By Cody Webb

Do you remember your favorite songs from the first few Guitar Heroes? Do you wish you could play the more popular songs from each of them, but you own a 360 and don’t feel like digging out your old PS2 guitar controller? Well, you should feel lucky, because that seems to be the goal of the newest Guitar Hero game: Smash Hits.

Don’t buy Smash Hits if you’re looking forward to playing new songs, you’ll be sorely disappointed if you’ve played the first few GH games. It’s called “Smash Hits” for a reason: it only consists of the fan favorite songs from GH’s past. Not only does it bring back these fantastic songs, they’ve even reworked them so they can be played on the drums and sung as well.

The gameplay hasn’t changed at all, which isn’t a bad thing if you enjoyed World Tour and Metallica. The open-bass notes, tapping sections and double-kick pedal notes add more challenge to the tracks. Anyone who played “Monkey Wrench” from Guitar Hero 2 will find that it is much more difficult on Smash Hits. This, however, can be a good or a bad thing depending on the tastes of the player.

The visuals have likewise remained the same, although that isn’t a negative point, either. Personally, I’m not the biggest fan of Guitar Hero’s character models, but that doesn’t mean they’re bad. The bottom line is that if you liked the characters in World Tour and Metallica, you’ll like the ones here.

A good decision on behalf of Neversoft was to dump the annoying career mode of World Tour for the friendlier style of Metallica’s star-based mode. The character and song creator remain as well; and aspiring musicians can still play songs that other players create through GHTunes. One of the stranger design choices would be the inability to play the DLC from World Tour, effectively cutting down on the replayability of Smash Hits.

Ultimately, Smash Hits feels hollow; sure, the songs are great, but there’s really no point to pay full price just to play them again. Some of the best songs are missing as well (I’m looking at you “Hangar 18”)! The existing tracks occasionally feel like they’re just exercising your fingers instead of soothing your ears.

Would I recommend buying it, however? That depends, really. If you’ve never played the first few GH games, like if you have a 360 since the first Guitar Hero and Rocks the 80s were PS2-only, or if you really, really love these songs you could probably justify the sixty dollar price. If you’ve played all of the GH games, though, it’s not worth the full-price admission fee.

The ideal way to play Smash Hits would be to bring three of your bandmates together and rent it. Then you can settle in for a weekend of rocking nostalgia and fond memories without putting too much of a dent in your wallet. Guitar Hero: Smash Hits gets a C+; and remember to start saving up for Guitar Hero 5!

Cody Webb is a 2008 graduate of Suwannee High School.