Another Guitar Hero game? Yeah, I know you're all thinking the same.  I remember hearing about it way back when and resolving to not buy it.  After all, why should I?  It's just going to be the same game we've had for years with new songs, right?  In this case, I'm glad that Activision and Neversoft have proven me wrong.

The first thing update you will notice is the option to start playing right at the title screen. Boot up the game and a song starts. Just hit a button and you can jump into whatever song is playing right there! You can basically play the whole library of songs this way, and it's actually pretty nice because you and other players can drop in and out whenever you want. You can also adjust the difficulty in any of the modes while you're playing a song (granted it restarts the song, but at least you don't have to wait between sets).

One very simple, but very cool addition is the ability to use your avatar as your character in the game. There's something very rewarding about watching your avatar rocking on stage with Shirley Manson. Ok, maybe that's just my fantasy, but still, seeing your guy/girl up there is very, very cool. 

They've also added a challenge feature when playing through Career mode.  Each song now has a specific challenge with a certain instrument associated with it.  Each challenge has 3 levels (Gold, Platinum, and Diamond) and you unlock goodies to use in the game when you make these challenges. (i.e. new avatar clothing, instruments, and venues)

The only drawback this game has for me is the same one it's had since it was first released: the song choices. The new track lists consists of 85 songs by 83 different artists. When they put good songs in here, they are some of my favorites.  Unfortunately, the rest of the songs just aren't fun to play or listen to.  I realize that this is mostly preference, but I compare this to both Rockband games where I enjoyed 95% of the songs that I didn't know.  The songs that I don't know on Guitar Hero don't have the same effect on me.  Also, while the ability to play your downloaded Guitar Hero World Tour games is a fantastic bonus I wish the same could be said for the songs you can import from WT and Smash Hits.  At best you can import about 40 songs between the two games and the majority of these songs are ones we've played a million times before on Rockband or somewhere else.  Thanks, but, what about the other 60+ songs on those games?  I sure would like to import those, too.

Overall, I'd have to say that this could somewhat be considered a revival for the franchise.  A fresh look and new gameplay has gone a long way to making this series enjoyable again. 

FINAL SCORE: 7/10