Recommend Guitar Hero for 8yr old?

muckety

My 8 yr old has her heart set on Guitar hero for Christmas - is it suitable or is there another game that would be similar but more age-appropriate?

Thanks,

Banjo

Band Hero is more pop-oriented so it might be more suitable to her tastes - although maybe she's a Megadeth-crazed bundle of fury, so GH5's inclusion of Sweating Bullets will be right up her street. You'd be a better judge. There's also Lego Rock Band, but being a girl she's probably found anything that's not pitched at 20+ year olds patronising since the moment she could talk...

List off a couple of her favourite songs / bands (and then assume that as a parent your information is about 6 months out of date and extrapolate forwards) and I'm sure someone in here can tell you how it compares to the tracklisting of RockBand, Guitar Hero, Band Hero, DJ Hero, Clarinet Hero etc etc and/or their assoicated downloadable content.

Also, mention what console it's for. That's important. Especially if you have a european Wii. *Shakes fist in the direction of Harmonix's HQ*

Finally, if you can, find out if her friends also have one of these games, since she'll possibly want to have the same one for network play, or it may be important for instrument compatibility if she's arranged some sort of girly invasion of your front room that you haven't been told about yet.

Oh yeah, they've blanked out all the swearing in RB and GH if that's what you're asking

muckety

Thanks Banjo, She plays her father's bob dylan, lynnard skynnard & bruce springsteen quite a bit. But also has every cd by miley cyrus (all her friends have them too), so quite a mix really. She has a wii, brother has xbox which could be considered (also xbox 360 but he won't let her play on it). Don't think her friends have them, she has seen the ads on TV and has an acoustic guitar that she does not know how to play (yet).

calex71

Band hero is total rubbish even for a kid id say, but is the only one of the many games I'd say as any more than a few a songs she would know.

At a push i'd say the beatles : rock band game would be the most child friendly in terms of the songs, Lego : rock band is good but again I'd say 90% of the songs would be new to her. If she's an open minded kind of kid though
Rock band 2 would be the daddy of them all.


Have you considered Lips? It's a purely singing game though she might like that?

If you google for "GAMENAME setlist wiki" it will bring you to the wikipedia page that will list all the songs for the game.

D4RK ONION

Hi muckety, welcome to the forum! It's good to see that you've brought up your daughter with such good music taste.

My FAQ was specifically written for a guy looking for advice on buying for a young person, so check it out after the beep!...

Beep

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055709342

muckety

Thanks - lots of advice in that link! I'm trying to balance between price and appropriateness. Anything over a hundred will be too much money (other kids to buy xmas presents for!). The guitar hero 5 bundle for the wii is 63 sterling on amazon which is a good price. Its the guitar thing that she is most interested in and I see a good few songs on it she will like (and they are a long way from miley cirus which is a big bonus). Is it likely to be difficult for an 8 year old (I note you say the guitar hero games are more difficult)? She loves her acoustic guitar but hasn't had any lessons yet (strums away on it though).

Also, sorry if this is a stupid question but does the guitar hero game help learn how to play the guitar ?

Banjo

Yes and no. It helps develop hand to eye co-ordination which is good (although all video games do this to some degree). Depending on the song and the difficulty level it devlops your understanding of or feel for rhythm. It helps to develop finger strength and speed (sort of) and it gets you used to moving your fingers without looking at them. It also gives you very tangible feedback on your progress, enforcing the causal link between practice and results. Oh, and it gets them used to the idea early on that if you want to do well with any instrument you're going to have to play a lot of songs you don't necessarily like (Just like every game has it's Pat Benetar song, every instrument has it's Amazing Grace).

However it won't show you chords, scales or any other aspect of playing guitar. In terms of tying the game to the real instrument, at best it'll make you want to play guitar more.

The drums on the other hand...

D4RK ONION

Great post by Banjo there, might add that to the FAQ. The RB1 set id €50 in Smyth's which is a bargain, and you can play any of the games from any series with that set (within reason, check the FAQ section there's a bit there)

Drums on RB has essentially taught me real life drums! Once you hit expert, you're basically playing real drums with less pads, and I'd only ever done a bit of drumming when I was much younger. RB2 has a great beat trainer, and it has a freestyle mode which allows you to hammer away on the drums to whatever tune you like. Certainly a lot more likey to take real world instrument knowledge away from drums.

ultain

:)The band hero instruments are the best of the bundle sets..It plays most other software as well:) The Beatles..money cant buy me love!!:cool:

calex71

Is the Band hero guitar the new red one or just the same old GH:WT guitar? Sucks u need to get band hero just to get the guitar that should have been with GH5 over here but isnt.

ultain

calex71 wrote: »

Is the Band hero guitar the new red one or just the same old GH:WT guitar? Sucks u need to get band hero just to get the guitar that should have been with GH5 over here but isnt.

Yep, think it's the original guitar..It's for my daughter, I was going to get the Beatles rock band set for her...then thought she might prefer the rubbish that's around now plus the dude in the store reckoned the b.h had better instruments, ah well just buy the beatle software now for 40e and I'm back at the 200e I was going to pay at the start

calex71

ultain wrote: »

Yep, think it's the original guitar..It's for my daughter, I was going to get the Beatles rock band set for her...then thought she might prefer the rubbish that's around now plus the dude in the store reckoned the b.h had better instruments, ah well just buy the beatle software now for 40e and I'm back at the 200e I was going to pay at the start

the Beatles software is 29.99 in hmv

ultain

calex71 wrote: »

the Beatles software is 29.99 in hmv

Nice one, cheers.