Guitar Hero: World Tour - Review

GH: WT is the fourth installment in the Guitar Hero franchise. What sets this game apart from its predecessors is the inclusion of the drum kit and microphone, transforming the Guitar Hero experience from a single player game to a party one. Rockband and its sequel have proven that the ability to play as a band is an incredible selling point and so the Guitar Hero franchise has had to reinvent itself to keep up with the competition, but the question is, has it worked?

World Tour sees you take the role of a rockstar and has you performing across a whole host of venues. The game allows you to create your own rockstar, and dress him/her in whatever way you like, as well as customising whatever instrument you play. You have the option of playing guitar, bass, drums or vocals.

The features five difficulty modes; Beginner, Easy, Medium, Hard and Expert. Not being a particularly well versed music person I started out on easy mode. Well in actual fact I started on beginner but it's totally insulting so I recommend you go to easy mode. Putting it simply, Guitar Hero is a helluvalotta fun!! It's such a different experience to play a game like it after hours spent in Resistance and Fallout. The Guitar Hero gameplay is well known, even by those who haven't played it. The discs on the screen are associated to the music that is being played, you play the note when it hits the strike line by pressing the appropriate fret button and strumming at the right time. I'm gonna avoid the technicality of explaining hammer-ons and fret tapping and just say that the game is very easy to play. And even though it is easy, it's still very enjoyable, as you are very conscious of how well you're playing, given the "Rock meter" on the left as well as the combo indicator and note counter.

To compliment the difficulty levels, there is naturally a great range of songs which vary in difficulty as you progress, i.e. the songs you play in the first performance are a lot easier than those in the last one. The setlist available is great, and you'll be hard pressed to find a song that you don't like. Yeah, sure, you may not like a certain band or whatever, but the quality of the songs on show is fantastic - all of which are master tracks and no covers. There is also a host of cameo appearances of familiar faces in the music industry like Ozzy Osbourne, Sting and Jimi Hendrix to name a few.

The game is tied together by points and cash. Points earned are determined by how well you play, including high combos, obtaining star power, long strings of successfully hit notes and so on. The cash you earn is based on your overall performance and other particulars like a "Hot start" and "Never going red on the rock meter". The points are uploaded to a worldwide leader board and the cash is used to buy more venues and gear for your rockstar. What you're wearing or how your instrument is decorated doesn't influence the level of your performance, at least I don't think it does. What adds to the GH experience is the on screen performance of the virtual band members. All the actions are beautifully rendered in the 3d cartoony like style of the series and are accurately portrayed according to the actions/notes you're playing, as well as set pieces that may indeed imitate the bands from which the songs were taken.

I've only too complaints when it comes to World Tour. Firstly, there are times when it feels like the notes your striking either don't represent or don't coinicide with the music that is being played. This is definitely more evident in the lower difficulties but you don't really know it on the higher ones. This then leads to my second problem: it feels as though the step up between difficulty levels is sometimes too difficult. For example, on easy mode you're only ever required to hit Green, Red and Yellow. Medium is Green, Red, Yellow and Blue. And finally orange is introduced on hard mode. Now on first glance that's ok, but the transition to hard mode is more significant as you have to start changing your hand position, whereas in medium or easy you can just leave your hand as it is and strike the notes as required. I would suggest that a better difficulty progression would involve all the notes from the start, but having to strike them less frequently, so you get used to moving your hand.

It is a minor complaint when you consider that the difficulty progresses as you work your way through the gigs. And what's great about the game is that you actually DO feel yourself progressing, be it a higher score or a longer string of successful notes or whatever. You CAN see your progression! And playing through a song that you've mastered is still as fun as it was the first time you played.

Guitar Hero: World Tour has a lot to offer, and is certainly one to break out when you're having a party. Then you can be like a real band where you kick the crap out of someone for a rubbish performance, as well as all the coke and booze.

Presentation: 8.5
Yeah it looks good for what it offers, but you never feel WOW-ed by the visuals at any point. We all know they could get more out of the 360 and PS3.

Gameplay: 9.3
Plays great even if it is a little hard at time. Once you get motorin' it'll be hard to drop the guitar, drum sticks or mic.

Design: 9.0
One of my cymbals doesn't work, and as I said sometimes the notes seem out of sync, but it doesn't distract too much from the overall experience.

Content: 9.0
Great set list and tonnes of replay value. I would prefer if they gave more of the treatment Rockband gets with the worthwhile updates.

Overall: 8.7

Bring on Guitar Hero: Metallica!!!!!

~The Damo