Man they killed the mechanics of the game big time. I am not the kind of person who just hates change, but honestly I don't really see the "fun" in this. I've played a shameful amount of guitar hero and rockband in my time and honestly the only "changes" I ever thought they needed was perhaps a new engine to make things look better (specifically guitar hero), and more songs in general that don't break the bank (which is an unrealistic wish). But this.....just no.
The changes are actually exactly what some leaks said Guitar Hero 7 was going to be. They described a switch to guitar-only with a six button guitar and some vague things about music videos. I get the feeling that all they did was take Guitar Hero 7 off the shelf in response to Rock Band 4 being announced. Also, I have a different concern over the FMV thing. Well, two concerns. The first is that we're not getting custom characters, which has always been a pretty big appeal for me for Rock Band and the later Guitar Heroes. The second is, unless the setlist is tiny, I don't see how they can give the illusion of the band playing music just because of disc space. Because the crowd and the rest of the band are supposed to react to how well you're playing, that means there has to be a lot of variation in how the videos can go, which means that more disc space is required. I actually expect the band to not be in sync with the songs because of how unfeasible it would be to do that, which is ridiculously distracting. EDIT: Ok, seeing the footage, the transition between doing good and doing poorly is blatantly obvious. This does address my concern of syncing the band to the music, but my other concerns stand On top of a new concern. Watching the video didn't give me the illusion of playing guitar on stage, it made it look like someone was on stage swinging around a camera.
Um....Activision does know that Rock Band 4 is a thing, right? What are they even thinking with this game? FMV's instead of actually rendering character models and instruments and backgrounds? A new controller layout that's neither the original 6-button guitar nor a real 6-string? No carry-over DLC? This is just a stupid idea if you ask me. Guitar Hero's been done for me since Harmonix moved on.
And Activision's habit of preferring bad popular pop songs over what would actually be fun to play continues. Seriously, Skrillex? At least Fall Out Boy makes some level of sense.
Here's what I get from that footage: I ****ing HATE Fall Out Boy. Seriously, Activision has done nothing to make this game look interesting to me.