Guitar Hero World Tour

"A hugely fun party game but it may seem like a step backward to hardcore GH fans"

The Guitar Hero franchise is phenomenally successful; everyone and their Mum seems to be playing it. Bands are now striving to get their stuff into each game after huge sales boosts to artists that appeared in Guitar Hero 3, like the eternally repetitive DragonForce. Even rockstars such as Slash from Guns 'N' Roses are shedding all credibility to appear in the games and in the latest game there are a plethora of stars making cameos from Zakk Wylde to Hayley Williams (yeah I know, Paramore being in Guitar Hero sucks.)

Pretty much everyone knows the basic way in which Guitar Hero works. You have a fake plastic guitar with five coloured buttons and you press the button in time with the on screen icons on the scrolling fretboard and you strum at the same time to make the note sound. On higher difficulty settings you are expected to hold combinations of buttons to make difficult chord shapes and also pull off hammer-ons and pull offs to string together crazy solos. There is something very fun and addictive about this, and I am not entirely sure what it is when you actually take stock of what you're doing. You're just pressing buttons when you're told to. I guess the appeal comes from the fact that you get to pretend you're a rockstar in front of a crowd of adoring fans when in actual fact you are in your room in the dark, with just your pants on.

In an attempt to update the gameplay mechanics, there is now a touch strip on the neck of the guitar that allows you to simulate finger tapping on solos or to use to play the difficult solos. The problem is that it is really pointless, it is nearly impossible to move your other hand on to the right note on the touch strip without looking and that obviously makes you miss notes on Expert. It is also way too sensitive, I turned the feature off because it thought I was touching it constantly and I kept missing notes. So overall, not a particularly good feature, it is very fortunate that you can turn it off and play Guitar Hero properly.

In a blatant rip-off of Rock Band, you have the option of purchasing this game with a drum set and a microphone so you and some friends can play as a band and your girlfriend can get drunk and sing. Me and some mates got together with a full band kit and lots of alcohol and spent a good six hours having a ridiculous amount of fun! It really is a great party game. I have heard of sensitivity problems with the drum set, but I encountered none and the addition of two "cymbals" is a vast improvement over the Rock Band drum set. Playing drums requires that you kick the bass pedal at the right time and also hit the appropriately coloured drum pad in concordance with the on screen prompts and it is a chance for the terminally un-coordinated to destroy their self-esteem as they constantly fail and become the subject of ire and ridicule. I wasn't drunk enough to try singing except during "Living on a Prayer" but I can comment that it seems exactly the same as in Rock Band; you sing along and it monitors your pitch and you have to follow a kind of pitch line for want of a better phrase.

You are given the option of going through a career, where you play various different gigs around the world for cash and you can either be a singer, bassist, guitarist or a drummer or with friends as a full band where you can moan at your friends who can't do Expert mode and constantly screw it up for you. This time around you can each design your own Rockstar once you have enough cash for some decent clothes, but Clive Winston is back in the game, so I just played as him.

The track list of Guitar Hero: World Tour, is a mixed bag. I suppose it is all down to opinion as to how good it is, but to be honest I think it could be far better. None of the songs are covers you will be pleased to know, since all major bands now appreciate the sales boost attained by allowing your original songs to be in the games, which is always nice but there is a problem. The early Guitar Hero games were full of heavy metal like Megadeth, Metallica, Slayer etc. That featured fun and challenging guitar parts, but since the series has become extremely successful the soundtrack has to cater for more people and as such, many of the bands featured in the game really stretch the definition of "Guitar Hero."

I mean, since when was Noel Gallagher a Guitar Hero? Never, that was when. Yet you are forced to play for a torturously boring Oasis song. There seem to be about five million indy tracks which all completely suck! They really are boring and shouldn't be in a Guitar Hero game since even on Expert you just play about three chords over and over and wait for it to end.

There are some great tracks though such as "Mr. Crowley" and "Crazy Train" by Ozzy Osbourne, "Mountain Song" by Jane's Addiction and much of the last tier of songs culminating in the excruciatingly difficult "Satch Boogie" by Joe Satriani, oh, and even a chance to play with Jimi Hendrix. But for every great track there are five utterly awful songs. I mean, there is a Paramore song in there for goodness sake! They can't play guitar to save their lives! I really have no idea why they are in there other than to attract emo scene kids or people who fancy Hayley Williams. Oh yeah, that is another thing, it seems like almost every music celebrity begged to appear in the game because it is full of pointless cameos.

Another supposed selling point is the inclusion of THREE songs by the band Tool. I don't have a problem with one song by them at all, but three is really excessive because they are all about ten minutes long and to be honest, very boring to play. That is a problem with much of the soundtrack, it should be focused on giving the player a challenge but much of the time I was sitting there playing and thinking "Oh God! Just hurry up and end!" Which highlights some big problems with it. But having said that, it is very subjective. You might like boring indy crap and emo nonsense.

One aspect of Guitar Hero III that I was pleased to see scrapped were the boss battles where you had a guitar duel and used power ups to make each other fail the song. These were incredibly annoying and unfair, and I just wanted to play the song. It seems Red Octane listened because while there are boss battles, there are no power ups, you just have to play better than they do. Also, as these battles are against great guitarists such as Zakk Wylde and Ted Nugent, they are really challenging and fun to play and you will not be constantly frustrated by a "Lefty Flip" power up which always immediately rendered the old boss battles impossible.

The gameplay is still very fun however and indeed, having mates over and playing together or just passing the controller round is great fun and it is definitely one of the best party games around because non-gamers can try and join in. It is also a lot more balanced this time, in Guitar Hero III, there were some songs that were just completely sadistic. I wanted to finish that game but "Through the Fire and Flames" on Expert mode was just impossible, and if you have done it then you're just a freak of nature. You never feel as though a song is utterly impossible on this game, which makes a very welcome change. That isn't to say that you won't spend many hours trying to nail "Satch Boogie" however.

The song editor is a great addition to the game and makes for a lot of fun with mates. You can record a drum part, a bass part and a guitar part and then play the song yourself and even upload it to Xbox Live for the world to share. It is very intuitive, you select what scale you want to play in (on guitar) to change the notes that the buttons sound, and then you strum and press each button to make the notes. It is very simple and rather fun, if you have even the tiniest modicum of musical talent you can easily write a fun and challenging song. If you don't possess the full band kit, then you can use a drum machine and add in a basic bassline for you to jam out over. I recently had an almost indecent amount of fun just jamming out on drums in the recording studio and I could actually see that the drumming in GH:WT could improve your "real life" drumming skills. The only real problem I found with the music studio is that the game sometimes has difficulty transferring your insane lead guitar button smashing and tapping into a coherent and playable solo, so don't go too mental in the recording studio. It is far more expansive than you would expect and is certainly a welcome addition to the franchise.

Graphically, GH: WT is sufficient but most of the time you are staring at a moving fretboard with coloured button so your attention will not be on the band performing in the background. Nevertheless, the graphics are satisfactory with the characters being well animated, the guitarists hand movements believable as are the drummer's and also the singer's lips are synced to every song in the game which is a very nice touch. There isn't a whole lot to say about the graphics as the nature of Guitar Hero reduces the scope of graphical variety immensely; only needing to render dingy clubs and the odd arena, which you pretty much won't notice.

Guitar Hero: World Tour takes a couple of steps forward and one step back, which is still progress I guess. The soundtrack has some problems such as interminably lengthy songs that are really bland to play and will have you nearly falling asleep along with some ghastly emo nonsense. There are the usual host of songs that are fun to play as well as some songs that people measure your gaming skill on whether you've completed them on Expert, as with every Guitar Hero game. If you are a fan of the series then there is no reason not to acquire this game, the mechanics are essentially the same and there are some new features to keep you interested such as the excellent song editor and a whole plethora of downloadable content that will be added to in future. It is a great family/party game on a console that doesn't really have many and is well worth picking up, though hardcore Guitar Hero veterans may be disappointed.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/05/09

Game Release: Guitar Hero World Tour (EU, 11/11/08)