Guitar Hero World Tour

"High Expectatations, Ultimatley A Let Down"

Like many of you, I was waiting for Guitar Hero: World Tour. The set list was outstanding (Hendrix, Nuge, Zakk Wylde, Tool, even Willie Nelson), the drums and new guitar looked outstanding! Not to mention the customization of your character and the GH tunes where you could actually create your own stuff! It was set up to be amazing!

Is it Amazing? Not so much. There are some pretty neat parts to the game (the set list, Jimmy Hendrix pushing your guitarist off stage with a mere wave of his hand, the venues are great), but ultimately, it fails to live up to the hype.

Why? I will answer this question from the standpoint of a Rock Band since the game's launch (Rock Band 2 as well), and will say up front I did not play the drums. So... here we go.

The graphics are guitar hero graphics, not a bad thing. The venues are beautiful (the Tool created venue is pretty sweet!). But when you start playing the game, it just does not seem that it captures that "band" feel. On the subject of band feel, the star power works different. In GH:WT, you cannot save your band mates if they are struggling, which really didn't appeal to me. Also, with most of the tracks (and I know it is guitar hero, however comma, it was pushed as a band game) are not really fun (we played an entire weekend of Guitar Hero, and my brother, who drums, could not shake the fact that the drums just, for the most part, were un-sat, with that said, he loved "Purple Haze Live") from a band stand point.

There also is a major difference in Rock Band, we called it the forgiveness factor for a little bit, then we coined it the slop factor. There is too much slop allowance, and some may enjoy that, but I did not, I enjoy the precision of Rock Band and it really made the adjustment curve that much steeper when trying to adjust to Guitar Hero. Also, on the subject of the gameplay, the star power initiator for drums was pretty un-sat. Sometimes, on Hard mode and Expert mode, there wasn't time to initiate Star Power, due to the fact that (on the Rock Band 2 drums, which work great with GH:WT) you have to hit the Yellow and Blue Pads.

Another thing I was VERY disappointed in was the music creation mode. Even on a wel-calibrated machine, the lag really took away from an experience that could be outstanding. Not to mention the note/time cap placed on the song creation. That was a huge let-down.

Character customization is different than Rock Band's in a bad way. Coming from Rock Band, it just seemed too different and "not enough" to me, the way it was hyped up. The unlockables that are required just are not the right move, in my opinion and I prefer the Rock Band style of customization (even if I cannot tweak my nose size).

The guitar, which I did purchase is pretty nice, and the choice between Rock Band's guitar and Guitar Hero's is a preference, and Guitar Hero's is worth the buy, if you are going to play GH:WT. The slide bar is pretty cool, but will take getting used to, but it is well worth teaching yourself how to use it. I like the guitar.

Song comparison. My brother and I both love Everlong by the Foo Fighters, so this was the perfect comparison song to see how they mapped their tracks. GH:WT, in our eyes, failed pretty miserably compared to Rock Band's mapping. In GH:WT, it didnt feel, on Hard mode that you were playing a hard song at all, and there is a drummer bass part that is played that I could hear my brother saying "What??! You dont get to play the bass?

All in all, and I may have a bias for Rock Band, seeing as I have played it for the past year, and really only played Guitar Hero minimally (even though I was hyped for this pretty hard core). If you are a die-hard Guitar Hero fan, it is worth your dollar. If you want to duel Nuge, or Zakk Wylde, again, it is worth your dollar. But if you are looking for a full band experience.. this is NOT worth your dollar.

Overall 6/10. It just did not live up to the hype for me and I felt the effort was half-hearted for the most part. I would recommend Rock Band 2 over GH:WT for those looking for that band experience, and yes, even a "guitar hero" experience, for the most part, as the slop factor was just way too high to overcome the sweet feeling you get jammin Hendrix tunes or Straglehold by Uncle Ted.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 11/03/08

Game Release: Guitar Hero World Tour (Guitar Kit) (US, 10/26/08)