14 Awesome Changes in Guitar Hero 5's Multiplayer Explained in Depth

Guitar Hero 5 Wii: Career Lobby - Searching for Online Players

Guitar Hero's multiplayer modes have always left something to be desired.  In past GH games, players complained of:

• Players fighting over "who gets stuck playing Bass guitar"
• Rude players hogging Star Power
• Difficulty finding opponents online
• Extreme difficulty finding a 4 player match, since Guitarists outweighed Vocalists by about 500:1
• Rude players could skip past the match score/results screen, denying other players a chance to see the results after a game
• No way to continue playing with a fun opponent on a different game mode (for instance, going from Co-op to Pro Face-Off)

Guitar Hero 5 addresses these complaints in a big way!  Read on for more details:

4-8 Player Pro Face Offs in Guitar Hero 5 Pack the Thrill of a GH Tournament

This is huge. If you thought the 2 player PFO's in Guitar Hero 3, Guitar Hero World Tour, Guitar Hero Metallica, and Guitar Hero Smash Hits were fun, wait until you try a 4-8 player Pro Face Off in GH5.  It's quite a thrill, leaving you feeling more like you're in a huge Guitar Hero tournament than a simple head-to-head match.  Beating 1 player is alright, but beating 7 players puts a feather in your cap! The game has a "1st/2nd/3rd/etc." indicator next to your note highway that glows when your position changes, so you know how you're doing out of the corner of your eye.

However, the New 4-8 Player Feature Comes With a Few Caveats

In 2-4 player matches, all 2-4 note highways show up on the screen side-by-side.  One annoying issue with this is a new decision in GH5 to always put your note highway on the far left side of the screen (assuming you're the only person playing on your console).  On some TVs you might even find the edge of your highway slightly cut off.  Past games always put your highway in the middle, and I can't fathom any reason why it would have been a good idea to change this formula for GH5.

Players with small TVs may find the screen crowded with 4 players, and the notes too small to read.  GH5 will obviously work best on an HDTV in 480P mode (Nintendo Wii).

For 5-8 player games, local players' note highways are shown on screen, and the Internet players are displayed at the top by Rank (1st/2nd/etc.) and Score.  With a quick glance, you can see how much you are trailing the leader by.

A multiplayer feature from past games missing in GH5, is the fun "win meter" that used to show which side was winning the match, and by how much.  When the score became a dead heat, the win meter would flicker, and you knew the pressure was on to really hit every last note!  I imagine this got removed when the ability to play 3+ players was added (how would such a meter work with 3+ players?).

In my opinion, these tradeoffs are worth it because 4-8 player matches are such a blast.

Now Everyone Can Play Guitar At the Same Time (No More Fighting Over "Who Gets Stuck on Bass")

This one improvement is as big a revolution as when Guitar Hero World Tour implemented 4 player band support. Yes – really!  Everyone who played past Guitar Hero games knows there are a lot more players wanting to play Guitar than Bass, and it would always be a "race" to beat the other person to selecting Guitar.  In GH3 the winner was whoever pressed Guitar first; in GHWT it was whoever Hosted the online match (randomly determined on Wii).  Occasionally you'd get matched with a gentleman who would offer to take turns between Guitar/Bass every round.  But just as often you'd find yourself paired with a "Guitar hog" who'd force you to play Bass, song after song.

Certainly there are players who enjoy and even prefer Bass, but there's no denying that Bass usually gets less notes and less variety in the charts' note patterns.  In GH5, everyone's happy. In fact, you'll get used to this so quickly that you'll miss it when you play World Tour and Metallica; I promise.

Not Only Can Everyone Play Guitar, But You Can Mix & Match Any Combination of Instruments Now

No longer do you need to find a singer in order to put together a 4 player band.  4 guitarists, 2 bass and 2 drummers, or any other combination is now allowed.

Found a Great Group of Players in Career Mode?  Now You Can Keep Them and Change to Pro Face Off or RockFest

Did you ever play an online band match in prior GH games and found someone you were really impressed with?  But you knew that you'd "lose them" as soon as the match was over.  GH5 changes that with its new Multiplayer Lobby (pictured at top of page).

After a game, players return to the Lobby (yes even on Wii this time) and the Host can change the game mode from Career to Competitive.

• Did you play Career/Quickplay mode with another Guitarist and noticed yourselves competing side-by-side to see who could earn the highest score for the band?  Take them on directly and change to a Pro Face Off, or RockFest match.

Online Jerks Can't Skip Through the Song Score Results Screen Anymore

In Guitar Hero World Tour online Co-op games, nothing infuriated me more than playing a great round, anxiously looking forward to checking out our results, only to have some jerk skip right through the score/stats screen in the blink of an eye.

As rare as 4 player GHWT Wii games are, how mad would you be if someone skipped right through this?

Those days are over in GH5.  An intelligent new design gives extra time for players to view detailed stats and/or players' Rock Records if they want, but still keeps things short if nobody cares:

Guitar Hero 5 Wii: Song Finished Stats Screen

If nobody clicks onto the stats, the game does a short 10 second delay to the next song.  If any one player decides to view stats, it increases the timer to about 25 seconds.

Post-Song Score Results Offer Interesting New Stats, Plus a Chance to View Players' Rock Records

Notice the 5 blue dots in the above image upper-right corner above "ACCURACY"?  Now you can see stats like the breakdown of how many points each player earned. GH5 is the first game to show this.

Detailed Stats Screen Now Shows Per-Section Stats For All Players, Gets Some Nice Touches:

Guitar Hero 5 Wii: Detailed Score Stats Screen

The familiar Detailed Stats screen has a new look and a few new improvements:

• Detailed Stats are now available after multiplayer matches, even online, shown per player!
• Each player's skill and instrument are indicated
• Scrolling is faster (jumps 3 lines per click instead of 1) and quicker
• Band Moments score reported

New Band Moments Make 10 Million+ Points Possible Per Song Via Skyrocketing Score Multipliers Up to 11x

In GHWT, vocal players usually scored lower than any other instrument.  In GH5, you can play without a vocalist at all, and have 4 Guitarists cranking out maximum points throughout the whole song, for instance.  With the new Band Moments in Guitar Hero 5, the total score Multiplier can reach 11x under Star Power, earning you an enormous amount of points in a hurry!  Band Moments are special "fire colored" notes that raise the Band Multiplier higher – if every member manages to hit the Band Moment notes.  If even 1 player misses, that Band Moment is failed.

Developers at Neversoft talked about spending a lot of man-hours going through every song in the game, plus all GHWT DLC and the GHWT Disc Import and Smash Hits Disc Import songs, to create Band Moments at the appropriate time for each song.

In my experience, the Band Moments are usually at dramatic points in the song, for instance after a breakdown/bridge, right when the song gets back into it and kicks up the tempo.  It can really ramp up the excitement after a lull when the song intensity ramps up, everyone starts jamming and nails the Band Moment causing your score to start spinning wildly like you just struck a Jackpot!

I find songs to have an average of 3-4 Band Moments per song, and it makes a fun addition to the game.

Online Bands All Receive Equal High Score Credit On the New In-Game Leaderboards

Remember the Career Band mode in Guitar Hero World Tour?  Only the Host would get credited for the band's total score.  In Guitar Hero Metallica (and GHWT Quickplay), online bands didn't receive any high score credit at all! Now in GH5, all participating Bands receive a high score entry on the new Band Leaderboards. The participating bands' names will all show up in a row with the same score and same timestamp, indicating the score was achieved with as many players as there are matching scores/times.

Separate Leaderboards For Traditional Bands and "Any Instrument" Bands

Score-conscious players were concerned how GH5 would handle the ability of 4 high-scoring Guitarists to rack up more points than a "true" band consisting of Guitar, Bass, Drums, and Vocals.  GH5 handles this brilliantly by separating Band Leaderboards into Traditional Band and Band (anything goes).

No More Star Power Hogs, and Star Power Now Spills Over to Other Band Members

In Guitar Hero World Tour, the band shared 1 Star Power meter.  Online players would sometimes hog the Star Power, leaving nothing for the rest of the band.  In Guitar Hero 5, this problem is fixed by having an individual Star Power meter for each player.  In addition to that, if your Star Power meter fills up, any excess gained will "spill over" to your needy band members.  Now you can really save up to unload on that giant blast of 3-note chords for a boat-load of points.

One Bad Player Won't Bring Down the Entire Band Any More

If someone fails out, instead of causing the whole band to fail like in GHWT, GHM, and GHSH, a band Revival Meter pops up, giving you the chance to bring back the failed member if you score well enough.  This is similar to how Rock Band does it, and it's a nice update.

RockFest Is Actually 5 New Multiplayer Games, Plus FFA or Team Pro Face Off

Guitar Hero players are no doubt familiar with good old Pro Face Off, but GH5's new RockFest mode is actually 5 new different multiplayer games:

• Momentum: All players start off at medium difficulty. Miss notes and your difficulty decreases. Hit notes in a streak and your difficulty increases. The highest score wins. The way your note highway speeds up or slows down when changing skills is kind of fun.
• Do or Die: Players are allowed 3 "strikes" per section of the song, indicated in a new scoreboard above each note highway. Miss a note and you get a strike. Three strikes and you're out until the next section. Get a point for each section you survive. Get the most points to win. Star Power removes strikes and makes players invincible while active.  This mode is fun because if a winning player makes a stupid mistake, it can change up the game and allow players to catch up.  It's also fun to see who can make it through a tough section without missing 3 notes.  When a player fails a section, their note highway disappears, so you can immediately tell who has failed.
• Perfectionist: Try to play perfectly. The players with the highest percentage of notes hit for a section will earn points. Get the most points to win. Shakes things up across skill levels, compared to a Pro Face Off because a winning player might screw up an easy section, allowing players to gain an advantage.
• Elimination: This mode has a ticking timer that gets progressively more frantic sounding as time runs out over a section of the song.  When the timer reaches zero, the person with the lowest score will be eliminated.  Kind of a bummer for less skilled players, as they'll be sitting on their hands for the remainder of the song.
• Streakers: This mode keeps track of your streak. Before the multiplier changes, players get that number of points. Star power doubles your points. Most points wins.
• plus Pro-Face Off (high score competition) in free-for-all or Team modes: 2v2; 3v3; or 4v4

What really makes Rockfest fun is that all players get to vote for the next game mode at the end of every song.  The game will randomly pick 2 out of the 6 possible game modes.  So if everyone is hating Elimination mode, they can vote and overrule the 1 expert player who was ruining everyone's fun.