Guitar Hero: World Tour review (X360)

Here in Europe we're having to wait for Rock Band 2. And although Guitar Hero: World Tour is a strong release, it's the delay to RB2 that makes it a more worthwhile purchase.

For those of you without the suite of Rock Band hardware World Tour offers a more enticing proposition, as I'll dicuss in a moment, the new Guitar Hero hardware is excellent.

But when it comes to note charts and the career as a whole it doesn't quite feel the real deal.

Hardware

If drumming is your thing then you'll get the most out of Guitar Hero: World Tour. In fact it might be better named Drum Hero due to the brilliance of the new hardware.

The drum kit feels light years ahead of Rock Band's offering. The velocity sensitive pads offer great feedback, much closer to the feel of more expensive drum pads and a heck of a lot quieter than Rock Bands cheap-feeling plastic. The layout of the drums and cymbals feels natural and there's even a midi connection.

The new guitar offers a lot too. The real benefit comes in the longer strum bar which gives more choice for strum-hand positioning. So too does the bridge-position star power bar. The start and select buttons do feel a little fiddly buried either end of the star power button but that's a minor quibble. There's an alternative to Rock Band's high fret buttons in the form of World Tour's slide section. Here a smooth pad allows some legato playing, tapping, hammering-on, sliding-off and it works very well.

The hardware suite is topped off with a wired microphone that does the job admirably and feels solid in the hand. If you've yet to jump into the realm of having a plastic band at home now it's time to jump in with World Tour's gear.

Compatibility

But what if you have a stack of plastic gear already? Well there's good news too. I tried out a Guitar Hero 2 wired guitar, Guitar Hero 3 wireless guitar, Rock Band wired guitar, Rock Band microphone and Rock Band drums and met with little difficulty.

I did have a slight issue with the Rock Band guitar automatically triggering star power whenever it had been earned, but that could be an issue with my guitar rather than a universal complaint. However there were no issues of responsiveness while playing.

World Tour's use of the Rock Band drum kit is generous. The Rock Band kit only has four pads compared to World Tour's three pads and two cymbals but the game reckognises your hardware and adjusts accordingly. So the note chart you'll be given features four lanes rather than five, with cymbal hits combined into one lane.

Note Charts

The main reason I'm not scoring World Tour higher is the issue with the note charts and it's something veteran skilled players of the post-Harmonix Guitar Hero games will know all too well.

For playing up to and including medium difficulty the game feels absolutely fine. But played on the hardest level there's a genuine issue of over-charting. Neversoft hasn't quite nailed the note charts in the way Harmonix has.

Things are improved in World Tour over GH3, but on the hardest skill levels there's the feel the game is making the note charts overly complex based on gameplay requirements rather than a natural representation of the music. GHWT does get very hard indeed, fair enough on complex passages, but some relatively simple music becomes a fret burning frenzy compared to the relaxed way those of us who really play guitar might perform the track.

One neat feature though is the ability to change difficulty level mid-gig. It's a godsend for those moments when you've hit a brick wall of difficulty three songs into a set. And any sets unlocked on any difficulty are made available for all difficulties - more games should learn from this player-friendly approach. It's a shame this player friendly appearance doesn't go the whole way - allowing friends in multiplayer play to resurrect a failed player and continue the song. Guitar Hero shouldn't just copy Rock Band but there's no reason not to include some of the concepts that move the genre forward.

Career Mode

A total of 86 master tracks is a generous offering. Yet I have mixed feelings about the songs on offer. I do like that World Tour isn't as metal-focussed as previous games (despite being a metal fan) with the variety really benefiting singers and drummers. Yet there are perhaps too many obscure numbers to really involve players who wish to sing their way through the game.

Bass players may also feel a little hard done by. There's nothing to rival Rock Band's bass groove feature. There is one tasty new feature - a bar across the note chart to denote that the player should strum an open note, ie. strum with no frets held down. But this asks questions too - why wasn't this implemented for regular guitar too.

Despite the appearance of star cameos such as Ozzy Osbourne the career doesn't quite feel as involving as it should. That's partly down to the song list, the lack of really memorable moments in what is otherwise a strong game and poor crowd interaction compared to Rock Band.

Music Creation

Thankfully the ever-so-slightly disappointing career/multiplayer career is backed by the excellent music creation system. Here you can create your own songs with a surprisingly powerful recording studio.

Those with a little musical knowledge will get the best out of it, but no matter what you experience it's easy to pick up. You can set keys and patterns for the guitars, generate bass/drum patterns if you don't want to play those and even record vocals.

Your creations can be shared online. Disappointingly though completely understandably Activision won't allow the sharing of vocal tracks. So you'll just upload your instruments. This is due to a wish to police content. Though I suspect it's also to do with technical issues, not charts take up little space, but five minutes of singing is a big old file.

On a Plateu

Guitar Hero: World Tour is a strong release. The new hardware is superb and there's plenty to enjoy in the career whether playing alone or with friends. And the content creation ability is a great way for people to take their first steps in composition.

I do feel that the genre is getting a little stale though. Something new is needed. For me that has to come in the way guitar playing is implemented. There needs to be more room for improvisation if trying to replicate the feeling of being a gigging musician is the goal. Joe Satriani doesn't play his songs note-for-note (in fact he scoffs at the idea) so why should you?

The next stage for the genre needs to allow guitarist to be playing all the time, rather than just those set notes when the game wants to play them. A tall order perhaps, but following the inclusion of song creation it may be the direction Guitar Hero needs to move in.

But to return to today's game. It's a really solid release. There are no deal breaking major issues with World Tour, only the hardcore will be annoyed by the over-charting at the harder difficulty levels. Guitar Hero: World Tour is a damn good game. But in a month that sees the release of Fable II, Far Cry 2, Dead Space, Midnight Club, Gears of War 2 etc. it needed to be a bit better. Thankfully at least it doesn't have to fight with Rock Band 2 for your attention in Europe.