Last year, Activision debuted the Guitar Hero series' first band game with Guitar Hero: World Tour -- this year it brings us an updated sequel, returning to the numbering system with Guitar Hero 5. The basic premise of the game is the same as it's been since the beginning of GH -- beat-match the colored gems scrolling down each instrument lane; the more you hit, the more points you get. What's different this time around is a lot more flexibility in terms of your band's instrument setup as well as the addition of a few new game modes that actually freshen up the music-rhythm genre we've grown accustomed to (and sometimes a bit tired of) as of late.

Guitar Hero 5 adds a new look to gameplay.

The biggest touted feature so far of Guitar Hero 5 has been the ability to drop in/out of songs during Party Play mode. Players are able to jump in and out of the game, switch instruments and change difficulties mid-song (psst -- this is great if you got too cocky and chose 'Expert' at the setup screen when you should've chosen 'Hard' or 'Medium'). The game also allows any combination of instruments to be used -- this also applies to the main campaign outside of Party Play mode. Want a drum circle? Hook up four drumsets. Want an A Capella group? Four mics. In addition, players will not be able to fail out of a song -- this is the face-saving No-Fail mode we loved during parties in Rock Band 2.

The main campaign tour of Guitar Hero 5 has also changed from World Tour -- instead of separate Solo and Band Career modes, you can start the career as a solo player and have friends (either offline or online) drop in at any point to join your band. Having multiple band members also enables certain challenges above and beyond the regular setlist progression, which unlocks characters, cheats and items.

A few changes have been made to the band gameplay that seem to encourage strong cooperation between the members. First is that star power (the juice that doubles your band's score multiplier for a short while) is no longer shared between all band members. Each instrument has its own meter, but when the gauge fills up, any extra star power that the player receives will be distributed to the band members, which means star power is no longer wasted. Additionally, if any band members fail out of the song, all remaining members have to continue to play strongly for a certain duration in order to revive them.

The folks at Activision kept mum about whether they would be releasing new hardware in conjunction with GH 5. They also declined to discuss the possibility of importing songs from Guitar Hero: World Tour, although they did confirm that all downloadable songs released for World Tour would be compatible with GH 5. In addition, we have yet to see the new Music Studio -- the developers have promised truer-sounding instruments and a cleaner more intuitive user interface.

Guitar Hero 5 will inevitably be compared to the Rock Band series (this year Harmonix is releasing The Beatles: Rock Band and LEGO Rock Band in lieu of a follow-up to last year's Rock Band 2). While the Rock Band series pioneered the four-instrument band game and innovated on features such as No-Fail mode and a robust campaign, Activision's first foray into the full band game with World Tour, though a solid effort, brought little new to the genre.

This changes with Guitar Hero 5 – the ability to add instruments on the fly in both Party Play and the main campaign makes the game accessible and party-friendly in a way that we (to be honest) often expect to see the Rock Band series excel at. These new features, combined with the 200,000 song-strong GH Tunes library of user-created tracks as well as a few fresh changes, make Guitar Hero 5 a much stronger entry in the musical rhythm genre than its predecessor. We look forward to the release of the full song list in the game in anticipation of the game's September 1 debut.

Robin Yang is an Assistant Editor at GameDaily, whose currently loved games include Burnout Paradise, Flock! and anything with guns and/or zombies. Bored? Follow her on Twitter at @robinyang!