Released in a busy year for the music genre, Guitar Hero 5 hit the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii, and believe it or not, still the Playstation 2, in September of 2009, from Neversoft (360, PS3), Vicarious Visions (Wii), and Budcat Creations (PS2). It was the third of five different games in the ‘Hero’ series released by Activision in 2009.

The core gameplay saw few changes from the previous year’s World Tour entry in the series, with vocals, and drums still present alongside Guitar, and Bass. The most prominent change to the gameplay was the addition of the party play that allows for multiple players to play the same instrument, instead of the traditional requirement of each player selecting a separate instrument. Additional game modes, and modifiers were also added, such as bonus points for streaks, and perfecting sections, or dynamic difficulties depending on how well you’re doing in a song.

For longtime fans of the series, the biggest addition was the ability to bring forward songs from previous games, a feature the Rock Band series had implemented the previous year, with its first sequel. All but six of the downloadable songs for Guitar Hero: World Tour were playable in Guitar Hero 5, as were many of the on disc songs from  World Tour, Metallica, Smash Hits, and Band Hero, which released a couple of months later.

Guitar Hero 5 once again featured a massive setlist, this time containing 85 songs, from 83 different artists, including over 30 of which who were making their debut in music games. Continuing the tradition of previous games in the series, a number of artists were made available as playable characters in the game, including, Johnny Cash, Carlos Santana, Shirley Manson, Matthew Bellamy, and, most notably, Kurt Cobain, who was the subject of a controversy, as many fans felt it was disrespectful to his memory that his character could be used to perform any song in the game, not just those from his band Nirvana.

The game launched up against two releases in the Rock Band franchise during the fall of 2009, with The Beatles: Rock Band hitting store shelves just days later, and Lego Rock Band being available in November of that year.

Due to Harmonix’s exclusive license with The Beatles, there was no soundtrack crossover with Beatles: Rock Band, but there were three songs that could be found on both the Guitar Hero 5, and Lego Rock Band discs:

• Blur – “Song 2″
• Bon Jovi – “You Give Love A Bad Name”
• Vampire Weekend – “A-Punk”

In addition, two of the songs in the Guitar Hero 5 soundtrack hold the distinction of being among the few that received the rare ‘RB3 version’ upgrade, which added support for vocal harmonies, along with both standard, and pro Keys:

• Bon Jovi – “You Give Love A Bad Name”
• Queen & David Bowie – “Under Pressure”

As noted in previous Setlist Checklist posts (and all future posts, as well), Rock Band 3′s setlist creation tool allows us to create, save, and share setlists, so we have included a Rock Band 3 setlist below that you can save to your profile if you would like to check out any or all of the songs! And as the holes are continually filled in by Rock Band’s weekly DLC releases, we will update this post, and keep it linked in the FAQ page above, for future reference.

Guitar Hero 5 featured one of the most diverse soundtracks in the history of the genre, with 21 different genres, and every decade since the ‘60s being represented. However, that diversity was seen by many reviewers as both a positive, and a negative, with the incredible diversity meaning that almost everybody would find songs they like, but few would find themselves enjoying the majority of the soundtrack.

The record set by Guitar Hero: World Tour continues to stand, as 37 of the 85 songs in Guitar Hero 5 are currently available in Rock Band 3, or approximately 44%, which is just shy of World Tour’s 52%, and Guitar Hero III’s 45%.

The lengthy full list is available after the jump…

* Rock Band contains Live version
** RB3 version released on 11/09/2010
*** RB3 version released on 12/07/2010
**** Also part of Rock Band Country Track Pack 2

Guitar Hero 5 Main Setlist for Rock Band 3

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