Review: ‘Guitar Hero 5′ makes kicking out the jams easier than ever

‘Guitar Hero 5′ makes rocking out easier than ever

A few suggestions for the folks who acquire the songs for “Guitar Hero”:

—How about a moratorium on Kiss? They were lousy when they started, and their songs haven’t gotten better with time.

—Why so little love for punk and New Wave? Dozens of neglected, guitar-centric bands of the late ’70s and early ’80s await your call.

—Can you dig a little deeper into the funk archive? Wannabe bassists are definitely up for the challenge.

Such quibbles aside, the 85 tracks in “Guitar Hero 5″ (Activision, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, $59.99; PlayStation 2, $39.99) do cover more subgenres of rock than any radio station. You get classic rockers (the Rolling Stones, David Bowie), ’70s meatheads (Grand Funk Railroad, Deep Purple), alt-rock icons (Bush, Smashing Pumpkins) and up-and-comers (Muse, Kings of Leon).

Including spinoffs, “GH5″ is the franchise’s 12th console entry in five years, and there are signs of burnout: sliding sales, fan grousing, an ad campaign featuring Hugh Hefner and a posse of Playboy Playmates. (Way to turn off half your audience, Activision.) A two-for-one promotion — buy this game and you get “Guitar Hero: Van Halen” free in December — demonstrates the publisher’s concern, but “GH5″ does deliver some new tricks.

The focus this time is on social gaming, which “Guitar Hero” kick-started before the advent of Wii bowling leagues. Everything in “GH5″ is built around party play: People can drop in and out of songs without messing up their friends’ performances, and you can switch instruments or difficulty level mid-song. You can also mix any combination of instruments, so if everyone wants to play lead guitar, it’s cool.

All the tunes are available right from the start, so there’s nothing to unlock before your friends come over. And there’s a “Rockfest” mode that lets friends compete in a variety of challenges, such as “Momentum,” in which the difficulty increases depending on your performance.

All this makes “GH5″ the most accessible game in the series yet; it’s like having an interactive jukebox in your living room.

It’s less satisfying if you’re a solo player. The career mode isn’t as involving or addictive as that in “Rock Band”; instead of performing sets around the world, you can simply plow through the tracks, one by one, in a few hours. Each song has an instrument-specific challenge, like stringing chords or drumbeats together, so there is some incentive to tackle songs more than once.

As usual, Activision has invited some guest stars: Playable characters include Johnny Cash, Kurt Cobain and Carlos Santana. And in the Xbox 360 version, you can have all three combine in the ultimate backup band for your Xbox Live avatar. Long live rock. Three stars out of four.

On the Net:

hub.guitarhero.com/games/gh5/