Guitar Hero World Tour

NO ROCK BAND, BUT IT CERTAINLY ISN'T NO TRIBUTE BAND!

Guitar Hero, we all have fond memories of our first time hitting those coloured fret buttons to some of our favourite tracks or whamming your way through a song or two. It replaced the good old air guitar and created one of the most successful franchises of gaming history. But it's also gone through quite some changes over the years, not just seeing new developers at the helm but it's also at to see it's younger brother go to stardom with it's weekly downloadable content and band mechanics. It's simply impossible not tot compare Guitar Hero to Rock Band, two games both in the same genre and create by the same developer Harmonix Music Systems. Of course Activition Blizzard now have full control over the Guitar Hero franchise and it's shows in their latest attempts to knock Rock Band off it's throne of the Plastic Rock and Roll Kingdom. For Guitar Hero shows some promise but it's clearly in the shadows of that younger brother Rock Band.

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE MUSIC

As we all know, when it comes to a title like Guitar Hero or Rock Band. The first thing of great importance is the setlist. It can make or break a game so it's important for developers Neversoft to get a strong setlist that will appeal to as many Plastic Rockers as possible. For the most part World Tour succeed's in doing a very fine job of pleasing as many people as possible, but even with that in mind it's hard to honestly say that the setlist can even compare to what's on offer in Rock Band. Rock Band's weekly DLC as seen it's music catalog confortably rise to over 200 songs and even though Guitar Hero offers an impressive 86 songs on disc and all of them being original master tracks, you can't help but feel that the Guitar Hero franchise is still lagging behind when it comes to both the amount of tunes on offer and the speed their able to provide users with downloadable content. To be fair already a pretty solid amount of songs have become avaliable through DLC since the game hit stores so maybe we will see an improvment on the speed Neversoft can offer DLC. But even with this in mind, I still feel the setlist lacks a lot of the must play tunes that the Rock Band catalog is filled with. There are some genuinely great songs to play such as Purple Haze (LIVE) featuring the one and only Jimi Hendrix and I throughally enjoyed Michael Jackson's Beat It. But the setlist features one to many songs that can only truly be appriated by an older generation. Infact I came across many songs that I had never heard of or weren't that much fun to play anyway. It would have been nice if World Tour featured more bands of the now. Though saying that, I can't help but love playing Band on the Run by The Wings. 

It's hard to review such a setlist because it all depends on personal tastes, theres no way you'd like exactly the same songs I do so I won't be to harsh on the overall setlist on offer in World Tour. It's for you, my dear readers to judge the games music catalog. Sadly there are a few other complaints I have when it actually comes to the music charts for many of the songs, it's odd but there pretty weird from time to time. Certain notes are here or there that make little sense and don't match the actual song and theres even some simply odd moments in the heart of a song that also doesn't match the song your playing. It's not a huge problem, but considering the franchises stunning history when it comes to doing music charts so well, it's disapointing to see such things in many of the 86 Master Tracks. But many of the tunes can simply be both more satisfying and challenging then they are on Rock Band and for that World Tour gets great crediit. One big complaint of many Rock Band users as been aimed towards Harmonix's drive towards the casual user meaning many songs are simply to easy to play or master. It's perfectly clear that World Tour isn't aiming to please the casual videogamer.

YET ANOTHER SET OF PLASTIC INSTRUMENTS

If your anything like me, theres a chance you have a pretty good collection of plastic instrument sitting in your room or apartment. Thankfully for the most part the new Guitar released for World Tour is a welcomed addition to my growing collection. It's easily the best performing guitar to date even if it suffers from having a feature that is almost totally useles to both World Tour or any other music game out there. The strummer feels great, it's clicky and I know that's not everyone's cup of tea but I loved it. It's the biggest Guitar Hero guitar to date and is confortable to use. It's quite an improvement over the one Rock Band provided when that pack launched last year. Sadly one feature that I had all sorts of problems with was the new touchpad controls that are used for both in songs and in the games music studio which I'll get to in a little while. 

The touch pad system is pretty simple, but it's both a pain to use and simply isn't any fun. At least in my experience, but worst of all is that the pad is super sensitive and a spec of dust can set it off as you attempt to five goldstar a song. You can see what happens, it can ruin a combo for you and in my personal opinion I do pray to whatever god I last worshipped that Neversoft don't include it in any future titles because it's a system that totally fails. Though maybe it does have some use in the music studio from time to time. Yes it's true I could have had simply a bad experience with it and some folks out there might be calling it the best innovation in the genre for a good few years. But I honestly thought it had the potential to ruin Guitar Hero: World Tour. Thank god that Neversoft had the sense to allow users to disable the pad when playing songs. The rest of the guitar feels great though, the whammy bar is larger and although it sounds like a mouse is operating it when I use mine, it works well and the larger size definatly helps. The fret buttons are solid and do indeed feel much better then the ones on the Rock Band Guitar. Although I do seem to have a rough green fret but I suspect I could fix that.

Sadly I'm unable to review the drum set in any great detail or the mic for that matter, I have had short spells with them though at a friends house. Thankfully he had a fully working set that are fun to use, though I still say stick with the Rock Band set as you'll probably be playing a hell of a lot more of that game then World Tour, and the World Tour drum set isn't as much fun to use in Rock Band from my experience playing some tracks. Despite this view of mine, I still think it's a fine set and it set up very well. I'm no drummer but there is definatly a more authentic feel to your movement while playing your favourite tracks. It's just frustrating that getting star power isn't as much fun or that fills can sound terrible compared to those on offer in Rock Band. The mic performs perfectly fine athough as a vocalist in Rock Band from time to time, I didn't think it picked up certain notes in my voice aswell as the Rock Band Mic. But the band package still seems a fine set, and there are some seriously impressive innovations bought forward by Neversoft, it's just I still feel happy sticking with the Rock Band band pack for now.

ROCKING AROUND THE WORLD IN IT'S OWN SPECIAL WAY!

The title can be a little misleading as it honestly doesn't feel much like a World Tour, yes there are a good mix of songs from many different countries and many of the arenas help to work that 'World Tour' feeling the game is going for. But honestly there isn't a whole lot different from Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock on offer here and at times it feels a little to much like it. The basic World Tour mode is simply a playthrough of the games setlist either on your own or with a band and it can feel bare and pretty dull to be honest. You earn cash through every song with certain setlists finding you playing an encore at the end possibly with a well known figure of music be it Sting or Ozzy Osbourne to help you rock along. It's still fun but we have seen this all before and considering what Rock Band's own World Tour mode includes, it's a little sad that Neversoft did so little to add to the experience of this mode which could have shown some honest to god potential. It sadly even left me a little bored despite playing some great tracks along the way. Of course many of the other modes on offer are very much the same as what we have seen before. It is nice that we can create a playlist of up to six songs (a feature I believe Rock Band 2 also as) and theres still enough content on offer here to make you feel your sterlings or dollars were well spent. 

Of course you can also choose to create your very own rocker, taking a page out of Rock Band's book. This feature is pretty impressive offering all sorts of body and facial customization tools not to mention Guitar, Bass, Mic and Drum set customization features along the way. Interestingly though, I still found that I was able to create a better representation of myself in Rock Band then in World Tour despite World Tour offering more tools for me to be creative with. But you can still have a lot of fun with all the tools on offer and I honestly throughally enjoyed creating my own guitars or drum sets. Of course many of your old favourite characters make a return from the Guitar Hero franchise but many have seen a lower graphical downgrade to match the look of user created rockers making them both less impressive and simply not as interesting as they were back in Guitar Hero's golden days on the PS2. Performances on stage are great, gone are the stiff ugly animations that Legends of Rock so badly suffered from and in place comes a truly alive performance worthy of challenging Rock Band on screen. Guitarist have some great animations and all the band plays their instruments perfectly to each and every song. Another cool customization feature to your own personal rocker is the abilty to choose what animation your rocker performs both before and after a song. It's a small inclusion and theres not a huge choice of animations on offer, but it's still a welcomed one.

GET CREATIVE, JUST DON'T BREAK ANY COPYRIGHT LAWS!

One of World Tour's much advertised features comes in the form of the Music Studio, as the name suggests it allows you to perform music in a studio. To be precise it actually allows you to create songs that can be played in Guitar Hero: World Tour, just like any of the master tracks on offer. It's an interest feature with a deep learning curve if you've never messed with any music creation tools on PC. Not to mention the fact that using the Guitar to navigate the in depth tools isn't exactly easy. It does feel like more of an experiment then an actual much needed feature. Especially when you look at Rock Band's weekly DLC, there simply doesn't seem much need for it and I actually feel as if it's an attempt to fill Guitar Hero: World Tour's DLC void that might appear in a couple of months time when compared to Rock Band. It's an interesting feature, but it doesn't exactly work as well as it could. Partly down to the sound quality, there are some pretty Ring Tone quality sounds and despite a pretty solid amount of guitar, drums, and keyboard sets to mess around with. To many of them sound as if they belong on a mobile phone. There's simply a to bigger void between the sound quality of the master tracks and the sound quality of the User Created Content for any user created tracks to match that of the on disc tunes. 

There are also other problems to be found with this feature, it features no vocals due to copyright issues and Neversoft have said they will remove any tunes that sound anything like an actual bands song that isn't licensed for Guitar Hero: World Tour. It begs the question why have this feature in the first place if such creative abilities can't be done by it's userbase. But my biggest problem with the Music Studio is that it simply isn't any fun and not worth my time to learn all it's tricks for me to create my poor Ring Tone quality song. I applaud Neversoft for trying something new and fresh but either it needs to be done much better or not done at all. But if this is something that does interest you then best of luck, it seems some folks have been able to master it and have uploaded songs to GHTunes. Guitar Hero's own personal version of Itunes and it's simple but surprisingly fun to use. Songs download pretty quickly and it does a good job of showing you the songs worth downloading. Not to mention the fact that it offers you a preview of that chosen song before you download. 

MORE THEN A TRIBUTE BAND!

Despite Guitar Hero: World Tour failings when compared to Rock Band, it is more then some below average tribute band or just a fill until Rock Band 2 hits Europe this week. It is easily the best Guitar Hero game to date and despite all it's downfalls, it's still a lot of fun offline and online. It's trying to add something new to the music genre, and although it mostly fails in it's attempt I give full credit to Neversoft for having the balls to challenge the Rock Band franchise. The game will sell well that's for sure, but Harmonix were clearly looking to shut out World Tour with there week later launch of Rock Band 2 in Europe. Saying this I will happily come back to play Guitar Hero: World Tour even when I'm busying chewing through songs on Rock Band 2. It still as a charm about it that Rock Band simply doesn't have and maybe theres even some nostagia still deep inside me that dearly loves the Guitar Hero franchise. Despite it being whored out these past few years. The music studio will feel tacky to some while others might even fall in love with it and the new instruments are a mixed bunch. The guitar feels great and is easily one of the best guitars avaliable (just remember to turn off the touch pad) and the drums are an interesting experiment that works well just as long as you have a set that works. The ingame special appearances are a nice touch but they don't add a great deal and the setlist might be a little to old for some to truly enjoy. But the game does feature some fine customizational tools that will please any creative gamer and you'll spend a good few hours messing with creating your very own instruments.