Scroll down for a tl;dr if you’re too lazy to read.
Edit: You can not unlock basses; only drums and guitar. You can still play bass, however.
As not many of you know, I love rhythm games. I play Rock Band and Guitar Hero almost daily. However, you may also not know this, but did you know Activision made a version of Guitar Hero for Android, Windows Mobile(?!), and flipphones?
They did, believe it or not. Unlike the previous two entries, Guitar Hero III Mobile and Guitar Hero World Tour Mobile (which was also on the N-Gage), this game was developed by Glu Mobile, and had a selection of 15 songs (Wikipedia lists 20) from Guitar Hero 5. Having played it on my flipphone for a week or so and my Android tablet since, to be completely honest with you, 1 PM today (it’s 4 PM as I type this), I must say the game is actually quite fun, but not the best. However, let’s get onto the review.
The Setlist
The first thing I noticed about the setlist is that I could hardly recognize any songs. The setlist is, as follows:-
What I Got as made famous by Sublime
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Kryptonite as made famous by 3 Doors Down
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Ex-Girlfriend as made famous by No Doubt
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Only Happy When It Rains as made famous by Garbage
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Sneak Out as made famous by Rose Hill Drive
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The Spirit of Radio (Live) as made famous by Rush
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Fame as made famous by David Bowie
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Lithium (Live) as made famous by Nirvana
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Come Down [sic] as made famous by Bush
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You and Me as made famous by Attack! Attack!
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Rock Show [sic] as made famous by Blink-182
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A-Punk as made famous by Vampire Weekend
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Disconnected as made famous by Face to Face
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Bring The Noise 20XX as made famous by Public Enemy ft. Zakk Wylde
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Young Funk [sic] as made famous by The Derek Trucks Band
The names of the actual songs [sic]ed by me are:
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Comedown
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The Rock Show
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Younk Funk
The songs in italics are songs I can recognize.
You may notice all of these songs are followed by “as made famous by” instead of just “by”. This is because, if played, the actual songs are MIDI covers. However, unlike the previous two games, the songs can have high quality MP3 versions downloaded. As well, all of the songs are shortened to two minutes, with a fade-out past 2 minutes for every song.
Overall, I find the setlist to be kinda bad.
The Gameplay
(Image source: Java Mob, also the first thing that came up on Google Images)
The gameplay is pretty much a simplified version of regular Guitar Hero, with three frets instead of 5, and no plastic guitar. To those that have never played Guitar Hero, or seen gameplay of it ever, or just need a reminder, notes scroll down the highway shaped similarly to the neck of a guitar. When notes come over the frets at the bottom of the screen. you press the note color (and on the console and PC versions, strum the guitar). Unlike the other Guitar Hero games on consoles, there are no hammer ons and pull offs, and no tap notes. You just press the button when the color goes down. For flipphones/blackberries/phones with numbers at the bottom in general, 1 and 4, 2 and 5, and 3 and 6 are green, red, and yellow respectively. For bass and drums, 7, 8, and 9 are the purple “open notes” that span the entire highway.
However, do keep in mind; for drums, there may be a note on top of an open note. As I have played on my flipphone for a while, and you may not have the same type of flipphone as me, this may not apply to you, but only hit the open note or the colored note; not both at once.
Miscellaneous Features
This part will be extremely short, so if you’d like, you can skip it and scroll down to the rating.
On Guitar Hero 5 for Android/touchscreen devices, you have two characters to pick from: Eddie Knox and Pandora. You can also pick from four guitars and four drums, however three guitars and drums need to be unlocked (i.e. you can only pick from one at the start). As well, you can unlock thirty or so achievements, and there used to be a leaderboard, but the servers have been gone for a long time.
My Rating
Overall, Guitar Hero 5 on Mobile was a very…okay experience. It’s not the best, however if you’re on a road trip or are just a casual gamer looking for something to play, Guitar Hero 5 Mobile can keep you busy for a while. I do believe the setlist could have been extremely improved, though, as I can only recognize five songs.
However, do keep in mind that Guitar Hero 5 Mobile for Android and Windows Mobile has been delisted for a very long time, and the only way to get it now is via third party sources I had to use to get this game. Do keep in mind that some of the third party sources are extremely unreliable and may give you malware, so be careful.
I give Guitar Hero 5 Mobile a 6/10 on both flipphones and smartphones.
tl;dr Guitar Hero 5 Mobile isn’t the best. The setlist doesn’t have many classic rock songs, however the gameplay is okay. 6/10
If you like this type of content from me, tell me; this is my first type writing a review and posting it to the public in general. Hell, if you didn’t like it, tell me what I could improve.