Rockin' all over the world?Neversoft and Activision's Guitar Hero World Tour needs no introduction. The Guitar Hero brand is world famous and the already massive popularity and success of its rival title Rock Band ensures that regardless of whichever side of the fence you happen to be on, it's undoubtedly going to sell millions of copies. The franchise is an unstoppable juggernaut, simultaneously popular with both the hardcore elitist populace as well as the casual mainstream public. It's a formula that's been tweaked to perfection over the last few iterations and the only real remaining question that exists is how long can this success continue for?
If you're not already familiar with the gameplay mechanics of Guitar Hero, firstly: where the hell have you been for the past 3 years? And secondly, go back and read our
review of the first game in the series for a full and proper explanation. Hell, I'll even go the whole hog and point you in the direction of our review of
Guitar Hero II,
Guitar Hero Rocks the '80s,
Guitar Hero III and
Guitar Hero On Tour.
And so, in an ironic twist of fate, with Guitar Hero World Tour, Neversoft is taking on Harmonix, and the original Guitar Hero franchise's founder's title Rock Band, and is playing it at its own proverbial game by delivering the whole band-in-a-box experience in the Guitar Hero template. That sounds way more complicated than it actually is but the long and short of it is that Guitar Hero World Tour is no longer just about the guitar. It's now Bass, Drum and Microphone Hero all shoved in the same huge, shiny (and some would say overpriced) box.
And as if that wasn't complicated enough, in order to differentiate itself from the Rock Band experience, Neversoft has further tweaked the game's instruments by adding a touch sensitive slider pad to its guitar, and two cymbals (and therefore an extra note/beat to play) to the drum kit.
And before you explode in an apoplectic fit of rage and start shouting from the rooftops about splintering the market and creating two exclusive platforms, rather brilliantly, Neversoft and Activision have put their former differences with Harmonix and EA to one side and have made Guitar Hero World Tour fully compatible with Rock Band's instruments. Which should hopefully now remove the need for you to take sides and pick one over the other. You can play both.
When you play World Tour with Rock Band's drum kit, even though it's lacking cymbals and therefore that extra note, the game detects and adjusts itself accordingly, providing an equally brilliant experience without any loss or degradation in quality. And if you so choose to play the guitar in World Tour using Rock Band or even Guitar Hero III's controller for that matter, again you'll not sacrifice any of the experience by making that choice. I mean sure, you won't be able to use the excellent new World Tour guitar controller touch pad to slide your fingers up and down the neck when faced with the fantastic strum-less solos, but you can still play them in much the same manner using the standard buttons.
And so what else is different? Well actually, not a whole lot to be honest. World Tour sticks with GH's circular notes and more angled play field. Neversoft's wacky sense of humour prevails throughout and provides a slightly less serious experience than Rock Band with its tongue firmly set in its cheek. And World Tour continues where GH III left off by introducing at various points throughout the career mode, fully modelled licensed rock stars for you to jam with such as Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins, Ozzie Osbourne from Black Sabbath and various other A (and some Z) list rock stars.
I was reluctant for this review to turn into a Rock Band vs Guitar Hero World Tour comparison, as I honestly have equal time (and money) for them both, but it's impossible not to draw comparisons. So rather than try and skirt around the issue, I'll just lay my cards on the table by stating right here and right now, that of the two, if I really
had to pick one (because the internet is all about hypothetical do or die situtations) and even though Harmonix is the rhythm action game forefather, World Tour just edges it. And for various reasons I shall shortly elaborate upon.
Firstly, I much prefer how easy it is in World Tour to hammer on and pull off the noodly guitar solos - or to use the phrase I prefer, to indulge in a bit of
fret wanking. The timing window seems to be a touch wider and more forgiving and World Tour is far more lenient. But rather than making for an easier and less gratifying experience, the difficulty level is perfectly pitched and there's still that massive sense of satisfaction upon nailing a particularly troublesome section. And even though the euphoria and that trademark Guitar Hero feeling is waning slightly as each 'new' title is churned through the door, it's that feeling of achievement and practise making perfect that truly defines the Guitar Hero experience.
Secondly, and this is very much a subjective preference so you can take it with a pinch of salt, but World Tour's track list is in my opinion, far superior. It offers up just the right amount of commercial cheese combined with an eclectic mix of classics to satisfy a broad spectrum of tastes. And to provide anecdotal evidence in support of this opinion, I recently hosted a family party where Rock Band was inevitably set up. Only it pretty much died on its arse as the ignorant members of my family that were prepared to sing, only knew and wanted to sing The Clash's Should I Stay or Should I Go. Of course this soon got boring and the big moment I'd waited ages for - that of finally justifying my £150 purchase - was gone in an instant.
Fast forward a few months to yet another gathering, and World Tour went down an absolutel storm as my friends were more than keen to sing Michael Jackson's Beat It, Lenny Kravitz's Are you Gonna go my Way and Survivor's Eye of the Tiger, among many others.
And while I fully support games like Rock Band paying homage to its roots by having a track list full of classic rock tracks, it takes real determination and dedication to get a group of people singing along to the relatively obscure tracks. And while I've been more than happy to eventually get to know these tracks in previous Guitar Hero games, singing them proves ultimately to be an unfulfilling and unrewarding experience.
Which leads me nicely onto a point that keeps raising its head across forums the world over, and one that I'm fully in support of: the suggestion that instead of releasing titles with eighty odd tracks like Rock Band and World Tour, a far better alternative would be for EA and Activision to sell a disk that contains all the game's assets and infrastructure and then either charge you individually to download the tracks you want to buy, or give you the option to download say fifty songs of your choice upon purchasing that initial system disk.
Rock Band and Guitar Hero need to become a platform like iTunes or Napster instead of annually splitting the market by releasing new games that are not compatible with previously purchased downloadable content. I've bought a whole host of tracks for GHII and III that I can't play in any other game than the one against which they were initially purchased, which if I'm honest really pisses me off.
Another criticism that's again applicable to both games is while they're undoubtedly a brilliant experience if you do manage to get a whole band together, playing any of the instruments in the solo career mode is (with perhaps the guitar being the exception) somewhat disappointing. I'll be honest, I personally find the bass and drums to be extremely boring and I'm way too embarrassed to ever sing. Sure, they each take some mastering - particularly the drums; I still struggle to mentally separate my foot from my hands in order to perform off beat kick drum rhythms - but bass lines and drum beats are repetitive by their very nature - they both hold the whole of each song together and provide the backdrop and rhythm that lets the lead guitarist shine. And as each song has been hand picked to provide an equal balance between the four instruments, I find this often makes them dull and tedious to play individually. Guitar Hero I, II and III's narrow focus on the guitar and its solos meant it was a directed and targeted experience whereas the whole band nature of both Rock Band and World Tour leads to broader re-focus that unfortunately leads to each player having a somewhat diluted experience.
World Tour also proves (again similarly to Rock Band) to be a much easier game to complete. I managed to best the game on hard mode with barely any failed songs (on solo guitar career) whereas in previous GH games the latter tiers of the game would have me practising whole sections and repeating songs over and over until I'd perfected them. And so far, my experiences with expert mode confirm my suspicions that things have been dumbed down somewhat, as I've even managed to hit 100% of notes on one or two songs - a feat I still can't achieve on a single song on GH III.
And so in conclusion, don't expect a revolution from World Tour as you'll ultimately be disappointed, but if the track listing (outlined in three parts
here,
here and
here) whets your appetite and you already have either set of instruments or plan on buying them soon, there's really no reason not to buy it.
However, as a final caveat, I personally feel that this is the last time I'm prepared to fork out for a full priced game and/or instruments and the next release from either Harmonix or Neversoft must go some way towards standardising the genre and establishing it as a platform. Otherwise they're in severe danger of massively thinning out the genre and undoing all that good will that Harmonix worked so hard to create upon the release of the original Guitar Hero. A game that if I'm honest, provided the most magic out of all of these types of games, as it was the freshest and most original of experiences. Whereas each release since then has slowly milked the genre to death.
And I can say with a heavy heart that unless the GH/Rock Band games evolve further, this will be the last time I'm prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt and a 9 out of 10.
Bungie vows never to follow the Activision route and charge extra for online multiplayer
(1) (30/07) 
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#1 - disusedgenius - on 10/11/2008 at 00:50 wrote:
#2 - peej - on 10/11/2008 at 07:54 wrote: