Guitar Hero World Tour

"A Very Fun Guitar Hero With Some Minor Annoyances"

I will say this straight off the bat:
I love this game.

I only give it an 8 because of some minor, but very annoying, issues. I might as well list those first.

For one, the only way to access the store is through character creation. In other words, no more purchasing characters or pre-made guitars and finishes.

Secondly, the only time you even get to use your created characters is when you play in Career. No Career, no created characters.

Thirdly, there is never any choice of venue. You get no choice in QuickPlay, it's always random. In Career, you're restricted to only playing the songs in the exact same venue as the gig they were in.

Finally, the song creator is not nearly as well made as it could have been, considering who was working on it. Many of the things I had planned to do were either impossible, or nearly impossible to figure out. I also heard originally that it would be possible to create songs out of MP3s, which would be undeniably awesome (I'd finally get to play so many songs I always hoped for), but no such luck. Personally, I feel it would be possible to program something that could pick up on the guitar notes and set a fretboard for them, albeit hard. But it would be totally worth it for the mass rave reviews they could get for it, even if they charged for the service each time it was used.

Now that that's done, let me explain why I like the game so much.

The setlist, being a Guitar Hero game, is everything. And this setlist is as well put together as any other so far. Personal favorite bands of mine have finally been put in, such as Lostprophets, Jimmy Eat World, and Sublime, as well as amazing oldies songs, such as "On The Road Again" and "The Joker".

The amount of detail Activision, Neversoft, and Vicarious Visions put into the game is incredible. The character creation is much more in-depth than I expected, with a very similar feel to the old THPS games. There is also much more work in the MoKap area as far as the bands go. Each character now has their own personality. On occasion, you'll see your guitarist and bassist jam back to back, the guitarist, bassist, and vocalist sing together on sections, and even see non-vocalist characters singing along to the music. Character's lips also seem to sing the actual words, rather than move in a somewhat similar way.

The new setlist style, although it takes some getting used to, is very nice, considering you can sort it by artist, song name, or even when it appears in Career.

On top of that, it finally got DLC for Wii. Some of the songs on DLC are amazing, though I haven't gotten the chance to play them yet for lack of internet with my Wii and a lack of Wii points.

Either way, it's a definite buy for any fans of the games, or even the genre.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/31/08

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