guitar hero live vs rock band 4

guitar hero live suffers from a bit of a culture shock. the vast majority of guitar hero games (spare band hero, which is aimed at more pop music) are marketed as these metal and rock games where you can become a rock and roll legend, which is a line of work tried and true with rhythm games.
however,  guitar hero live basically completely changed this - the setlist doesn't consist of any metal at all (spare a few 'hard rock' songs) and the biggest change of all is the controller, doing away with the decade-old five buttons and instead going for a six button layout, with 3 sets of buttons on top of each other. in my eyes, this design choice was risky, and didn't pay off at all - people have to completely relearn how to play.
**Guitar Hero TV** is a mode in guitar hero live that has two constantly running channels. if your buddy tunes into guitar hero tv, it'll be playing the same song on your end. you can just jump in, turn on your controller and start playing. this would be fantastic for parties, where you can sit and play for a little bit and then do something else, since the songs are seamless and if you turn off the controller, it just goes back to being a regular music channel. because of this, there is a massive setlist for GHTV - while you have to pay 'tokens' (acquired by playing songs ingame, don't worry) to play a song on demand, it's a very good system and i respect that.

rock band 4 did the right thing in terms of changing controls: nothing. they kept the same classic controls with the same guitar as they always have, and with the age-old saying of 'don't fix it if it's not broken' they stay very true. however, where rock band 4 truly suffers is the setlist. i booted up the game today for the first time in a year after finding the game again, and went through the setlist trying to find any song i like, and was shocked to discover there was only **two songs** that i actually knew out of the entire setlist. for this reason, it isn't great at all and instead shoves DLC in your face.

overall, guitar hero live is a massive change to the series' personality, but the content and mechanics in the game make up for that.
rock band 4 stuck with the classic controls, but suffered massively with song selection.