all games are not created equal

After World Tour, Metallica, and Smash Hits all coming out just seemingly one after another, I couldn't think of a reason why we needed Guitar Hero 5.  Truth is, I still don't think we did, but I appreciate the little additions.

If I had to find one big difference with GH5, it'd be the ability to drop in and out of songs at will.  Now this may not seem like a huge difference, and it isn't if you just play by yourself, but this makes the game much more accessible for parties and such.
I guess this time, it feels like the designers really put forth the effort to make the game as easy to pick up as possible.  Any combination of instruments you have will work, even if they're from Rock Band or previous generations of Guitar Hero. 

I don't have any major gripes, except that I just do not care for the song list all that much.  Most the songs I don't recognize, yet alone the artists.  Maybe it's cause I just like classic rock and such more, but the song lists really seem like the designers are just choosing their own favorites, instead of going for a big mass appeal.
I mean, I like variety and all, and it'd be stupid to have a music game with just one kind of music, but I at least enjoy recognizing the artists.  Whatever.

Anyway, the career progression is much much quicker this time.  You'll be blazing through venues like no tomorrow.  Each song has a challenge associated with it too.  The challenges are instrument specific, or they apply to a band of two or more people.  I only played through on guitar, and guitar challenges were something like "Nail as many hopo's as you can", "Wammy sustains as much as you can", "Get your streak up as high as you can", etc etc.  No biggie, but it's nice to get a little extra bonus.  The wammy sustains was annoying though, cause it had me constantly wammying every note I could, and really just made playing the song uncomfortable.

Most everything else is generally unchanged.  You have a few cosmetic changes here and there, new venus, characters, etc.  But overall you get the same, plus more.