Band Hero is Guitar Hero for the Top 40 set . Call it Guitar Hero: Casey Casem. Or, maybe Guitar Hero: Ryan Seacrest is more appropriate for the demo.
The basics are as they always have been. Choose an instrument - guitar, bass, drum, mic -- and strum, tap or sing to the colored dots rolling down a note highway. For the pop culture impaired, here's a video.
There are also the now-expected modes. Career. Multiplayer. The new addition, RockFest, cubbies a few smaller competitions. Pro Face Off has player compete on the same song, same instrument at the same time. Streakers requires at least a 10 note streak, before you get any points. Elimination compartmentalizes bits of the song into mini-challenges. At the end of each chunk, the player with the lowest score is booted. It's a play on H-O-R-S-E. Perfectionist only awards points to players that perfectly hit their notes. The difficulty is flipped around as you play in Momentum. And Do or Die punishes players that miss 3 notes.
There's also a simple Karaoke option called Sing-Along Mode. You know, for when competing isn't your bag. Or, for the older player, when you're too drunk to compete. (It is a party game after all).
The other factor that distinguishes Band Hero from the other plastic-instrument games is the tone. It's pop and fun, a bit sugary and a smidge tweeny. Just take a look at this set list below. Worth noting, a number of the singers are featured in-game as playable characters: Taylor Swift and Adam Levine to name a couple.
"Gasoline" by The Airborne
Toxic Event
"In a Big Country" by Big Country
"Believe" by The Bravery
"Hang Me Up To Dry" by Cold War Kids
"Angels of the Silences" by Counting Crows
"Hands Down" by Dashboard Confessional
"Lets Dance" by David Bowie
"Whip It" by Devo
"Bring Me To Life" by Evanescence
"Sugar, We're Goin' Down" by Fall Out Boy
"Our Lips Are Sealed" by The Go-Go's
"So Yesterday" by Hilary Duff
"Beautiful Soul" by Jesse McCartney
"Naive" by The Kooks
"I Heard It Through The Grapevine" by Marvin Gaye
"Impression That I Get" by Mighty Mighty Bosstones
"A Million Ways" by OK Go
"Love Is A Battlefield" by Pat Benatar
"Kids" by Robbie Williams and Kylie Minogue
"Mr. Roboto" by Styx
"Ocean Avenue" by Yellowcard
"Dirty Little Secret" by The
All-American Rejects
"Fascination" by Alphabeat
"Like Whoa" by Aly and AJ
"Kung Fu Fighting" by Carl Douglas
"I Want You To Want Me (LIVE)" by Cheap Trick
"American Pie" by Don McLean
"Rio" by Duran Duran
"ABC" by Jackson 5
"Black Cat" by Janet Jackson
"Walking On Sunshine" by Katrina and The Waves
"Take What You Take" by Lily Allen
"She Will Be Loved" by Maroon 5
"Just A Girl" by No Doubt
"Oh Pretty Woman" by Roy Orbison
"Take Back the City" by Snow Patrol
"Love Story" by Taylor Swift
"Picture to Burn" by Taylor Swift
"You Belong With Me" by Taylor Swift
"If You Could Only See" by Tonic
"YMCA" by Village People
Band Hero hits stores November 3.
