Guitar Hero World Tour

"A Valid Attempt At A Full Band Game"

Ah, Guitar Hero: World Tour. The most fun I've had playing a rhythm game in a long time. Needless to say, I love this game however it does have many negative points to it. I'm not going to go on about how good the music and/or graphics are or aren't (the prior is down to personal taste, and the latter doesn't make a difference in this type of game), but what I am going to do is praise that which is good (and there's lots of it) and berate that which is bad (a lot of this exists as well).

Might as well get the bad things out of the way first. I'll sum up my biggest qualm with this game in four words: Neversoft can't chart correctly. Don't get me wrong, the charts are all good and fairly accurate... until you start playing Lead Guitar on Expert difficulty. If you are not a fan of chords don't even contemplate it. Every song on the game (all 84 of them) is a massive chord fest for either 2-3 sections, over half the chart, almost all the chart - and in this case the ones that aren't chords might as well be - or in a few cases, the charts are nothing but chords. Hard difficulty is both more fun AND accurate!

Incorrect charting is what Neversoft did wrong in Guitar Hero III, and they've done the exact same thing here. Every song is either overcharted or undercharted. The overcharted ones are unfun to play, and require rapid chord changing, and the undercharted ones are too easy and still unfun. You might think I'm crazy when I say this (and you're probably right), but in my opinion Bass is much more fun than Guitar.

I have my reasons for saying this, and it all comes back to the chords again. Bass is NOT just a spam of chords, it's actually got some fun fast-strumming sections, a couple of interesting mini-solos, and can be challenging at times for all the right reasons! Yes, bass can be challenging (AND FUN!) as well due to the new note; an open note.

(Explanation time: an open note is similar to all the other types of notes (Green, Red, Yellow, Blue and Orange) but is different because it appears as a purple line on the "highway" [that's the fretboard], and if you hold any fret down you can't hit it. Like the name suggests, the note is merely the base note of a scale.)

Now that I've spent several paragraphs somewhat complaining about the poor charting, I can go onto my other main gripe with the game. The Hammer ons/Pull off system is rather tempermental and poorly done. It's by no means as bad as the HO/PO system of Guitar Hero I (where you had to hit the note the instant it was in the centre of the timing window otherwise it missed), but it's still very bad. I'm not sure if it's because I use the Schecter (the guitar that comes in the Guitar and Full Band packs) or not, but there are times when I hit the note perfectly and it doesn't register so I break combo [this is really annoying near the end of a song like Schism or Stranglehold], and have even failed songs that I would normally pass with ease because of it.

My last problem with the game also lies within the Schecter; the slidebar touchpad used for tap-strumming. It's a great thing for those that can't tap properly but the sections where it can be used are so short and rare that it's not worth having it enabled. They are also easy enough to hit normally, even if you can't tap. Besides, the sections where you'd really want to use it, you can't because touching it whenever it's not in a tap-strumming section (represented by slightly faded notes and a purple "rope") automatically breaks combo. Not to mention that the thing is so sensitive that having it enabled is outright pointless, since if you try to use the tilt sensor to activate Star Power it's likely to have an affect on the slidebar as well. Sometimes, it just randomly causes you to break combo anyway (most notable in songs with large gaps where nothing's happening; What I've Done is a very good example of this). It's a nice idea, but is far too badly implemented for my liking.

Now, enough complaining. Time for the stuff I like about the game. In my opinion, if it wasn't mentioned above, it's good basically (or I haven't tried it yet; like Drum sustains for example. I don't know how they work or how that's even possible but they exist apparantly).

I know I said I wasn't going to discuss the music, so instead I'm going to discuss the quality of the music, i.e. how it sounds. The good news, is that there are NO covers at all! Yep, every track in the game (DLC or on-disc) is a Master Track. This is very good indeed, because now the good tracks are still good (for the record, I still get very annoyed whenever I hear the Guitar Hero II version of Beast and the Harlot) and the bad tracks are bad, and you're not disappointed after the cover was good and go to get the master track. (As for the tracks themselves are almost all very good ones in my opinion; there are only 5 tracks I dislike! But don't let that influence you; the ones I dislike are still somewhat fun to play in places!)

Next I'm going to discuss my favourite feature of the game: the music studio. This was supposed to be the feature that gave World Tour an advantage in the market, and in my opinion, it did just that. With the Music Studio, you can create any chart you want (or just download ones from GHTunes; an in-game online application where players can upload their custom tracks for other people to play and rate) and you can play it right away. You only create the expert difficulty track, and it generates the other difficulties based on what you chart, so you only need to do 1/5 of the work!

Yes, I said a fifth. That wasn't a typo. There ARE in fact 5 difficulties now; the new one is Beginner. I haven't tried it - because I don't need to - but from what I've read I think I know how it works; you can play any note you like at certain points in the song and you can never fail to the best of my knowledge. (Speaking of never failing, it's now impossible to fail on Easy difficulty for the first 20% of a song. It's good for people who actually want to play the game, but aren't that good I suppose.)

I pretty much explained Bass and Guitar before, so I might as well explain the other two instruments now; Drums and Vocals. I haven't played Drums, so I can't really comment on them, but I can comment on Vocals and how fun they are to play. They may be horribly broken (so much so that getting a good score is virtually impossible), but I had a lot of fun singing some of my favourite tracks despite the fact that I technically did badly. As long as you play Vocals for fun and not score then you'll be fine.

The last thing I can really comment on, is the band play. I haven't tried it yet but I know the one thing that people (reviewers or not) keep whining about; the entire band shares Star Power. I'd actually appreciate it, if someone can explain how thats a bad thing, since to me it's a brilliant idea. Not only does it encourage teamwork, but you can actually help out a band member who's technically failed, if they're in the middle of a complex riff or beat that they can't quite hit.

The tl;dr version of this review is quite simply: Guitar Hero World Tour is a great game with faults so minimal that they're not worth worrying about.

As for the ultimate question: rent or buy; I highly reccomend buying it if you play for fun. If you play for fun, but aren't sure if rhythm games are for you then either rent it, borrow it from a friend or play it at a party or something like that; chances are you'll find something you like about it!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/05/09

Game Release: Guitar Hero World Tour (Guitar Pack) (EU, 11/07/08)