Guitar Hero: World Tour Review

Written by: Steve Martin Posted: 11th December 2008

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We form a band to review Guitar Hero World Tour.

Guitar Hero: World Tour Details:

	Music
	PlayStation 3/Xbox 360/Nintendo Wii
	Neversoft Entertainment
	Activision

12+

Out Now

1-4

So, this is it…the battle of the band simulators starts here! It’s strange to think that the two rival developers of Harmonix and Activision actually worked together to produce the first 2 Guitar Hero games, but now like your favourite band, they have split up and pursued solo careers. Harmonix managed to release Rock Band before Activision’s Guitar Hero World Tour, but has the extra few months in production made a substantial difference in the quality of the hardware and software?

World Tour is the familiar Guitar Hero set-up, you have your highway where different coloured gems head towards the bottom of the screen, and when they reach the outlined zone you must hold the correct fret and strum for the guitar or strike the correct coloured drum or cymbal for the drums. The usual long notes, pull-offs and hammer-ons are present and correct, and the way that they are played has been tweaked from GH3 which made it far to easy to do pull-offs and hammer-on’s. The balance has been readdressed and is much better for it, as you must now delay your fret change, as you would have to in real life! The vocals work on a principle similar to that used in the Singstar games with bars on the upper part of the screen showing the pitch you need to sing the lyrics at to score points, and how long to hold the note. The lyrics are given to you and scroll along below the vocal highway.

The game itself has the usual career modes for single players, a different career is available for each instrument you decide to play, or you can have a career as a band.
This has been vastly improved over the previous GH’s by giving you more choice in the order you perform the sets. Unlike before were you worked your way down a list of songs in a set. You can now choose which gig you want to play and you must play all the songs from that gig to complete it, if you perform well enough you will get to do an encore song. New songs are unlocked by completing the gigs in the career mode. Upon completion of said gig you will be given new gigs to choose from with more songs to play and of a higher difficulty. But rather than having to do them in a certain order, you are welcome to miss gigs out and try harder ones, which is a good way of getting hold of the songs you really want to play! You can even book your own gig, picking songs from the set list of songs you have unlocked already. Gigs also give you money, the amount depending on the quality of your performance, this hard-earned cash can then be used to customise your characters and their instruments.

So with the explanation of the basics aside, how does it play? Well, with single player it plays as an updated version of GH3, but it really comes into its own when you actually have your band. With the ability to have up to 4 players (vocals, guitar, bass and drums), it is great fun to play along with your friends. The weightier guitar feels much more sturdy and natural in your hands than the older “toy-like” guitars. Although I have noticed it is much more difficult to activate Star Power (you gain this by hitting star shaped notes, and it doubles your current multiplier) in the usual way by tilting the guitar, this maybe due to the changes they have made to the design. The whammy bar has been extended to make it easier to use and a new slider bar has been added on the new, longer neck of the guitar. This slider bar can be tapped to play notes in the same way as the strumming the bar, or on certain ghost-y notes you can touch the relevant coloured sections on the slide bar and slide your finger up or down to play all the notes, without strumming or tapping. This did feel a bit gimmicky, but it is a great way to show off, if you can get it right! The sensitivity is fine, but it can be a bit fiddly, and there is no warning that these notes are approaching so you have to know when to move your hands to the slider bar in time to play them. This can also be used on long notes to “wah-wah” the note rather than “whammy” it, again gimmicky but quite cool!

The real star of the show is the new drum kit! It has three main drums, two cymbals and a foot pedal to utilise. It’s very sturdy and can take a good beating, the only problems I have found is the foot pedal occasionally thinks you have pressed it twice as you lift your foot off it, this may not seem like a big problem but when it ruins your 200 note streak, you won’t be best pleased! The other thing is that to activate Star power you must hit both cymbals at the same time, this can prove tricky, especially in the high tempo songs!
Overall, though I was very impressed with this new piece of kit and have spent many hours learning to play it, because although at first, it seems impossible to get your limbs all working independently, the more you play, the easier it becomes.

The difficulty levels have carried over from the previous games, this means that most people won’t progress beyond Medium for fear of their medical bills for dislocations and RSI injuries, but the hardcore GH crowd will find the familiar finger-busting and arm-aching Expert mode fully intact.

The set list is much larger than the previous games, with all masters, and no covers, and includes classics such as Sweet Home Alabama (Live), The Joker, Hotel California and Beat It. However the more current anthems seem a bit disappointing and are lightweight in comparison, there are some exceptions to this rule, but this has usually been a strong point in previous games. Especially in the earlier iterations, many of the songs were by relatively unknown smaller bands, and this helped you to find new music to explore and new acts to support. There are still plenty of stand-out tracks that you will play over and over until you get that coveted perfect 5 star performance.

For the main part Guitar Hero: World Tour and Rock Band seem to be evenly matched, with only the addition of the Studio mode in GH, being the major difference. Although this mode is pretty expansive, and allows you to create your own tunes using the instruments to lay down your drum beats and then your guitar and bass parts. The only let down is the low-fi sound of the guitar, which sounds too much like a keyboard, especially when compared to the actual guitar tones found in all the real songs on the game’s track listing.

The online modes allow you to download songs other people have created using the Studio mode, as well as downloading new song releases from GH for a small fee, again reminiscent of Singstar’s online catalogue of downloadable content. You can also go head-to-head with other players around the world, or join forces with them to become a band and play together and the online leaderboards allow you to see exactly how many people out there are miles better than you are!

Graphically, these games have never been beautiful! You’re far too busy watching those all important gems flying towards the strike zone to notice what is going on elsewhere! That said, there are some nice animations especially for the vocalists, and the occasional famous music person models are quite well designed. It’s perfectly functional if lacking a little in detail and starting to show its age!

However, it does sound awesome, the tracks are all great to listen to and the instrument noises are spot on, if you have four decent people playing at a party, you can use this instead of a mix CD any day of the week. The only concern is the low-fi music creation, which I mentioned earlier.

Guitar Hero has always been a fantastically fun franchise (with the exception of the shocking Aerosmith and Rocks the 80’s discs), and with the new complete band set it means even more people can now join in the fun! They’ve taken the original Guitar Hero philosophy and made it bigger and better and more customisable, and that’s all us Guitar Hero fans ever wanted!