Good evening. We’d like to open this show with a couple of old numbers: 47 and 64. The individual versions of Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero II both retail at the same price as Rocks The 80s. Guitar Hero features 47 songs, Guitar Hero II a massive 64. And both have their own unique characters, venues, costumes, guitars and overall individual style. So, call us naïve, but we expected a similar number of songs and a unique, full-on, distinctly Eighties style from Rocks The 80s. Instead we got a paltry 31 tracks and almost nothing else that wasn’t already in Guitar Hero II. The venues, the guitars, and almost all of the artwork are exactly the same as in Guitar Hero II. So, if you haven’t done the maths for yourself yet, this is, without any room for debate at all, a rip-off.

We wouldn’t be making such a big thing of the brevity of the setlist (although making a big thing out of it would have been a good idea) if it wasn’t for the fact that the choice of songs tends to understate the hugeness of the Eighties. For all its faults, the Eighties was an era of anthemic pop and rock songs, so we can’t help but wonder, where are they? Of all the 30 tracks that were actually released in the Eighties (the 31st is a spoof) we can count just one true, bona fide anthem, and that’s Twisted Sister’s I Wanna Rock which, unfortunately, is surprisingly unexciting to play. That’s not to say that the other 29 are all forgettable filler (although far too many of them are), but there’s nothing of the calibre of Crazy Crazy Nights, Livin’ On A Prayer, The Final Countdown, Here I Go Again… we could go on, but we suppose we ought to talk about some of the songs that are actually in the game.

It has its moments. Iron Maiden’s Wrathchild is a truly inspired choice (much more fun to play than The Trooper, which featured on the 360 version of Guitar Hero II), as is Extreme’s Play With Me, which many will recognise from the fantastic scene in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure where all the historical figures go AWOL in a shopping mall. Even some of the crappy songs are kind of fun to play, The Police’s Synchronicity II and Winger’s Seventeen, but most of what’s on here is representative of a side of the Eighties most people would prefer to forget – bland, shallow, and conservative.

Gavin Mackenzie