How To Play Guitar Herotm


Guitar Hero gameplay is similar to other music and rhythm video games, in that a player must play scrolling notes to complete a song. You may use either the guitar peripheral or a standard controller to play the scrolling notes. The guitar peripheral works by pressing the fret buttons simultaneously with the strum bar, while on the standard controller one simply presses the corresponding button.

An extended guitar neck is shown scrolling towards the player, and as the song progresses, colored markers indicating notes travel down the screen in time with the music; the note colors and positions match those of the five fret keys on the guitar controller. Once the note(s) reach the bottom, the player must play the note(s) by holding down the correct fret button(s) and hitting the strumming bar in order to score points. Success or failure will cause the on-screen Rock Meter to change, showing how well the player is playing (denoted by red, yellow, and green sections). Should the Rock Meter drop below the red section, the song will automatically end, with the player booed off the stage by the audience. Successful note hits will add to the player's score, and by hitting a long series of consecutive successful note hits, the player can increase their score multiplier.

To play a note, the fret button and strum bar must be pressed when the solid note scrolls through the corresponding ring at the bottom.

Selected special segments of the song will have glowing notes outlined by stars: successfully hitting all notes in this series will fill the "Star Power Meter". The Star Power Meter can also be filled by using the whammy bar during sustained notes within these segments. Once the Star Power Meter is at least half full, the player can activate "Star Power" by momentarily lifting the guitar into a vertical position or by pressing the Select button. When Star Power is activated, the scoring multiplier is doubled until Star Power is depleted. The Rock Meter also changes more dramatically when Star Power is activated, making it easier for the player to make the Rock Meter stay at a high level. Thus, Star Power can be used strategically to play difficult sections of a song that otherwise might cause the player to fail.

A single note is worth 50 points, and chords are worth 100 points. Each time 10 notes are consecutively executed — chords count as one note for this purpose — the point multiplier increases by one, and the point value of each note is multiplied by that number, up to a maximum of four times the base amount. Activating "Star Power" allows the player to temporarily double the score on every note; at its greatest strength, star power turns a multiple of four into a multiple of eight. The final score, along with overall accuracy percentage, longest note streak, and rating (3, 4, or 5 stars) is reported at the end of a song. Songs on Medium difficulty can contain, on average, anywhere between 400-600 notes, while songs on Hard or Expert difficulty can contain 1000-2000 notes.

Notes can be a single note, or composed of two (a chord). Both single notes and chords can also be sustained, indicated by a colored line following the note marker; the player must hold the sustained note(s) keys down for the entire length to be successful. During a sustained note, a player may use the whammy bar on the guitar to alter the tone of the note. In addition, the games support virtual implementations of "hammer-ons" and "pull-offs" that are used to successfully play a fast series of notes by only changing the fingering on the fret buttons without having to strum each note.