Guitar Hero tries to rock the 1980s, but ends up a little short on star power.

Speaking personally, I am a huge Guitar Hero fan. It was the first and really the only rhythm game that I ever got into and I would credit it for dramatically improving my taste in music. Which is why I was really excited when it was first announced that there was to be a Guitar Hero that focused only on one of my personal favorite ages of music, the 1980s.

It didn’t even bother me that it was only going to be an expansion pack with a relatively small set list because one would assume that an expansion pack means less content for less money. Unfortunately the people over at Harmonix didn’t agree with common sense and ended up putting the full fifty dollar price tag on a Guitar Hero game with only thirty songs, the same venues that were in Guitar Hero 2 (minus two), the same characters that were in Guitar Hero 2 (minus five), even the same interface as Guitar Hero 2. Oh, but everything has been tweaked slightly to give it that 80’s look. Hooray.

By reading this review, I’m assuming that you’re already an established Guitar Hero fan and that I don’t need to go over how the game is played. If that assumption is wrong, I’d highly recommend you pass over this game for now and check out our reviews for the first two Guitar Hero games. The only people seriously considering laying down fifty bucks for this expansion pack should be the hardcore Guitar Hero fans that are desperate for that last fix of new material before Guitar Hero 3 and Rock Band come out later this year. The main focus of this review is going to be the only thing that’s really new about Rocks the 80’s, and that is the set list and how much fun it is to play through.

So what songs do we have here? Well to be honest, the set list isn’t that bad. You have some classic 80s metal bands like Iron Maiden, Twisted Sister, Poison, Skid Row, Quiet Riot, Ratt, Judas Priest, and Anthrax among others lending some truly great songs to the game. The problem lies with both the obvious bands they left out and some of the more curious choices that they left in. 80’s Gods of rock like Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Aerosmith, Rush, and Guns n’ Roses just to name a few all got the shaft while bands like The Go-Go’s, Scandal, Father Pussycat, Accept, Limozeen, and The Romantics all found comfortable places on the track list.

Now don’t get me wrong, “What I Like About You” by The Romantics is a great song, but it’s simply not that fun to play on a game like Guitar Hero. Especially when the note chart designers decide to be evil and have you switching between three button chords for practically the whole song.