Guitar Hero Smash Hits is a spin-off Guitar Hero game featuring a compilation of songs from earlier releases in the franchise, including Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero II, Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock and Guitar Hero: Aerosmith.

The game's set list now supports four players in a full band set-up (introduced to the Guitar Hero series in World Tour), an 8-player battle of the bands setup, and all songs are now original recordings from the genuine artists and are all playable in the Quick Play mode without the need to complete the career first.

Slight changes have also been made to the gameplay mechanics, including the addition of slider notes (again from World Tour) and the inclusion of the Expert+ difficulty setting for drums, which is carried over from Guitar Hero: Metallica.

Songs from Guitar Hero:

• Blue Öyster Cult - "Godzilla"
• Boston - "More Than A Feeling"
• Deep Purple - "Smoke On The Water"
• Franz Ferdinand - "Take Me Out"
• Helmet - "Unsung (Live)"
• Incubus - "Stellar"
• Joan Jett & The Blackhearts - "I Love Rock N' Roll"
• Ozzy Osbourne - "Bark At The Moon"
• Pantera - "Cowboys From Hell (Live)"
• Queen - "Killer Queen"
• Queens Of The Stone Age - "No One Knows"
• The Donnas - "Take It Off"
• The Exies - "Hey You"
• White Zombie - "Thunder Kiss '65"

Songs from Guitar Hero II

• Alice In Chains - "Them Bones"
• Avenged Sevenfold - "Beast And The Harlot"
• Danzig - "Mother"
• Foo Fighters - "Monkey Wrench"
• Iron Maiden - "The Trooper"
• Jane's Addiction - "Stop!"
• Kansas - "Carry On Wayward Son"
• Lamb Of God - "Laid To Rest"
• Lynyrd Skynyrd - "Free Bird"
• Mötley Crüe- "Shout At The Devil"
• Nirvana - "Heart-Shaped Box"
• Rage Against The Machine - "Killing In The Name"
• Reverend Horton Heat - "Psychobilly Freakout"
• Rush - "YYZ"
• Stone Temple Pilots - "Trippin' On A Hole"
• The Police - "Message In A Bottle"
• The Sword - "Freya"
• Warrant - "Cherry Pie"
• Wolfmother - "Woman"

Songs from Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock

• AFI - "Miss Murder"
• DragonForce - "Through The Fire And Flames"
• Heart - "Barracuda"
• Kiss - "Rock And Roll All Nite"
• Living Colour - "Cult Of Personality"
• Pat Benatar - "Hit Me With Your Best Shot"
• Priestess - "Lay Down"
• Slayer - "Raining Blood"

Song from Guitar Hero: Aerosmith

• Aerosmith - "Back In The Saddle"

Songs from Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks The 80's

• Anthrax - "Caught In A Mosh"
• Extreme - "Play With Me"
• Judas Priest - "Electric Eye"
• Poison - "Nothin' But A Good Time"
• Ratt - "Round and Round"
• Twisted Sister - "I Wanna Rock"