“Guitar Hero,” the video game sensation that put a plastic guitar in homes across America, has returned after a five-year hiatus.

The re-imagining of the series speaks volumes about where we’ve gone as a society in half a decade, both in technology and taste. The changes made by developer FreeStyle Games and publisher Activision serve to drive the medium forward and take players out of the game and implant them into the rock star experience.

For many, the changes were a long time coming after the market became saturated, and homes without a guitar with multi-colored buttons was a rarity.

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Debuting in 2005 and developed by Boston-based Harmonix, which recently released “Rock Band 4,” “Guitar Hero” exploded into mainstream pop culture. Celebrities were playing, parties were being held for the sole purpose of playing, and the brand was riding high. Over the course of five years, however, the brand pumped out so many titles the market became flat for it.

Fans of the genre couldn’t keep up with multiple “Guitar Hero” titles being released in a calendar year, while casual observers didn’t know where to start. Activision shuttered the brand in 2010 after 17 “Guitar Hero” titles.

Fast-forward five years and “Guitar Hero” is back and completely revamped for what is a very different culture, both in the gaming world and out.

Social media dominates the landscape. Cloud-based computing rules the roost. Instant gratification is a digital necessity. In short, society wants what it wants and wants it now. Guitar Hero Live makes this happen by combining live action, technology, and microtransactions to create a realistic party atmosphere not seen in the rhythm game genre.

Rather than stick to the formula of computer characters representing your band and the crowd, which will give you a thumbs up or thumbs down on your performance, a live crowd and several bands were filmed to create the same effect. The experience becomes much more realistic in this setting as you feel the huge rush of performing well or the crushing defeat of missing your notes.

Instant gratification is a digital necessity.

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Where “Guitar Hero Live” really reaches out and moves the genre forward, connecting to what society is looking for, is with GH TV. This mode is multifunctional, serving as a way to connect players online, act as a gaming iTunes and keep the party going over a prolonged period.

Purchasing the game gives you a couple of channels of live music videos to play with that run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. These are on a schedule, much like MTV back when they used to play music videos. An hour of pop music can be followed by an hour of hard rock.

While playing through live music channels is fun, consumers demand the immediate gratification we’ve become accustomed to in this digital age. “Guitar Hero Live” answers this with on-demand songs, which are purchased with in-game currency. This currency can be earned through the career mode, However once you’ve run out of that currency you can purchase more through the in-game store.

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What makes this unique is the social aspect of it — the ability to bring people together. A party pass, where you have unlimited songs for a 24-hour period, costs $6.

“Guitar Hero’s” re-emergence is not a cut-and-paste job where Activision looks to rake in money one more time on the back of a known franchise. It latches on to pop culture not just known in large places like New York or Los Angeles, but also smaller places like Topeka or Peoria.

Will it rock the world like it did years ago? Time will tell. For now, your dreams of being a rock ‘n’ roll star are one game away from feeling like the real thing.