Guitar Hero. Almost every gamer in the world has heard of this particular series of button-mashing finger-blistering music games. The relatively surprising success of the graphically atrocious and slightly tetchy first game (honestly, who has actually mastered the hammer-on system in GH1?) ... Read review
release your own music.Battle of the Bands Mode - Rock out in solo career mode or battle against other four person bands online.Create-a-Rocker - Customize you...
release your own music.Battle of the Bands Mode - Rock out in solo career mode or battle against other four person bands online.Create-a-Rocker - Customize you...
A review by reddragonflame87 on Guitar Hero: World Tour (Xbox 360) February 5th, 2009
Author's product rating:
Gameplay/Playability
Excellent - great gameplay & playability
Graphics
Excellent Graphics - visually stunning
Sound
Excellent - makes full use of my speakers
Value for Money
Excellent
Advantages:
Best game ever, insanely fun, brilliant party game, solid track list, awesome downloads
Disadvantages:
Somewhat bulky
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
Guitar Hero. Almost every gamer in the world has heard of this particular series of button-mashing finger-blistering music games. The relatively surprising success of the graphically atrocious and slightly tetchy first game (honestly, who has actually mastered the hammer-on system in GH1?) spawned two sequels and two genre-specific expansion-style games before reaching the Rock Band clone I'm reviewing today, with the two sequels being adored nearly universally.
But enough of that background information.
The concept behind Guitar Hero is very simple. You hold a guitar shaped controller with five buttons on the fret bar, hold one down, and strum by pushing a small bar up or down. Simple to learn but insanely difficult to master, as anybody who's ever attempted to five-star some of the more tricky songs will tell you.
Guitar Hero: World Tour (hereafter GHWT, because I'm lazy) brings something new to the series by... well, by rather shamelessly ripping off Rock Band. Instead of there being two options to play with, lead and rhythm or bass, there are now four - lead guitar, bass guitar, drums, and vocals. That is all I shall say on the instruments for now as I'd rather like to review them separately.
With the introduction out of the way, let's get down to business.
It isn't often I'll lose all optimism in a series of anything. Like a fool I still cross my fingers every time I hear a new Sonic the Hedgehog game is coming out, hoping in vain that it'll be based on the paperclip-bound game notes I lost when I was a kid. But when I heard GHWT was going to be including the other instruments I was incredibly put off. I don't like Rock Band. The drums were clunky and unrealistic, and might as well have been replaced with a beatbox of some kind. The guitar was heavy and unresponsive, and the buttons were too far apart. It was as if they'd tried to be everything Guitar Hero was but with slight tweaks to avoid outright cloning the franchise.
GHWT looked even worse when some researching (read: YouTube browsing) revealed some embarrassingly easy tracks and a bizarre and horrible ending to Living On A Prayer.
Fortunately for me, GHWT is not Rock Band, and the second you load the game and access Quickplay only to see a jaw-dropping number of songs you can play right from the start you'll appreciate GHWT for what it is.
The gameplay is pretty much as it has been for the rest of the series. A few subtle changes have been made and several new ideas have been implemented. To start off small, hammer-ons and pull-offs have been reverted to the GH2 way of doing things meaning the enormous leeway you had playing GH3 is gone. This is brilliant in my opinion, although I can imagine several Expert-players around the country screaming in frustration during some of the faster songs. Star power has also been twiddled with. It's shared amongst the band with each instrument activating it in a different way. You can also fill up your star power gauge even while it's activated, meaning you won't have anything to lose by activating it.
Now for the bigger features.
The drum courses are very fun to play, although the change in colour scheme was confusing somewhat. The bass courses have an open strum which finally balances out the difficulty - bass was always easier than lead in the rest of the series. The vocals were a slight disappointment. Even though the friend we had testing them (hey, have you heard me sing? It ain't pretty) seemed to be a pro in disguise there was no notable difference between the difficulty levels.
Vocals and drums have little "freestyle" sections where you can earn bonus points, but to be honest they ruin the songs somewhat and we ultimately started ignoring them. The most points we earned came from yelling incoherently into the mic, or performing insanely long arm-shattering tom rolls on the drums. This just became annoying and distracting for the guitarists.
Speaking of guitarists, the new tapping sections are absolutely amazing. Being able to play one handed feels incredibly cool, even if the "sliding" is pathetic (see my review on the instruments for details).
The character creation tool is absolutely amazing. I was able to get a near-perfect clone of myself, complete with a bright pink flying-V guitar. The text entry was a little poor, but that's just nit-picking.
All of the above would be useless and pointless if the song didn't have a good soundtrack, and I'm absolutely delighted to say that the GHWT soundtrack is spot on. There is an amazing mix of songs from various dates and from various genres, and while some can be a little boring for an individual instrument it's fairly well balanced. The party feel is definitely there too. There's something about a room full of people all singing Sweet Home Alabama at the top of their lungs that you'll never find in another game.
It isn't to say the game is flawless. I've mentioned before the problem with the freestyle sections and sliding, and the difficulty is weird when it comes to the vocals. There are also some songs which are very poor. One particular gig in the career mode forces you to play a few very long and very dull songs that go on for what felt like ten minutes each. The screen can also get a little busy sometimes with three instruments and vocals at once, and you'll hear many cries of "wait, which side am I?" from the guitarists. Star power is also incredibly hard for the drummers to activate since they need to hit both cymbal pads at once - nearly impossible until there's a decent break in the song.
None of the above really phased me though, at least not enough to put me off playing. GHWT is still an amazing party game and has bought a genuinely fresh outlook to an increasingly-diluted genre of games. From this humble gamer, it has earned the title of "best game evarrr".
Advantages: Amazing interaction with the wireless guitar Disadvantages: Hitting someone with your guitar is always a disadvantage!
...disc, the disc and the guitar and the complete set which has a guitar (wireless), drums (wireless) and microphone (wired). I purchased the Guitar & Disc version for my fiance for around £59.99 from HMV just before Christmas. This was the cheapest that I had seen the game advertised and after Christmas it was available for somewhere between £30-£40 in various high street stores as part of their post Christmas Sales. The game has many songs on it (which ... ...your guitar or whatever you like. The aim of the game is to become a guitar hero and play along in one of the five difficulty modes (Beginner, Easy, Medium, Hard & Expert!). You have five notes on the guitar, yellow, green, blue, red & orange which you use to play in time with the music. You have to press the notes and strum the strum bar to hit the right note. The guitar we received also comes with a whammy bar which you can use for the long notes ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: longevity, choice of songs, multiplayer element Disadvantages: hard to access high scores, graphics
...addition to the increasingly popular Guitar Hero series. The main new feature is the option to play on bass, sing or play the drums which increases the longevity of this game no ends. It also makes the multiplayer element much more enjoyable and is perfect for parties. There is a vast library of songs to choose from and I'd say something for everyone. From the classic rock of Jimmi Hendrix to the grunge of Nirvana and the punk pop of Blink-182. There ... ...weak point. Also, the scoreboards are a bit harder to navigate and it only keeps the top three high scores which is a bit annoying. In terms of variety, innovative gameplay and choice of songs, Guitar Hero: World Tour has a lot to offer and is a thoroughly enjoyable experience. ...
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Advantages: guitar included Disadvantages: have to buy activision mikes and drums.
...my first title in the guitar hero series. I was going to get the full package with microphones and drum kit, but it would have cost another £60 of my hard earned money. I also had the lips game so naively believed that the mikes from that game would work easily enough. Well they don't which is a shame and the mikes aren't a cheap option either. The guitar itself looks good, but the buttons do have a bad habbit of sticking. Still all in all they are ... ...game with plenty of songs to play along to. Songlist has over 70 songs including:
Beastie boys: No sleep to brooklyn
BLINK 182: Dammit
Bob Segar Hollywood Nights
The doors: Love me two times
Wings: Band on the run
Michael Jackson Beat it.
The game has five diffuculty settings,the first being somewhat riddicolous where its just pressing the one key all the time. the next level up is the one i usually play where the first three keys are used ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Advantages: Social game great for groups of friends or alone, downloadable content, great gameplay Disadvantages: Sore wrists, or throat
...addictive game for only £40 guitar included! Okay so if you are anything like me, I bet you have dreamed about having the skills to play the guitar like the greats Jimi Hendrix, Slash and the list continues. Well forget the guitar lessons at £20 a pop this is the game for you. I think this game has excellent game play, great graphics, and a wide variety of songs to choose from and the ability to download more content this game made me feel like a ... ...some special guests.I think that Guitar Hero World Tour is a step above the previous Guitar Hero Games because not only can you master the guitar you are given the opportunity to tune those vocal chords and test those drumming skills you have longed too show off. I had the opportunity to fulfill my every Rockstar fantasy but also battled it out amongst my friends to see who was the ultimate Guitar Hero. In my opinion the only down side to this game ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Advantages: Great Game, Excellent track list Disadvantages: Multiplayer slightly dissapointing.
I started playign the guitar Hero series many years ago starting with Guitar Hero 2. I have to admit this is the best sequel yet. I picked up a bargin near christmas and bought the game and guitar for £48 pounds. Was money well invested. The tracklist is excellent, and this time actually contains quitea a few songs which i've heard before the game came out. When I first opened the box up, and saw the guitar, I felt it was a massive improvement over ... ...get the game with the guitar I would have said yes, But now I feel the guitar is not worth it. The price has gone up considrably more since I bought it, and I have a feeling that you can still play the notes meant for the touch sensitve part, by normal strumming. The only differences are the looks, sensitive buttons and a slightly different standard button arangement. You can now activate star power just by pressing a button. Although I still don't ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
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