Rock Band 2 vs Guitar Hero World Tour
By EvilDingo 19 Comments
While this subject may seem a little late to the party - please keep in mind that I am european, and thus RB2 have only just been released here a few weeks back.
This also means that I'm playing RB2 with the GHWT-drums since that's the game I acquired back in december - Seriously, as if I was going to buy RB1 (which just had been released at that time) knowing that RB2 had already been released in the States.
Most of my comments on the games are probably going to be drum-related, since that's what I'm mostly rocking now that it's the new thing.
Also be aware that I have the PS3-version of both games.
Having played quite a lot of Guitar Hero World Tour up to this point, and been playing Rock Band 2 intensely in these last 2 weeks or so , I wanted to share my observations on how I think Rock Band 2 compares to Guitar Hero World Tour.
Having never played RB1 I differently noticed some sort of timing difference between the two games. I feel that RB2 requires somewhat more precision.
However having overcome that, overall RB2 comes across as the better *game* to me. Anyway, I better start listing my main observations..
THE GOOD
- I love how the whole career-mode is i RB2. The whole idea about gathering fans to progress work very well and the fact that each character earn money individual works pretty well too.
- You're able to start a new band with other people WITHOUT being completely cut off from unlocked songs. You don't have to unlock songs again.
- I loooove the whole using drum-fills to activate star power ...ehm... I guess that's "overdrive". I'm unable to count all the times in GHWT where I've broken a 4x streak trying to activate star-power and it didn't register. Actually I generally love everything about the fills. They actually come in meaningful places unlike GHWT, where I usually don't even bother since I seldom are able to drum anything naturally.
- I think the fact that hits during fills DON'T count any points works to the advantage of the general gameplay. By not activating the overdrive you can make it through hard parts, using the fills as breathers between the hard part. However it's at the expense of points which can't be earned during these sections. Also since the fill-sections itself don't count towards your score, you don't feel "pressured" to perform the fill if you can't do a meaningful one.
- It's a great idea that the bass-player is able to rack in a 6x multiplier. It adds to the importance of the bass in the songs.
- The way overdrive is activated on the singers track seem superior to GHWT, where it often seem to activate accidently. The rhythm-sections are also superior to GHWT's "make some noise"-sections... seriously, who can (or would) even do that without just being annoying. The fact that the rhythm-sections are voluntary to take into account people, who actually have the mike on a stand and are willing to play an instrument AND sing is kind of awesome... I actually did this in GHWT :-)
- Rocking a GHWT-guitar in RB2 is awesome simply because it ignores the input from the finger-smudged solo-pad. I don't know if I'm missing out not having a RB-guitar with solo-buttons, but to me it's a big deal that the stupid solo-pad (which I didn't EVER use anyway) doesn't suddenly give false inputs.
- ... on that note. The blue solo-sections are a good addition - you get aware on sections where your instrument has a solo and is in focus - and although I don't actually have a RB-guitar, I can easy deduct that these solo-sections work a whole lot better with the solo-buttons on the RB-guitar, than the way GHWT can suddenly out of the blue throw some slidey-notes at you.
- Multiplayer actually works... and it works well. Of cause I can't be sure if this just because I have the PS3-version of the games, but I've NEVER successfully got any online game going in GHWT... not that there is much reason to anyway. The way RB2 makes it easy to join and invite people in a band, has actually made me aware that there IS actually people playing PS3 online... Now it would just be nice if people had headsets too... Not that I have one either though.
- That songs are compatible between Rock Band games is reassuring... And apart from that novel idea, the song selection is larger than that of GHWT and also cheaper. Go figure...
- Although I've yet to use it - the "no fail"-function is a great idea.
THE BAD
- The inability to change difficulty after failing a song is kind of annoying. This is especially the case when playing a 6 song set, just to discover that song number 5 is out of your league at that particularly level. I don't know how many are willing to burn through their fans by trying multiple times on the same song to HOPEFULLY beat it eventually. This pretty much leave you with an annoying choice on a multiple song setlist: Either play on the level you can beat most songs and risk failing one of them - or play it safe and play on the level where you can beat all songs, but will be bored playing most of them... That sucks! - It's all well and good that you're able to "save and quit" during a setlist, but this annoyance pretty much keeps me from giving the "Endless Setlist 2" a go...well... ever.
- I not sure, but it seems you can go from green to failed very suddenly in RB2. I've sometimes died with "overdrive" to spare. GHWT seems more forgiving in that regard.
- However singing seems to be VERY forgiving. I don't think I've EVER 100%'ed a song in Singstar on expert for example, and this is something I've managed to do in RB2... I'm differently not THAT good a singer.
- It's not a big deal, but it would have been nice if the bass had open notes like in GHWT.
- The 5-note pattern of GHWT seems superior, and the fact that the drum-controller itself clearly defines visual difference between the drums and the hi-hats is great. It's not likely to ever be addressed, since I'm well aware that the price for song compatibility between games, is that you can't change the original format.
Which pretty much brings me to my main issue with the game...
- The GHWT-drums' compatibility with RB2...
The yellow hi-hat mostly represent a hi-hat in the game, so in for the most part that pad is well enough placed for use with RB2. In fact the only song that comes to mind where the yellow pad seems to represent is "Jesus Christ Pose" by Soundgarden... which incidentally was the first song I bought - and thus I noticed this problem.
However the interpretation of the blue pad annoys me immensely - it sometimes represent a tom and sometimes it represent a hi-hat... and the most annoying thing is, that I see no reason why the orange hi-hat on the GHWT-drums (which is left unused) couldn't double as blue note in the game.
This simple adjustment would seriously solve my entire issue with the compatibility.
The occasional usage of the green pad as a cymbal doesn't really bother me all that much, because apart from the green note at the end of fill-sections, I don't notice this all that much.
This is pretty much what I've noticed and felt like commenting on - didn't actually mean to write a complete essay about it, but it became a fair bit longer than I anticipated.
It's probably apparent enough, but I find that the good outweigh the bad and I'm generally enjoying the game a whole lot.
Feel free to comment and tell me your take on the two games' differences.