Here's a list of the most important Guitar Hero Terminology so you can understand what Guitar Hero fanatics are talking about.
Difficulties
There are 5 difficulties in the Guitar Hero series. Here are the 5 levels, from easiest to most difficult:
Beginner:
The Beginner difficulty started in Guitar Hero World Tour. In this difficulty, the player just has to hit a button on time and it doesn't matter which button is used.
Easy:
The Easy difficulty in Guitar Hero uses three out of five fret buttons. It is very simple and this difficulty includes a small amount of the notes played on the instrument in the actual song. It takes many misses to fail a song on easy.
Medium:
The medium level adds a 4th button.
Hard:
The Hard Level adds the 5th button.
Expert:
Expert mode uses all five buttons too, but in many different ways.
Fret Buttons
These are the buttons used to play the game while hitting the strum bar at the same time. There's five of them.
From left to right, they go: Green, Red, Yellow, Blue, Orange.
Easy difficulty uses the first three. Medium difficulty uses all but orange and Hard and Expert use all 5.
From left to right, they go: Green, Red, Yellow, Blue, Orange.
Easy difficulty uses the first three. Medium difficulty uses all but orange and Hard and Expert use all 5.
This button is pushed up or down while presson down a fret button to play the game
This is the board that comes towards the player with the colored notes.
Sustains are long notes with a tail that need to be held. The player gets more points the longer that he holds them. Using the whammy bar makes the tail curve. The tail is the color of the note but if the player lets go, it will turn gray and the player will not get any more points.
This is energy collected by hitting certain combos of notes. The notes that have it are star shaped and glow if they're sustains (long notes that need to be held).
Starpower is activated from tilting the guitar straight up or pressing the select button. Using the whammy bar on long notes that have starpower will give the player more starpower.
There's a meter on the right side of the screen and the player needs it to be half full to activate starpower. It doubles the players multiplier and saves him from failing.
Starpower is activated from tilting the guitar straight up or pressing the select button. Using the whammy bar on long notes that have starpower will give the player more starpower.
There's a meter on the right side of the screen and the player needs it to be half full to activate starpower. It doubles the players multiplier and saves him from failing.
Strategy of activating starpower to get a higher score than normal
This is a metal bar with a plastic tip that is next to the strum bar. It can swivel to a comfortable position for the player and is pushed down towards the guitar to change the pitch of sustains. This will also give the player more starpower.
This is a meter on the left side of the screen that has 3 different areas.
The right side is green and the meter is there when the player is doing a good job, hitting most of the notes and the crowd is cheering him on.
The middle is yellow and the meter is there when the player is doing ok-not failing, not doing really good.
Then there's the left side that turns red when the player is failing. If it turns flashing red, the player will fail if he misses just a few more notes but he can get the meter back in the green if he uses starpower.
If the player fails, he has to start the song at the beginning the next time he plays it.
The right side is green and the meter is there when the player is doing a good job, hitting most of the notes and the crowd is cheering him on.
The middle is yellow and the meter is there when the player is doing ok-not failing, not doing really good.
Then there's the left side that turns red when the player is failing. If it turns flashing red, the player will fail if he misses just a few more notes but he can get the meter back in the green if he uses starpower.
If the player fails, he has to start the song at the beginning the next time he plays it.
HO/PO stands for Hammerons/Pullofs which are notes that don't have to be strummed if you hit the note before them. An example of a hammeron is strumming green then playing red without strumming. An example of a pulloff is struming red, then lifting off your second finger to play green without strumming.
Normal notes are a certain color with a white circle in the middle. Around the circle is a black line. Hopos don't have the black line and are usually close together.
How fast a song or part of a song is.
100% notes hit without breaking the streak.
DLC stands for "Downloadable content". The content that can be downloaded is extra songs for the game. They come in singles or packs of 3.
Trills are a technique that is also used on real guitar. Trills are made up of 2 alternating hopos which means only the first one needs to be strummed.
Using the first or second finger on the strumming hand of a player to hit an orange note that might be hard to hit using the fretting hand. Also used to hit trills that are too fast for 1 hand.
This is the file that has the colored notes and shows up on screen. Custom songs are made by creating one of these in feedback and importing it into the game along with an audio file.
This is when a note chart has more notes than the amount of notes in the audio file.
This is when a note chart has less notes than the amount of notes in the audio file.
Optimal is the maximum amount of points available in a song. It takes a very good starpower path when starpower is activated at parts with many notes.
Activating starpower a little after a certain note and hitting that note early to get it in the starpower or when starpower is activated to get a note in a x8 multiplier and strumming early on a note that would be outside of the starpower to get it in the starpower. This helps get optimal.
The World tour guitar has 5 touch buttons higher than the normal fret buttons that are used in certain sections of songs. The sections have purple lines connecting the notes.
There are three of them on the World tour drums. They're circles and fairly thick.
There are two of them on the World tour drums. They are located above the pads and are thinner, different shaped.
This is a pedal on the World tour drums that sits on the floor. It is pressed with the drummers foot when horizontal bars come down the screen.
These are going to be in Gh:WT vocals. The player just needs to say the words and pitch doesn't matter.