Grape's Reviews: Guitar Hero: World Tour

Guitar Hero: World Tour (Xbox 360)

Release Date: October 26, 2008

Developer: Neversoft

Publisher: Activision

Players: 4

Guitar Hero: World Tour had many mixed opinions upon release. Some argued that it had copied Rock Band in every aspect, which basically meant that Guitar Hero admitted defeat and had to copy to survive. Others defend that Guitar Hero had to do this at some point, or they would have fallen behind. They might also state that it has a song creation feature, and completely unique instruments. Was this game up to standard, or just a lame copy?

Guitar Hero: World Tour noticed that Rock Band was dominating the market. If they remained a guitar-only game, they were sure to lose the rhythm game war. So, ‘guitar hero’ became ‘band hero’, which now has the guitar, the drums and the mic. I will agree that this was a step in the right direction, but it came much too late. Guitar Hero also came up with all-new peripherals; a new guitar with a touch-sensitive slide (used for tricky solos), and a drum set with two upper cymbals and three drums, as well as a bass pedal. Even though Guitar Hero allowed Rock Band peripherals to be used in the game, Guitar Hero’s instruments were too different from the Rock Band ones, so in order to get the full experience of Guitar Hero: World Tour, you will need to dish out ANOTHER 200 dollars for a new set of instruments, which seems very unnecessary. Of course, if don’t have Rock Band yet, it would be your first set of instruments, but Guitar Hero’s instruments cannot be used in Rock Band at all.

One major thing that needs to be reflected on is the new music studio, which allows you to make your own music via an in-game creator and play the songs. The creator deals with a very complex and intricate system that you may have to explore and experiment for days, if not weeks, to figure out. With an idea that had so much potential, Guitar Hero made it so difficult to do anything with it that the entire experience was destroyed. Luckily, you can download songs other users have made via Xbox Live, so if others were brave enough to venture into the impossible, you can enjoy their toils.

I was excited to see the soundtrack for this game. When I did, my excitement quickly turned to utter disappointment. Similar to Rock Band 2, there are 86 in game tracks available. About 20 of these are in Rock Band already. Not to mention that the songs were incredibly poorly picked. Many songs are lacking an instrument, for example Schism hardly has any vocals, and a lot of songs on the track have downright boring drum tracks. The rest, which is about 2 songs (“Beat It” and “Hotel California”), were actually pretty decent. Not to mention METALLICA! (E3 reference), their entire new album was released along with the game, which isn’t that exciting considering Metallica’s new content sucks anyway.

The gameplay in Guitar Hero: World Tour is much like the gameplay of the previous Guitar Hero games, as well as the gameplay of Rock Band. You press the fret buttons and strum, you hit the drums with wooden sticks, or you sing. As fun as this is, the songs provided kill this experience. I suppose the guitar was th only instrument that got the full deal, a multitude of songs had either little to no vocals or intensely boring drums. And while the guitar did get its fill, Activision pulled another cheap shot, and made many guitar solos impossible. Luckily we have the new guitar that you had to pay $90 for!

There is one major improvement that this game made over its predecessors; its graphics. The graphics of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock made NES graphics look like gold. They were choppy, blocky and an overall mess. The graphics of this game have been cleaned up and been given a much smoother look. There are also many different customizable options in Create a Rocker, which was expanded upon even farther than Rock Band’s was. The graphics still didn’t compare to the graphics of Rock Band overall, however... there was still that blocky look that the previous games had.

In conclusion, I give Guitar Hero props for trying. It’s hard to be a wanna-be, because then you get negative reviews and loads of criticism, kind of like the review I’ve written just now. If you had intentions of purchasing this game, I suggest you look into Rock Band instead.

Presentation: 7/10, Changed Guitar Hero into Band Hero, copied Rock Band in every way possible.

Graphics: 8/10, Much smoother than the games before it. Create a Rocker was very diverse and detailed, but still had that blocky feel.

Sound: 6/10, While many of the songs are classics, they don’t belong in a game. Many songs exclude at least one instrument, making the playing experience very dull.

Gameplay: 6.5/10, We’ve seen this already in Rock Band. The only difference is the instruments. If you don’t have Guitar Hero’s peripherals, this game becomes a nuisance to play. They even completely remove a drum note to be compatible with the Rock Band instruments… that tells you they saw it coming!

Lasting Appeal: 6/10, The career mode is very boring and not expanded upon enough. If you can figure out how to use the song editor, this could last you a potentially long time. If not, you’ll be done with this game in a matter of hours.

OVERALL SCORE: 6.5/10