllers is a lot and then you also have to think about the space they take up, especially the drums. Most people got rid of these and or used them until they couldn't and then they weren't replaced. Like this type of thing just doesn't seem possible to happen again to me. It seems like a relic of the past to be able to get families to purchase all of this. You need a console, a decent size tv, the game, two guitars, a drum set, and a usb mic to play as a full band. It's just so much. Clone hero feels like the future of the series for a long time.
Man I was just talking about this with my friends last night, the timing of this video is amazing. I miss the days of Rock band and DJ hero soooo much. I would play it for hours and hours growing up. Thanks for letting me remember it again to remember the good old days when Rhythm games were in mainstream for just a little while.
I remember my first experience with Guitar Hero. It was at the peak of 2's popularity and my nephew who is a savant invited me over to try it. As soon as I sat in front of the TV, he slapped a plastic guitar into my hands and put it on hard difficulty. Being a guitarist already, I was familiar with the game on a mechanical level and it was so addictive that once preorders started for Guitar Hero III I pre-ordered it and on the night I got it, we stayed up all night playing it on expert. I also thought it was really weird that there were so many songs shared between GHWT and Rock Band 2. In fact I work at Walmart and we had a drum set and guitar set up for people to play a demo version of RB2. I also wanna say that I was a GH loyalist but I absolutely loved Rock Band's diversity. I never would have known about Garbage, Modest Mouse, and many others had it not been for that game. Warriors and Metallica are my favorite games overall.
Just wanna say your video essays are some of the best out there. I never really played guitar hero aside from one night camping with my high school girlfriend (A very fond memory) but the way you pace these videos keeps them informative, entertaining, and heartfelt without feeling the need to use dramatic music or put on a sad voice. You're probably the only video essayist I know that can make me tear up a bit over a game series I've barely even touched aside from Fortnite festival. Good stuff as always, keep it up
Man... I've spent so many hours with guitar hero and rock band through my high school and college years. So many great times with friends jamming out. A great little setup at parties.
This stuff inspired me to pick up the guitar and drums for real. But sometimes I still get the urge to break out the plastic instruments lol.
I just had a crazy idea that I wish the genre were still around for. Imagine this game - Rock Band: Live Aid.
Imagining the Queen set alone makes me misty-eyed. Someone needs to make this happen.
Seeing as how you lightly touched upon guitar freaks, I'd like to mention that by GFDM XG, the games had included a 4th and 5th fret button on the guitars with another rebranding into Gitadora not too long after. The series still lives on to this day, with the latest installment; Gitadora Galaxy Wave having been released about a month or two ago.
The major difference between Gitadora and Rock hero/guitar band is the emphasis on strict timing windows, wailing, original music, and a finer detail of keysound quality instead of sheer note density with windows as wide as a bus, emphasis on combo and multipliers, and licensed music. To see a rough equivalent to GH's hardest charts like through the fire and the flames, search either ichimoudajin (一網打尽) or Saiph on master difficulty.
i found this game so cool back then.
i grew up with a lot of classic rock and metal so hearing certain songs like War Pigs made me light up.
at the time i was looking for some heavier music (still am) so i was pretty into death metal.
i ended up falling in love with Dethklok and seeing Thunderhorse in guitar hero 2 made me so happy.
most i was ever able to play was hard, but i can play a good chunk of the song on the actual guitar.
also i would have cried as well after playing 2112, but cuz it's a 20+ min long epic song
This was a really great watch. That part at the end about listening to Rush in the car hit me quite hard - I know the feeling of music helping you cope with bad health news all too well.
As for the games? This was really interesting as I think I have a bit of a unique relationship with the series. I've played guitar since I was quite young so I always found it really frustrating as the charts never lined up with what I knew my left hand should be doing! That being said - playing it with friends was always a lot of fun and World Tour in particular got a lot of rotation because of the track list.
I would like to point out that the “ugly brown color” of the rock band guitar is still accurate to a guitar, guitars often have a maple neck with a maple fretboard like the one rock band guitar, but sometimes the fretboard is an exotic wood that is a darker shade of brown
I miss guitar hero. Rockband ever was a big part of me and my friends lives. But I've been playing guitar for 17 years. Thanks to guitar hero.
Very nice touch using lyrics from 2112 and various Beatles and Cure songs for chapter titles. It makes my inner music buff very happy 😊
The Rush story at the end was very touching, I appreciate you sharing it
After listening to the ending before the conclusion, I honestly shed a tear. I have only discovered your channel in the past few months but man, your way of telling stories about games and the impacts they had in your life are so catching and sometimes even greatly inspiring.
Without rambling on even more I just wanted to say: You are a real one, thank you for posting Videos! ❤
Man, thank you for this retrospective. These are my favorite games ever, honestly. You echoed so much of how these games made me feel, too, and I was touched by your RNR HOF story and how much Rush's music holds a special place for you. Great video on a series that I also hope will have a revival down the road.
Even though I only played LEGO Rock Band on the DS, I get why are those two series so beloved. I love rhythm games and I had a blast playing LEGO Rock Band. So many amazing songs (compressed by the DS lmao) and I was surprised how good I was getting at those harder difficulties by playing more and more. The DS version only uses LEFT, UP, X and A buttons to hit notes and L, R for changing instruments. And if you change to drums for example, the music focuses more on the percussion, making other instruments and vocals quieter. Also it contains the theme song from my most favourite film The Devil Wears Prada - Suddenly I See by KT Tunstall
Huuuge part of my early teen years. This was such a treat to revisit these iconic games
Bruh - fanTAStic video. Brings back lots of memories. Just one nitpick: you forgot the whammy bar!! It's a rad little addition and helps you get star power faster on sustain notes.
this was an amazing video! brought back so much nostalgia of me and my family playing all the rockband and guitar hero games my dad collected. i screamed when you mentioned the beatles rock band, its definetly me and my fams favorite being a group of people who grew up and all the beatles music for many years (and being a very music oriented family as well). we still play all these games everytime we go and visit my parents and i think to whoever grew up with these games such as myself theyve become a staple even in the later years of our lives :)
An engaging opening as always, diving in now. Glad to see a new retrospective, and looking forward to the next!
These games really shaped my music journey throughout childhood. I remember once playing GH3 co-op with a friend, we had just finished the last battle and... I was playing on Expert. When Through The Fire and the Flames hit I was nowhere near good enough to beat the song, but I took the challenge and struggled to try.
Part of what motivated me was that not only had my friend stopped, but their little sibling came by JUST TO WATCH MY FINGERS and I knew even though I was failing the song I was giving it my best. It was just such a cool little moment.
Thanks for bringing back those memories, and hey maybe I'll find a way to play all these games again with a new controller and everything. I missed the later entries, and that's just not right.
liam this video is so awesome. keep doing what you do man, i love it.
Dude thanks for dropping this. Watching now. These games were my young adult years. I miss them so much!
I started on GH2 when I was around 6 or 7 and I remember being stuck on YYZ on medium for so long that I hated it for a while. When I eventually got it, I started to love it and since my parents were huge Rush fans since long before I was born, I got to grow up with the band. From elementary school when me and my brother saw our first concert all the way through college.
As someone who struggles with mental health often, I find that Rush was the band I could listen to that helped me out. From the two concerts I saw and the live DVDs to completing my CD collection by my late best friend. I even have my own pair of Neil Peart signed drumsticks I got from work once just by a random encounter. To say that Rush is tied to not just my life but also my family's would put it lightly, but for me it's I find it funny that GH2 was how I got introduced to my now favorite band. It was nice hearing that we share a similar introduction to Rush through a GH game and how they've both helped us!
I stumbled on this video randomly but I enjoyed it nonetheless, I never knew about the Sex Pistols trivia and I love GH3! This deserves a like and a sub, keep it up!
Thank you for this video, Liam. To say I spent a great portion of my childhood playing these games would be an understatement. I still play Rock Band 4 with friends sometimes at parties. I learned to play every instrument on Expert pretty well except the eventual keyboard. I even used to upload UA-cam videos with my terrible Dazzle capture device back in the day 😂 some were FC videos, some just good rankings of gold stars. It's probably the video game I'm overall the best at to this day. So many great memories with these games!
I got Guitar Hero Aerosmith for Christmas back in 2008 for the Nintendo Wii and I was the first out of my friends to get it because everyone else was playing Legends of Rock.
Awesome memories.
I appreciate your perspective on Rush. A truly incredible band and I’m glad they helped you the way they helped so many others.
The only retrospective I have been waiting for.
Man, we're all starting to get nostalgic about these games! I've been working on starting to make a script for a music games video myself.
Good job on this one!
That discussion of your experience with leukemia hit pretty hard for me. I lost my mom last year to an accident related to her AML. The platelets was a constant thing. We went to the hospital every week for a transfusion. I’m glad you made it through.
2008 was an odd case for me, as I knew about DragonForce before ever knowing they were in these GH3. Once I had seen Through the Fire and Flames with my own eyes at the end of the bonus setlist in Guitar Hero 3, I had the drive to work through the game's difficulties to pass not only that song, but future DragonForce song inclusions. Their music more than any other band sound like they were made to be in a video game, and when this genre was in its golden age I was begging for that band to get a whole album released for DLC, if not a whole game. It was disappointing that we only got 3 tracks as DLC (in a time where I didn't have the right console for it, nor convenient internet access) and then only Fury of the Storm over 2 years later. I am so thankful though that the people of the internet put in the work to mod GH3PC and learned to make their own rhythm game engine so that this niche game genre can still exist today, even though it's a shadow of what it was commercially. It's because of them that I am still trying to pass the whole DF discography, which gets extremely demanding if you play it on modded GH3 and not Clone Hero.
Fun trivia. When I first played Guitar Hero I was always on Easy and Medium. But as I started learning real guitar, I started trying Hard and Expert. Learning to play guitar actually helped me get better at Guitar Hero and play higher levels
I never got into these kinds of games but my college roommate was OBSESSED with them - even though I didn't play them much, they REALLY remind me of my last two years of college in 2007 and 2008
Your Zelda videos were always on at work when I was in my deepest depression. You sir, have done your job. Thank you!
I think what's understated about rockband/GH is that it was a lot of kids introduction to a lot of rock classics. At least for me personally I still remember learning some of the rockband 1 songs for the first time, or having my dad come down to want to sing/play one of his teenage favorites. It was a late resurgence for a previous generations music which I think is awesome. Keep in mind the only other way to hear these songs back then was listen to them on classic rock radio, buy them on the early iterations of iTunes, or listen to your parents CDs/cassettes/records hahah
Only time I got to play Rock Band (Or Guitar Hero maybe) was one time when a friend brought it over, It was only that one time but it made such an impact that I still haven't forgotten it almost a decade later.
I got DJ hero later and I enjoyed my time with it a lot, as It offered a different kind of gameplay to the other games - even allowing you a bit more freedom in expression iirc which was very cool.
Loved the video Liam, can't wait for more!
This video is absolutely amazing. Definitely the best video on these games I've watched. I also love your comment about having a Year Zero chapter in a game. While I would love one to be based around The Downward Spiral, Year Zero would make for a much more epic visual and gameplay experience. Anywho, great video!!! I look forward to your future content.
I couldn't agree more that Guitar Hero not only shaped my music tastes but also made me more open to listening to even more artists as I grew older. I don't think these games will ever leave my heart.
I just started the video Liam, I love your content and just wanted to check in as a die hard rhythm game fan and nonstop GH & RB player who has taken up an interest in CloneHero in the modern day, that I will always have a deep place in my heart for all of these games. Thank you for making the content you make! I'm going to start the video now and listen while I work.
I am 28…played guitar hero 1/2 at a friends house and later my dad got GH3. Then we got Rockband and I hogged the drums in our family for 2-3 years and played solo often…long story short got to expert drums on Rockband 1/2. Ended up buying a kit at 12 years old (saved up $500 of the $750 price tag). At 12 years old finally played a real kit already knowing basic beats. Never played rock band again more than 5 times…real life drums took over. After 5 years I was easily 7,000+ hours on the sticks. Another ten years and I’m fairly seasoned.
Thank you RockBand
This showed me classic bangers, introduced me to new cool bands, and definitely taught me rhythm at least
Never knew Liam cared so much abt music, and particularly Rush and the Beatles. I will admit, they deffo took time for me to be artists appreciated and even enjoyed. It was nice hearing your stories and love for music through the experience of playing/replaying these games.
Guitar Hero is a special time capsule that makes me remember a feeling of comforting distraction I don't know what I would have done without in my middle and high school years. I spent the most time with 3 and 4, since that's what my best friend at the time had at his place, but Warriors of Rock is my favorite. There aren't many times I can remember buying a game on release day, but this was one of those rare times. I was anticipating it and begged my dad, knowing we didn't have that much money, to get it. Just practicing to the point of reaching perfection on so many songs was such a special feeling, and the custom songs and DLC packs made it all the more memorable. The social aspect wasn't as strong for me, but I certainly remember my uncle super drunk singing hotel california when we had world tour on at a party.
I started with Guitar Hero 2. It was my introduction to music outside of Rap and R&B. I had no idea there were so many music genre!
I swiched over to Rockband becaue I hated Activion (they blocked a patch that would allow Guitar Hero controllers on the PS3 for working with Rockband (this couldn't happen on 360 because that controller was a wires USB cable)
I had no idea their was a Guitar Hero 5 or Rockband 3
I saw a great reddit post about the lawsuits over the original Guitar Hero controller a few months ago. Basically while Guitar Freaks only used 3 buttons, some 3rd party controllers included 5 or even 6 buttons either in anticipation of new features or to not be sued for completely stealing the design. Red Octane originally sold one of those 5 key guitars on their website. Harmonix used GF controllers for testing GH, and there's a good chance it was one of those. Problems arrived when Red Octane started suing a company for making clone GH controllers, and that company counter-sued because they're the ones that made the 5 button controller that Red Octane clearly had beforehand. They alleged that their controller was copied for the GH controller, and this was similarly handled out of court.
I heard it in the background, but holy moly is Big Blast Sonic so much fun to play! I paid a prefessional charter to chart it on expert for Clone Hero (personal use) and geeeez. I still have two xplorer controllers.
GH and RB are simply two of the most fun games series ever. They are so damn rewarding. Going from easy in 07 to hard/some expert in 13 is a great journey
My first uploaded video on my channel is of me completing "Through the Fire and Flames" on expert 15 years ago to use as proof, in case someone of my friends didn't believe me. (That's why I pick up the camera and record my face at the end. 😂)
I also have to mention that your video was incredibly touching and brought me to tears, it revived so many fond memories from my childhood, thank you!
As someone who still plays several Guitar Hero games on my 360, thank you for this video!
You said fill your star meter, but what you really meant to say was you FEEL your star power meter full. Such a fun game. I love how video games as art can really touch the child like nature of our souls.
My wife and I still play Guitar Hero together at least once a month. It was a huge deal to us back in the day, and I will forever consider being able to beat Through the Fire and Flames on Expert a major personal achievement
Oh heck yeah, these games were my jam and was always fascinated by their downfall.
Music connects us all! Love that story of you listening to Rush with your librarian
Need to listen to albums with strangers more often
I love all your retrospectives, so let me give you a giant THANK YOU for doing a retrospective on my 2 favorite 3rd party developed video game series. I could say so much about this video, but just to give the the UA-cam traffic you deserve, beside my like, let me comment with my ranking of the Guitar Hero and Rock Band video gaames on console (seperately, of course).
GUITAR HERO:
1. Guitar Hero Smash Hits
2. Guitar Hero 3
3. Guitar Hero 2
4. Guitar Hero 1
5. Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock
6. Guitar Hero: World Tour
7. Guitar Hero 5
8. Guitar Hero: Aerosmith
9. Guitar Hero: Metallica
10. Guitar Hero: Van Halen
11. Guitar Hero Encore: Rock the 80s
12. Guitar Hero Live
13. Band Hero
ROCK BAND:
1. Rock Band 3
2. Rock Band 2
3. Rock Band 1
4. Beatles Rock Band
5. Green Day Rock Band
6. Lego Rock Band
(I've never played Rock Band 4, so I can't comment on it)
I used to play Frequency as a kid, I had no idea it was Harmonix. I've tried to remember what the game was called for ages, thanks!
I remember getting the first Guitar Hero as a Christmas present, I was a big fan of rhythm games and when I saw GameSpot's review of Guitar Hero I knew I had to get it. I gave hints to my family and because the game was pretty unknown at the time, it wasn't available at any local places, my sister had to drive 3 towns over to a game specialty shop that had 3 bundles total in stock lol. Guitar Hero, Rock Band (and Tony Hawk) shaped my music taste, it's probably why my taste are so wide. Rock Band 3's Pro mode transition me into learning real instruments, I can play real Guitar, Bass and Drums because of that game was the first steps I needed to let me know it was possible. While I like Fortnite Festival and I'm glad Harmonix get to continue making a video game, it's a shame that Rock Band is truly dead... maybe they'll get in Pro Drums to Festival soon lol.
Great to hear about your visit to my hometown, Cleveland. Drop by anytime
“At least we’re not Detroit!”
The audible “YES!” I just let out…one of my favorite gaming series n the series that helped explore my musical tastes
I'm so glad these games are getting a resurgence lately thanks to the Guitar Hero 2 Deluxe and Rock Band Deluxe games along with Clone Hero, YARG, and of course, the latest Fortnite Festival
Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero 2 still the goats
Gotta thank the Lore Hero guys, Acai, A Wise Moose, 720 Creations, and Jason Paradise for keeping it alive
Also thanks to MiloHax for the Deluxe games
I used to play the Guitar Hero games all the time as a kid with my dad. I mostly did the drums and vocals, while he played the guitar, and other times I would just watch him play. It makes me miss these kinds of games, I have so many good memories associated with them.
Always great to see what you cover next!
just starting the video, and I love the use of Rush 2112 lyrics for chapter titles.
I just can’t let Rythm games go. I have a DDR machine in my garage, it’s my main form of cardio, I have clone hero set up. Something about these games always captured me. Years after I got into them, a diagnosis of OCD made it really make sense, I just like them putting things where they belong.
Rock band introduced me to the band Phoenix and haven’t stopped listening to them since. It’s been about 15 years
LOVE to see Trogdor getting some love in this. :D
I had always wondered what happened to these franchises. I was a kid when they came out, and my first introduction to them was Band Hero on the Wii. I had the Aly&Aj heart shaped guitar the Wii remote strapped in to, and it definitely appealed to me and my family during our Radio Disney days. We then also got Lego Rockband, as well as the Beatles Rockband. We got the full setup, the one the came with The Guitar, as well as the drums and mic. I was not a fan of the Beatles, so I didn’t play but once or twice. But I thoroughly enjoyed Band Hero and the silly Lego Rockband. I honestly believe this series of games inspired my younger brother to pursue music, and now he can play multiple instruments.
Sadly, as someone with small hands, I was stuck on beginner mode because, even with the thinnest possible necked guitar, I couldn’t stretch my pinky far enough to hit the button. So on beginner mode I was stuck 😂
Loved both Guitar Hero and Rock Band as a kid, Guitar Hero 3 was my first entry in the series and I have so many memories of it and World Tour. Also Lego Rock Band on the DS is underrated af, it was a mixture of Rock Band and Frequency that was really fun.
Rock Band and Guitar Hero are such 2000's things to me. When I think of that time and my early childhood I think of Halo, Lego Games, and playing Rock Band on the Wii we also got for christmas in 2007
While I think the analysis of the games is actually pretty good. The number of factual errors in this video really keep me from enjoying it. Like saying that World Tour unlocks all songs by default (it does not, that's a World Tour Definitive Edition feature), mixing up Hammer-Ons and Pull-Offs, saying "Like in Rock Band 2" while showing footage of RB3, saying "each octave on the keyboard is color coded" when each octave has two colors (one for C-E and one for F-B). Also just some weird video-making choices like talking about Tap notes in WT without showing footage of them.
Also I think the lack of discussion about of the fan-made revivals of the series outside of briefly mentioning Clone Hero (which is sorta in it's dying years at this point) to be very odd. You didn't mention YARG, Rock Band 3 Deluxe or 2 Deluxe, the old GH3 Customs days, Guitar Hero TV Reloaded (which actually lets you play all of the lost GH Live songs), or even talk about WTDE once in the script despite that being the footage you recorded.
That being said, the TBRB part was super well written, and the Rush section was super touching. But the rest of the video I felt could have been better researched and edited.
What an absolutely amazing video! Your passion and personal anecdotes took something that I already love and have connected to from an early age and gave me a new perspective and even more appreciation. Thank you for making this video!
I hope this series comes back again.
Guitar Hero is the reason I started playing real guitar and today it's such a core part of my life that I cannot even begin to imagine a life without being a musician. This was an amazing video mate, the only bad thing is that I REALLY wanna play the game now, and my old Guitar Hero controller is broken. xD
Still play GH 1-5 on the PS2. Earlier today even. GH3 is near and dear to my heart.
I always felt fascinated by the way Guitar Hero and Rock Band present themselves. I never hated the guest performers in WT and 5 because I always personally thought Guitar Hero games (at least Neversoft era games) were selling the spectacle. Because Guitar Hero World Tour, while it had a lot of similarities to Rock Band 2's setlist, a lot of the songs on there are powerhouses. They got "Hotel California", a notoriously difficult song to license. But it also was the first game to have mocap performances. Some more than others, but some of the performances straight up felt like a concert, like the vocalist when playing "Beat It" moonwalks on stage or the "Bohemian Rhapsody" having the band sing along in the intro replicating Queen.
Rock Band sold more on the appreciation and love for the music. That's why they even gave us Rock Band Network, a way for musicians to put themselves out there by just playing their music. The way you can just find this stoner rock band from your hometown in this network really made connecting with others through music that much more awesome.