History VideoGame / GUITARHERO

* ConsoleCameo: A UsefulNotes/NintendoDS is an unlockable guitar in the ''On Tour'' series.

* UpdatedRerelease: ''Guitar Hero II'' had an updated version for the UsefulNotes/Xbox360 released a bit after the original UsefulNotes/PlayStation2 version. It added a few new songs (not counting DLC, among which were a dozen of the main songs from the first game), rearranged the difficulty tiers, and had a new, fancy X-Plorer controller.

* CoverVersion: For rights reasons, any song that says "As made famous by" at the beginning is a cover; masters are prefaced by either "As performed by" or simply "By".

** This was dropped from ''World Tour'' on, where they started to include only the masters (although there were still a handful of in-house covers as DLC, such as the ZZ Top pack). The only covers now are ones that were professionally performed by other artists (for example, Van Halen's cover of "[[Music/RoyOrbison Oh, Pretty Woman]]").

** ''5'': A live version of "[[Music/{{Rush}} The Spirit of Radio]]", before playing "[[Music/KingCrimson 21st Century Schizoid Man]]" during the credits.

%%* BonusBoss: "Jordan", "Through the Fire and Flames", etc.

* DifficultyByRegion: The European version of ''On Tour: Decades'' places "Satch Boogie", which is by far the hardest song in the game, in the 80s stage of the campaign. Meanwhile, the American version rightly has it as an optional BonusBoss.

** ''Warriors of Rock'': "Sudden Death", a song by Music/{{Megadeth}} created specifically for the game. After this, a [[BonusBoss bonus]] setlist is unlocked, featuring "Black Widow of La Porte" by [[Music/MarilynManson John 5]] and [[Music/{{Slipknot}} Jim Root]] as the final encore of that.

** ''Guitar Hero 3'' lets you play the BonusBoss song ''[[Music/DragonForce Through the Fire and Flames]]'' during the end credits, but there's no [[LifeMeter energy meter]] and thus no risk of failure. This is because even those good enough to beat the whole game on Expert have no guarantee of even getting through the ''opening'' of that song without significant practice.

From ''Guitar Hero III'' to ''Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock'', it was developed by {{Creator/Neversoft}} and published by Activision. Neversoft built their own ''Guitar Hero'' engine from scratch when Harmonix handed over the reins to work on ''Rock Band''.

** Warriors of Rock has Music/{{Rush}}'s 20 and a half minute long epic "2112." however the individual tracks are pretty short in length.

** In ''World Tour'', Shirley Crowley is a FaceOfTheBand example with her solo career.

* OffModel: The default characters from ''World Tour'' (except for the guest musicians) manage to be off-model while ''on'' model. Explaining: They were all built with the game's character creation engine, rather than maintaining their unique models from ''III''/''Aerosmith'', which results in things like Izzy Sparks going from rough but still somewhat boyish to outright ''ancient'', or Midori's Asian features (save for the almond-shaped eyes) being massively downplayed to the point her face doesn't look much different from Shirley Crowley's.

In October 2015, Activision released a reboot of the franchise, ''VideoGame/GuitarHeroLive'', which dueled with ''Rock Band 4'' when it launched in the same month. Developed by ''DJ Hero'' studio [=FreeStyleGames=], the game utilized a new six-button guitar (not six in a row, however; six in two rows of three.), and replaced the classic 3D rendered stages with a first-person perspective of the guitarist using FullMotionVideo. Following the disappointing sales of ''GH Live'', the online servers shut down in 2018 and the franchise is again dormant. However, as of 2022 with Microsoft announcing their acquisition of Activision Blizzard, they have been [[TeasingCreator teasing fans with the possibility of another revival of the series]], but only time will tell. In the meantime, however, the fan community has taken the franchise into their own hands with fan works ranging from fan games made from the ground up (e.g., Clone Hero, Phase Shift) to modded versions of pre-existing games (e.g., Guitar Hero II Deluxe, Guitar Hero World Tour Definitive Edition), all of which allow for extensive modding with fan made charts and even custom characters as well as venues, resulting in the franchise [[PopularityPolynomial having a resurgence in popularity]] as a CultClassic.

In October 2015, Activision released a reboot of the franchise, ''VideoGame/GuitarHeroLive'', which dueled with ''Rock Band 4'' when it launched in the same month. Developed by ''DJ Hero'' studio [=FreeStyleGames=], the game utilized a new six-button guitar (not six in a row, however; six in two rows of three.), and replaced the classic 3D rendered stages with a first-person perspective of the guitarist using FullMotionVideo. Following the disappointing sales of ''GH Live'', the online servers shut down in 2018 and the franchise is again dormant. However, as of 2022 with Microsoft announcing their acquisition of Activision Blizzard, they have been [[TeasingCreator teasing fans with the possibility of another revival of the series]], but only time will tell. In the meantime, however, the fan community has taken the franchise into their own hands with fan works ranging from fan games made from the ground up (e.g. Clone Hero, Phase Shift) to modded versions of pre-existing games (e.g. Guitar Hero II Deluxe, Guitar Hero World Tour Definitive Edition), all of which allow for extensive modding with fan made charts and even custom characters as well as venues, resulting in the franchise [[PopularityPolynomial having a resurgence in popularity]] as a CultClassic.

** With the release of the ''[[https://youtu.be/VnJCe678Ofo World Tour Definitive Edition]]'' mod, it's not only possible to have custom song charts, but custom characters as well. [[https://youtu.be/63ZYY8U6JmM?t=362 Bask in the ridiculousness of seeing]] [[{{Franchise/Cars}} Lightning McQueen]] take center stage on guitar.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

** Averted with the ''On Tour'' subseries, exclusive to the Nintendo [=DS=].

* OddlyNamedSequel: If a {{numbered sequel|s}} can even be considered an oddly named one as well, then ''Guitar Hero 5'' fits the bill for being sandwiched between ''World Tour'' and ''Warriors of Rock'', which {{stopped numbering sequels}}.

%%** And, how could we ever forget [[BareYourMidriff Judy Nails]]?