The guitar itself is sturdy, good-looking and responsive. This layout makes chord shapes and progressions possible for the first time, introduces deviously rich solos and cuts down the amount of errors you can realistically blame on the instrument. But play for a while at the higher levels and the nuances and difficulty start to be more obvious. What this means if that you don't have to actually move your hand during a song - at first that seems like a cynical simplification to generate 'engagement'. In terms of mechanics, Guitar Hero Live doesn't stray too far from the classic formula, but ditches the five-button layout of old for a more intricate system in which three finger buttons are split into two strings, for a total of six buttons. The bands themselves are hilarious, too, ranging from a cartoonishly hipster Mumford and Sons parody ('Portland Cloud Orchestra) complete with a guy bashing a bass drum and singers with flowers in their hair, to a punk-pop foursome relegated to backing up Blink 182's 'The Rock Show' in sneakers and t-shirts, which would be reductively offensive to anyone fully indebted to that maligned musical movement, like myself, were it not completely accurate. (In fact, that's not even where it starts you'll actually begin offstage, and be directed into the bright lights and the roar of the implausibly enthusiastic, clean-cut crowds, before launching into the set backed up by one of about a dozen bands.)

Instead of a CGI cartoon band, the rolling tracks and note indicators are here overlaid on an immersive first person full-motion video shot from the perspective of you, the guitarist, on stage with your bandmates. First you have Live, the much-heralded single player campaign which is notable not for its structure (which is split into two 'festivals' but largely comprises ho-hum short sets of a few songs each, to be completed in sequence to unlock new songs) or its song selection (there are 42 tracks here, with a few standouts but too many mid-level hits), but the deeply immersive presentation.

Guitar hero live