Rank the GH games

**mninp** · Joined: 05 Nov 2006 Posts: 1303

Here I'm going to rank all the gh games from worst to best, in my opinion. I won't do the DS games, because I don't consider them official and you don't even use the gh controller. Anyway, here we go. Feel free to post your own list.

11. GH: Rock the 80's- This was the first game in the series where I started to feel A HINT of fatigue for GH. Overall, this game would have been much better if the tracklist wasn't just full of hair metal. The 80's were so much more than that. Instead most of the songs are boring, they are either really easy or really hard. The easy songs have impossible solos that make trying to FC them not fun at all. With only 30 songs and not much variety, this one's a stinker.

10. GH: World Tour- I'm about to make a lot of people cry with this, but just hear me out. First off, this game's set list is all over the place. I mean, this game has so much variety, about 1/4 of these bands I had never heard of before. I guess that can be a good thing, but it was just way too broad for me. The new career mode looks ugly and seems odd. Why would you put the "Tool" tier as like the 5th one? The overabundance of "unknown" generic rock bands, the "multiple songs per artist", putting live tracks instead of studio ones...all of these changes just felt off and left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Some of the songs were great, like Dream Theater, Metallica, Linkin Park, System, Lenny Kravitz, so it doesn't have the worst set list. If they got rid of those "bonus tiers" and fixed up the career mode this game would have been a lot better. I actually really like the full band set up, I just wish the songs were more electrifying. So many boring ones here, for every instrument.

9. GH: Aerosmith- A pretty well made Aerosmith game, there isn't a lot to say about this one. I was never the biggest Aerosmith fan, but I do like their music. Kudos to Neversoft for thinking "hey we should put other bands in the game", that was a good move. As a semi Aerosmith fan, they did a good job of picking the set list. The only real gripe I have is that this game was too easy, especially coming right after GH3. Still, I have never 5 starred Joe Perry guitar battle, so I don't know. Overall, good game, I'm just not the biggest fan of their music.

8. GH5- I think this was an attempt to get back on track after GH:WT and...it sort of succeeded? It's kind of hard to tell. A lot of it feels more of the same, and the series was definitely on its downhill by this point. The one thing I have to give it credit for is that the song list is pretty solid. It's not great, but not bad either. The career mode, while not perfect, is much better than it was in GH:WT. Overall, a decent game, but the series definitely felt a bit cheap by this point, even the biggest fan had to see that the quality of these games just wasn't holding up.

7. GH: Van Halen- Ok, finally getting to the good stuff. I enjoy Van Halen's music a lot, even if they're not a band that I listen to regularly. This game is HARD. I never thought a game would get harder than GH: Metallica, but this game managed to do it. That final 5 songs or so...holy shit. I've never even beaten this game on Expert. I really enjoy this game, but I do have one main complaint: the guest acts. They all seem so random, like they don't belong. Come on, I just want to get to some Van Halen. Sure, the game doesn't fell like as much work went into it as GH: Aerosmith and GH: Metallica, but I still like this game a lot, even if it does kick my ass every time.

6. Guitar Hero- Ah, nostalgia at its finest. This game was revolutionary for me, I loved it the moment I tried it. I wouldn't like half the bands I like now if it wasn't for GH. This game opened my eyes to so many more types of rock music. So many classic songs on here, but I think the bonus songs are more nostalgic to me than the career songs. Cheat on the Church, Caveman Rejoice, Fly on the Wall, All of This, etc...I haven't played this game in over 5 years, and I'd probably shed a few tears of nostalgia if I played it again. Sure, the engine is outdated and the songs aren't charted perfectly, but this game will always hold a special place in my heart.

5. GH2- This is the first game where we finally realized how hard GH can be. Six and Jordan were ridiculous, and the final tier on career wasn't any joke either. I think this game had the best bonus songs in the series. This game got me into Shadows Fall and All That Remains. I have now seen ATR live twice. Such a great game, even if the engine is a bit outdated.

4. GH3- By this point, the new GH games weren't as exciting for me as they had been when I played GH2 for the first time. Still, this game rekindled my fuel for GH and I fell in love yet again. This game has a fantastic set list and the engine was much better, almost too generous. My only complaint is that the bonus songs were full of generic pop rock, with a couple good songs in there. Still, this remains one of the best games in the series for me.

3. GH Metallica- These final three are very close and it was hard for me to pick between them. However, despite Metallica being one of my favorite bands, this game has to have third place. It's a fantastic game, but I do miss Ride the Lightning, Blackened and a few songs from Death Magnetic couldn't have hurt. Still, this game is great, and other than some of the guest acts being terrible, I can't really complain here.

2. GH Smash Hits- This is basically the "go to" GH game for me. Full band, all the best songs from 1-3,what more can you ask for? Sure, it's kind of a rehash game, but I love it. All the best GH songs in one place, if I had to recommend one GH game for newcomers it would be this one.

1. GH: Warriors of Rock- This is it, the best GH game of all time, in my opinion. I was blown away by this game. My only complaint is that the career mode is absolutely dreadful, but the set list in this game is so amazing that it doesn't affect the game at all. Still, facing the final boss with three Megadeth songs actually made me tear up because of how epic it was. Even though I usually play Quickplay, this GH game is still the best one yet.

**Midnight-Rider** · Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2015 12:44 am Post subject:

Main series:

GH2 > GHWoR > GH5 > GH3 > GH1 > GHWT

Side games (from what I've played, so no 80's or BH):

GHM > GHSH > GHA > GHVH

All my opinion, of course.

EDIT: Fucking christ, I got my ordering for the spinoffs backwards. Fixed now.
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**JosephL** · Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2015 1:13 am Post subject:

GH5 - I just love the mix of songs. Fight me.
GH:VH - perhaps the best-crafted charts in the series.
GH:M
GH:WoR
GH3
GH:SH
GH:WT
BH
GH2 - just barely over the line. The HOPO glitch greatly diminished my feelings for this game.

-----------"I LIKE THIS GAME" LINE-----------

GH:A - damn you, fretboard!
GH80s
GH1 - control is a huge factor for me and gaming, and this one never felt right to me. Ever.
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**inv4der** · Joined: 16 Sep 2007 Posts: 9658 Location: Meridian, ID

This is basically all from an actual how much I like playing the game standpoint:

GH2 >>>> GH3 > literally everything else.

The series got progressively less fun after GH2 as it began to focus on gimmicks and not actually guitar-centric songs. The engine also feels very unrefined, probably because it was basically remade every single game instead of actually being improved. This leads to a lot of issues the games had, especially regarding sliders.

Regarding non guitar instruments I only enjoy Demon(s) on drums. Everything else is awful and unfun.
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**TheGhHene** · Joined: 19 Jul 2012 Posts: 47

GH:WoR - Overall the best GH IMO. Engine is good, sliders actually work, and the setlist is really wide.

GH3 - PC version is the main reason this ranks so high in my list. And of course, this is the one I started with 8 years ago.

GH:M - I'm a huge fan of Metallica, so it's pretty obvious why this ranks high on my list.

GH2 - Even though I'm not a huge fan of the engine, GH2 has something about it.

GH:SH - A good idea to redux old songs to a new engine, especially GH1 songs are a whole lot more fun to play. And of course, drums and vocals were a great addition to the songs from older games.

GH:VH - The overall difficulty is pretty much the only thing I like about this. Not a fan of Van Halen, so that's why this isn't higher.

GH5 - Even though the setlist is pretty big, I'm not a fan of it. I can't remember 2 songs of the game I would actually want to listen outside of GH. Of course, IMO again.

GH:WT - I just hate this engine. It just doesn't seem to work. Also, the setlist hasn't got pretty much anything in it. Even though this was the game to which drums and vocals were introduced, it doesn't get higher than this on my list. Maybe that gives an idea of how much I hate the engine.

GH:A - The worst GH ever made IMO. The fact that I pretty much hate the band is a big factor, but it's not the only reason. There were absolutely nothing new to this game (which is reasonable since it isn't a main release, but still), the setlist is very short, and there is pretty much no challenge. Plus the fact that I can't stand Aerosmith's music.

I'm not going to rank GH1 or GH:80's at all, because I haven't played them enough to tell pretty much anything from them. I've tried them both at some point, but that doesn't seem like enough to say anything about them. And unfortunately, I don't think I'll ever be able to play the because I don't intend to buy PS2 just because of 2 copies of GH.

**TerminX13** · Joined: 12 Mar 2009 Posts: 991

Obviously this is all my subjective opinions, but here's my take on the series

I didn't play GH1/2/80s until I'd already played all the others and they're quite a bit dated if we're being honest so I don't think it's fair for me to add those. I also don't think it's fair for me to add Band Hero but since nobody else has anyway I'm not worried

From worst to best:

GH Van Halen -- this game is something that the band, the devs and the publisher didn't really seem to have any love for. It was dropped unceremoniously as a GH5 pre order bonus, the bonus bands are just whatever bs Wolfgang felt like putting in at the time and it doesn't even do a good job of representing the band Van Halen as a whole. You'll find raw challenge alone isn't enough to hold me on a game, and while I appreciate and enjoy fuck hard songs, the whole is more important than its parts.

GH5 -- this was the main series at its lowest point for me. They had totally lost sight of why people played Guitar Hero at this point. Although its song list had some nice tracks, it seemed to move in a very "RB-audience"-esque balanced direction that left guitar players -- the people primarily supporting the Guitar Hero series -- in the dust. When the hardest things to FC in the game were actually played on a sax or keyboard, that annoys me to no end.

GH Aerosmith -- was a neat game. Aerosmith is a band that translates really well into plastic instrument territory, and I think it's a highly enjoyable experience overall. I understand it's not for everybody, but it's rock solid quality for what it was trying to be.

GH World Tour -- GHWT signaled a ton of changes for the series and I think that alone made a lot of people uncomfortable. It has a really good song list though, and some of the changes, like extended sustains, open bass notes and slider notes (once they were fixed, at least...) really improved how the game was played. Drums were subpar compared to RB and vocals have always been really whatever to me, so I didn't use those modes much, but I don't feel like the game suffered for them too much. I feel like this game, for all its flaws and successes, is really the quality baseline in the GH series. ((It was also my first GH, so I'm willing to admit there might be some bias \_(ãƒ„)_/))

GH3 -- I feel like this was the last time for a long time that Guitar Hero really understood what it was and who it was trying to appeal to. It was full of rock & metal tracks, iconic guitar licks, tons of fun songs, didn't have to worry about other instruments holding back guitar. It was over the top in all ways, especially its charting style. I can fully understand somebody hating the game for its obnoxious charts; I can't hold that against you one bit -- but the feeling of FCing the stupid Before I Forget chart was fucking amazing. I love it.

GH Metallica -- Honestly, Metallica is probably one of the best bands to play in these plastic instrument games, so I feel like the choice to make them the next band game was obvious. There's just a ton of love poured into this one from all angles, by the band, the devs, the publisher -- it's like this and Van Halen are polar opposites on how a band-centric game should be handled. It's excellent.

GH Smash Hits -- I think now that we're six years removed from this game's release we can talk about it independently, without mention of the repeating nature, right? Obviously given the sources it pulls from, it was able to pull of a phenomenal setlist. Despite its shorter length, I would probably call this the one essential Guitar Hero game, thanks to its huge list of guitar-centric tracks, some hard as hell, many famous and iconic.

GH Warriors of Rock -- This game was a huge love letter to the Scorehero types who stuck with GH through to the end. It was the moment where they remembered who their audience was after GH5, and they went straight for them. An onslaught of rock & metal tracks, relentless guitar focus, tons of stupid hard songs, a huge setlist, lots of popular community choices & even famous customs getting official versions. I have a ton of respect for what they pulled off in this game. Regardless of how it did commercially or even critically, I think this is Neversoft's truest effort in the series -- a last, dying victory scream after an otherwise bumpy road. I'll always have a ton of love & respect for this game.

...That's just my viewpoint, though.
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**Bradmasta** · Joined: 17 May 2008 Posts: 2276 Location: Virginia

GH3/GHM/GHWoR are impossible for me to distinguish as being the best game in the series imo. All three have tough but very fun songs, and for me songs I can and do listen to outside of playing the games. I'll just call it a tie between all three.

I suppose if I have to rank the rest, it'd go like this:

4) GH5
5) GH:SH
6) GH2
7) GHVH
8) GH:80
9) GH1
10) GH:A
11) GH:WT

4-9 I really don't have much to say on. I do enjoy 5 quite a bit, due to having some difficult songs mixed with easier songs I don't mind playing and listening to. GH:SH is pretty fun, but there are some songs I don't like to play, which is why I place GH5 above it. GH2 is fun for its difficulty, but as with GHSH, there are songs on that game I choose not to play. GHVH is alright. There's only maybe 6 songs I like on it. The others are songs I don't enjoy listening to or are too stupidly hard for me to enjoy playing. GH:80 and GH:1 are two games I never really played a lot of. I know from my experience with both games that I liked GH:80's a little more. So that leaves GH:A and GH:WT. GH:A is just slightly above GH:WT only because it was sort of fun FGFCing it, and I do have good memories playing this with my friends IRL while they still liked GH just as much as I did and still do. GH:WT is just an abomination of a game. Stupidly long setlist with barely any songs i'd ever want to go back and play. Not to mention the slider notes are the most broken in this game, and the engine as a whole sucks. I just recently played through this game just so I could unlock Pull Me Under, and I hated just about every minute of it. Once I FC PMU, i'm never, ever, touching this game again.
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**expertwin** · Joined: 18 Mar 2010 Posts: 2244 Location: Meh.

GH2 is best.
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**FL4RE** · Joined: 15 Jul 2008 Posts: 4178 Location: Liverpool yano

From best to worst:

1 - Warriors of Rock.
Not really surprising. An improvement on the engine from GH5, a ton of guitar-centric songs, great DLC. With probably the only song in the series I really struggled to keep a combo on (This Day we Fight - what a ballache).

2 - Metallica.
Being one of my favourite bands, with a tonne of difficult songs too.

3 - 80's.
I love hair metal, so having a game with so much of it in was a real treat for me. Some of the charting was a bit awkward, but on the whole still a lot of fun to play.

4 - Greatest Hits.
A great mix of songs on an updated slider engine, with probably my favourite chart to play (PWM Xguitar). Song choice (whilst great) could have been better, but that is personal preference.

5 - GH3.
The one that started it all for me. I got really tired of it towards the end, and some of the charting is pants-on-head retarded, but it's a bit timeless really.

6 - GH2.
Another timeless one. Good song choice, with the only song I could still fail out on. Engine was a bit dumb at times though, and this is coming from someone who played Rock Band almost religiously.

7 - Aerosmith.
This one surprised me really, after playing through the game I really enjoyed the setlist. Sure it's easy, and the fretboard sucks major dong, but it could be worse.

8 - GH1.
Never really played this one enough to appreciate it. Had a bunch of great tracks, and changed the way I had to play the game. But I was not a fan of needing the Hypertowel.

9 - World Tour.
It's a shame about this game really. There were some amazing song choices, but then there were some miserable choices too. Add to that the horrendously long career mode, and the crappy slider engine, and you've got the reason for it being in 9th.

10 - Van Halen.
This one was just forgettable. I mean, yeah it had a bunch of good songs to play, and a lot of fun guitar charts. But it never really was one of my "go to" games. That, and 'Feel your love tonight' caused a silly amount of rage.

11 - GH5.
Yeah, I don't like this one. The rest have redeeming qualities about them, but this one basically doesn't. Grinding for the FGFC felt like it took years off of my life.
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**McSkinny** · Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 4:44 am Post subject:

GH1/2/80s>everything else

other games have loose/broken timing windows and reward sloppy play

**Captainoffun22** · Joined: 01 Apr 2015 Posts: 114

**Chrisssss** · Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 12:16 pm Post subject:

Thought I might as well add my views:

# 1 = GH:WT
# 2 = GH:WoR
# 3 = GH:M
# 4 = GH3
# 5 = GH:SH
# 6 = GH1
# 7 = GH2
# 8 = GH:VH
# 9 = GH5
# 10 = GH:80s
# 11 = GH:A

I can't be the only one that has GH:WT as the favourite game. People can say the sliders are broken or whatever, but I've only experienced that on one song, and GH:VH has the same problem anyway. GH:WT has some great songs and I like the layout of the engine which I'm glad carried on for a few games before GH5 ruined it. I always enjoy playing GH:WT.

The reason GH:WoR comes in second for me is because they put Renegade on it

as well as other various good songs too.

Only reason I put GH:A down at the bottom is because I hate every song from them on that game and the "random" strums everywhere is annoying as hell too.

If I was to put Band Hero anywhere, then it would probably go above GH2 because it's easier and therefore more fun to play.
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**Kerfoot32** · Joined: 22 Jun 2007 Posts: 914 Location: Kentucky

GH2
GH1
GH80s
GH3
GHM
GHWOR
GHA
GHVH
GH5
GHWT
GHSH
BH

Honestly everything is a joke after GH3. WT and GH5 are especially pathetic.
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**inv4der** · Joined: 16 Sep 2007 Posts: 9658 Location: Meridian, ID