The ever popular Guitar Hero series is back and this time it is stepping into Rock Band’s territory bringing on the full ensemble complete with plenty of bad singing, hitting brightly colored, drums and plenty of customization.
by:
November 14, 2008
The past few years we have seen an incredible craze in the gaming industry, and while it has always been there no one has really gotten in right until Guitar Hero. Guitar Hero has tapped into the hearts and minds of the millions out there that rock-out with their air guitars, and when original GH developer Harmonix jumped ship to create Rock Band they made it more fun for everyone by making it a complete band game. The guys at Neversoft, best known for their work on the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series didn’t ignore this, and have created a very nice answer to Rock Band on their own.
The biggest addition to Guitar Hero this year is of course the fact that not only can you rock out on a plastic guitar, but you can also rock out by beating the crap out of a wireless toy drum set, and karaoke/sing your heart out on “One I Love” with your best Michael Stipe impression. The microphone it comes with is a decent Logitech microphone, although it is not branded as such, but unfortunately it is wired, and must be connected through one of the Xbox 360’s USB ports. It isn’t all bad, especially since the cord is so long, but it would have been nice of they made it trip proof for those long drunken sessions, or when the kids are jamming out and get a little to excited. The wireless guitar the World Tour bundle includes is even better than the first wireless guitar introduced by Activision and instrument maker Red Octane, with a longer strum bar, and a strum bar that includes an area that is made specifically for stringing chords together faster, base, and it is definitely easier on younger children when playing in Beginner. The wireless drum set, while built better than any drum set out there, even allowing you too hook it up to a computer and make your own songs on programs like Garage Band definitely has some quality issues. My drum set’s pedal would either work perfectly or not at all, and there have been reports of similar issues by dozens others having to do with an array of issues. To add insult to injury Red Octane makes you pay for shipping and handling to get the thing fixed. So if you are buying the game make sure to keep the receipt, and get a gift receipt if you are buying it for a loved one this Christmas. Still, if you don’t feel like spending nearly $200 on the bundle, any previous game guitar, drum sets, and microphones work fine with Guitar Hero World Tour.
The other big story for GH this year is the customization. It should come as no surprise either, after all, Neversoft the developers of the game have years of experience making the Tony Hawk series very customizable. Every little detail about your rocker from their jaw line to their tattoos can be customized, even allowing you to create your own works of art, as well as every instrument in the game, and your very own band logo. More importantly however you can create your own songs. The editor to create your own songs can be a little iffy at times, and it mimics a very minimalist version of some of the popular music creation programs out there on computers but it is definitely a fantastic start. You are able to create tracks for drums, lead guitar, rhythm, bass and save it all as one song, or simply create a track for one instrument. You can do this in a freestyle mode where you hit record, or get more technical and manually place notes where you feel they should be placed. I will admit I am not a music expert, however I have one friend that is the bassist for a local heavy metal band, and a friend majoring in music and a professional drummer try the feature out with decent results. They weren’t able to create exactly what they wanted to create, however I was surprised to see just how close they got to creating songs that they wanted to create. What is even more exciting is the ability to upload your works of art onto the Guitar Hero World Tour servers and let people download them and try them out. The level of freedom the game gives you is a breath of fresh air, and you would be surprised what familiar sounds you will find, giving the game an extra level of depth and replayability.
It sure beats buying songs on Xbox Live, which is something that Activision still seems to struggle with, in terms of selection. I really don’t think most of us want download a crappy overproduced album like Death Magnetic, although it would be nice to get some of Metallica’s classic catalogue. It is easier to check out the music though thanks to an in-game music store, and playing online is better than ever now that you can have your own band. You can go online and rock your heart out playing against other bands and check out all kinds of stats on the guitarhero.com website. You can also have guitar duels, and play solo against other people.
You can play the entire campaign in the game choosing to sing, play drums, bass, or guitar. This gives plenty to do, but you get the same songs, just in different order depending on the difficulty and which mode you want to play. You are rewarded for beating each parts career, but it would be nice if your efforts for one part were counted towards the efforts in band play. Along the way you run into plenty of rocking heavy weights such as Ozzy, Ted Nugent, and strangely Jimi Hendrix, and it definitely adds to the fun. While Guitar Hero III could be frustrating at times last year thanks to uneven difficulty, and a medium mode that felt like the hard mode from Guitar Hero II, it seems that at least for the guitar and drum parts, these problems have been ironed out and a nice tasty experience has been given to each difficulty. Playing the drums is pretty much like playing the guitar, besides the fact that you are hitting drums instead of “strumming” the guitar. You can make a bunch of noise to “get the crowd going” and also give you some free points to keep yourself going just in case you hit a rough spot. This is no more appreciated than when singing in the game.
When you sing, you have a comet that will jump up and down depending on the pitch of your voice. You have to sing or at least make noise that is at that pitch when a line with words scrolls across the screen. It sounds simple enough right, but many times it does not work, and it works very unevenly. I am able to beat some songs that sound incredibly hard to sing on Hard, but others that sound incredibly easy to sing, I can’t even get half way through on the Easy setting. Luckily, the game has a beginner’s mode that basically is free points for as long as you are doing something (anything) when notes or words prompt you to hit or sing. You could play an entire song on easy, holding down one button and strumming along the way and still complete the song. When singing though, it doesn’t help that a lot of the songs it is hard to tell what your pitch is supposed to be, especially since not every single one of the songs will be a favorite.
The game does come with plenty of songs to choose from though, all the original master tracks, over eighty in all. Some of my favorites include all of Ozzy’s stuff (Crazy Train, Mr. Crowley), Korn, System of a Down, Modest Mouse, Tool, and hey, I kinda like to do my best impression of MJ on “Beat It”.
Visually the game is still trying to play catch-up with the raw feel that Rock Band has, and is still on the cartoony/anime side throughout, complete with the cheesy story-telling that Neversoft got so good at with the Tony Hawk series. In the past this really wasn’t an issue, but Guitar Hero has become a much bigger spectacle than ever before, and it would be nice to have something better to look at. At least the game allows you to show off all the hard work you put into hours of customizing every last part of your band.
Share this:
7
9
8
7
10
8
Guitar Hero World Tour brings it with lots of great customization, online modes, plenty of music, and plenty to do. If the idea of creating your own music is incredibly appealing to you then look no further than World Tour this holiday, however the game is still a little rough on it’s performance, and sometimes the difficulty can be imbalanced when singing. A few other minor hitches keeps the game from being the best option out there, but the customization will keep people coming back for more.
