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Guitar Hero Arcade is a music/rhythm arcade video game developed by Raw Thrills and published by Activision in 2009 with assistances from Konami.[2] Konami and Activision were involved in covering patenting and licensing issues respectively.[3] The game was a solid success selling over 2000 arcade units in just three months.[4]

Guitar Hero Arcade is primarily based on the gameplay and theming of the PC version of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, reducing some of the features such as character customization, no career mode, and no whammy bar on its Enduro-AX Industrial Strength Guitar Controllers, but keeping the ability to download new songs and software updates for the cabinet from the Internet.

Product specifications[]

Arcade cabinet specifications[]

Gha cabinet large

Arcade cabinet

Cabinet dimensions and weight according to website, brochure, and flyer

  • Height: 85.5"
  • Width: 39.5"
  • Depth: 33"
  • Weight: 446 lbs

Cabinet dimensions and weight according to operator's manual

  • Height: 86" (218.4 cm)
  • Width: 39.5" (100.3 cm)
  • Depth: 32.5" (82.6 cm)
  • Weight (shipping): 472 lbs (214 kg)

Controllers and input[]

  • 2 × Enduro-AX Industrial Strength Guitar Controllers as Player 1 and Player 2
    • Green fret, red fret, yellow fret, blue fret, orange fret, strum up (🫴↑), strum down (🫳↓), tilt axis (🎸↑) for Star Power
  • Player 1 Start button
  • Player 2 Start button
  • Player 1 coin slot and refund button
  • Player 2 coin slot and refund button

Gameplay[]

Guitar-Hero-Arcade-2

Guitar Hero Arcade single player gameplay on Expert difficulty.

While Guitar Hero Arcade is graphically based on Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock and sharing similar game engines, there are some notable differences between the two.

Since Guitar Hero Arcade is an arcade rhythm game, it will lack a Career mode and is primarily focused on Quickplay with one or two players in Cooperative, Face-Off, or Pro Face-Off (Guitar Battle is not available). To begin playing songs, the player(s) must first must add at least 1 credit [token] to the coin slot of the guitar controller they will be using and press the Start button on the arcade cabinet's console. For two players, a credit must be added to the other coin slot as well.

Player(s) can choose their Guitar Hero III character (including Axel Steel, Casey Lynch, Izzy Sparks, Judy Nails, Johnny Napalm, Lars Umlaut, Midori, Slash, Tom Morello, God of Rock, and Grim Ripper, all unlocked from the start), toggle Lefty Flip in the character select screen with the orange fret, choose their difficulty level (also includes a Beginner difficulty level since a v1.13 update that allows the player(s) to play songs with or without using any frets, but this feature may be incomplete), and a song to play. Most songs require 1 credit but "premium songs" require another credit to play them. Guitar Hero Arcade features many songs from Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock including Guitar Hero III's DLC and their note charts. The available setlist per machine/location depends on what songs the operator enables or disables.

Guitar Hero Arcade at Funhaven

A Guitar Hero Arcade machine located at Funhaven in Ottawa, Canada in 2016.[5]

Comparing guitar controllers, the Enduro-AX Industrial Strength Guitar Controllers that are attached to the Guitar Hero Arcade cabinet are notably heavier than any guitar controller on console. While these guitar controllers also lack a whammy bar, Star Power energy does gradually increase automatically on starred long notes during Star Power phrases. There is no Star Power button but the guitars do have tilt support for Star Power if the operator has it enabled in the operator settings. Also, the guitars lack a Start button so once a song is in session, the game cannot paused during gameplay—the cabinet's Start buttons will not pause songs. However, players can still fail songs.

Furthermore, depending on how the arcade operator configures the audio/video calibration and guitar calibration settings in the game's operator/debug settings (a hidden menu inaccessible to players), players may notice there is audio delay, video delay, or input lag, and may misplay notes despite what is heard or seen on screen, making the arcade machine feel unplayable unless if the player(s) can adjust to the lag or ask the owner/operator to recalibrate them.

Unofficial PC port[]

NoLou
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While the arcade software can be purchased from Raw Thrills's website for $20, it is unusable on a personal computer as it was meant to be installed on a hard drive for an arcade motherboard (all contents on a hard drive will be replaced), plus its data is encrypted. Arcade-to-PC porter Mohkerz decrypted the arcade title, ported it, and released it for Microsoft Windows on March 26, 2019.[1]

As the game was based on Aspyr Media's Microsoft Windows port of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, the unofficial PC port does support Xbox 360 controllers including guitar controllers (non-Xbox 360 guitars and other controllers require the x86/32-bit version of x360ce v3 and set controller type to GuitarAlternate for Xbox 360 guitar mode and the provided xinput1_3.dll would need to be replaced) and does support whammy and a Star Power button (Select/Back) in addition to tilt. Its saved data is also located in Guitar Hero III: Legend of Rock's save game directory on Windows so Guitar Hero III PC players would need to back-up their save files and setting files as Guitar Hero Arcade would overwrite them. The port also supports local two players just like on arcade.

Players also have access to all debug and operator features that would normally be locked from players on arcade, such as the ability to enable or disable songs ("Slow Ride" cannot be disabled), calibrate audio/video, calibrate guitar controllers, overall gameplay statistics, saving/loading/resetting game's save file, etc. This is done by pressing the blue fret on the title screen. Also on the title screen when asked to "Press Start" to play, it doesn't mean the controller's Start button but rather the arcade machine's Start button, which can be triggered on the PC version by pressing the GBO frets. A controller's Start button is unused and songs cannot be paused during gameplay.

Soundtrack[]

Main article: Setlist in Guitar Hero Arcade

There are 50 songs in Guitar Hero Arcade. 50 of the songs that appears in Guitar Hero Arcade also appeared in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, including songs from the main setlist, bonus songs, and downloadable songs from Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. Also, there are premium songs in the arcade version. In order to play a premium song, the player would have to use another credit.

External links[]

References[]

v · t · eGames of the Guitar Hero series
Console games
Main series games Guitar Hero · Guitar Hero II · Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock · Guitar Hero World Tour · Guitar Hero 5 · Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock · Guitar Hero Live
Expansion games Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s · Guitar Hero: Smash Hits · Band Hero (main page)
Band-centric games Guitar Hero: Aerosmith · Guitar Hero: Metallica · Guitar Hero: Van Halen
Portable games
Guitar Hero: On Tour series Guitar Hero: On Tour · Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades · Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits
Guitar Hero Mobile series Guitar Hero III Mobile · Guitar Hero III: Backstage Pass · Guitar Hero World Tour Mobile · Guitar Hero 5 Mobile · Guitar Hero World Tour Mobile: Backstage Pass · Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock Mobile
Other games Band Hero (NDS) · Guitar Hero (iOS) · Guitar Hero Live (iOS)
Electronic toys Guitar Hero Carabiner · Guitar Hero Air Guitar Rocker · Kellogg's Guitar Hero promotional toys · Guitar Hero 2nd Edition Carabiner
Miscellaneous games and apps
Arcade games Guitar Hero Arcade
Cancelled games Guitar Hero 4 (NDS) · Guitar Hero Greatest Hits (NDS) · Guitar Hero 7 · DJ Hero 3D
Companion apps Guitar Hero VIP Pass (X360) · Guitar Hero Live Companion (iOS)
DJ Hero series DJ Hero (Renegade Edition) · DJ Hero Mobile · DJ Hero 2
Bundle packs Guitar Hero I & II Dual Pack (PS2) · Guitar Hero II & Aerosmith Dual Pack (X360) · Guitar Hero: On Tour & On Tour: Decades Box Set (NDS) · Guitar Hero III & Aerosmith Dual Pack (Wii)
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