Band Hero
Back to reviews
Game
Reviewed: Band Hero
Publisher:
RedOctane
Developer:
Neversoft (Xbox360/PS3), Vicarious Visions (Wii/DS), Budcat Creations (PS2)
Reviewer:
Castor Pollux
Platform: PS2 (Also on PS3, Xbox 360,
Nintendo Wii/DS)
Category: Music
ESRB: E10+
Game
Description
The popular Guitar Hero series lightens
things up for the Radio Disney crowd with the release of Band Hero. While the Guitar
Hero series mainly focused on Rock acts with edgier songs and lyrics, Band Hero
cleans it up a bit with mainly Pop Top 40 hits from the past 30 years or
so. This collection of pop-tarts ranges
from the Jackson
5 all the way to Taylor Swift.
The game plays exactly like Guitar Hero:
World Tour, so do not expect much in the way of gameplay enhancements. This one is really all about the music and getting
the whole family up and rockin’.
Reviewer’s Note
The
songs mentioned in this review are for the console versions of the game. The DS version of Band Hero has a different collection of songs and is
not part of this review. To get a
complete song list for all consoles and the Nintendo DS, check out the Band
Hero Wikipedia site at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Band_hero.
What
Parents Need to Know
Violence
There is not any violence
on-screen. Lyrically, while not as dark
as the rest of the Guitar Hero franchise, Band
Hero does have a bit of shade. For
example, “Gasoline” by The Airborne Toxic Event has these lyrics; “And you
scratch and turn / And say, "let's burn ourselves up 'til we scream / Like
gasoline.” Also, “Hands Down” by
Dashboard Confessional says; “My hopes are so high that your kiss might kill me
/ so won’t
you kill me so I die happy.”
But for the most part, the song choices
are much lighter in fare than in other Guitar Hero games. Mainly there are songs about love gained
(“Beautiful Soul” by Jesse McCartney, “Happy Together” by The Turtles, “Love
Story” by Taylor Swift), love lost (“So Yesterday” by Hilary Duff, “Picture to
Burn” by Taylor Swift, “Every Rose Has its Thorn” by Poison) and the occasional
empowering rock anthem (“Black Cat” by Janet Jackson, “Love is a Battlefield”
by Pat Benatar).
Language
Being that this game is rated E10+ by
the ESRB, the language is fairly clean, but what the ESRB chose to censor is
interesting. In some songs, they allowed
words like “damn”
and “hell” to be played, but in the 1971 classic, “American Pie” by Don
McClean, the ESRB decided to censor the word “whisky” in the line, “them good
ole boys were drinking whisky and rye / singin’ this will be the day that I
die.” So when the song is being played,
it’s like this: “them good ole boys were drinking _________ and rye / singin’
this will be the day that I die.”
Sexual
Content
Some of the female characters in the
game are wearing midriff baring tops, low slung pants and mini skirts. Song choices here are clean and do not
contain any overt sexual lyrics. One
song does dabble a bit in infidelity (“Lips of an Angel” by Hinder).
Spiritual
Content
There is nothing offensive in this
area. There are some songs that have a
“spiritual-ness” to them in that they cry out for someone or something to save
them (“Bring Me To Life” by Evanescence, “Lifeline” by Papa Roach).
Reviewer’s
Thoughts
I am a huge fan of the Guitar Hero and
Rock Band series of games. They are fun
to play at parties and I get to be interactive with the songs I like. Band Hero does a good job of opening up to a
broader audience by including artists like Taylor Swift, Maroon 5 and Jesse
McCartney, but still kept the adults in mind by throwing us a little Don
McClean, Devo, and Marvin Gaye. If you
have a kid that has been begging for some Guitar Hero, but you were a little
hesitant because of the song choices, then Band
Hero is a good alternative to buy.
The song choices are clean and most of the cursing is kept to a minimum
and censored.
