Guitar Hero World Tour revealed

By Johnny Minkley Published 21 May, 2008

Acti drumming up Rock Band beater?

After weeks of hints, scans and speculation, Activision has finally unveiled its would-be Rock Band beater.

Guitar Hero World Tour, in development at Neversoft, introduces vocals and drums to the mix, promising wireless instruments, the biggest tracklisting ever on disc and a multi-track recording studio that lets you create and share your own cock-rock anthems.

As for the instruments, we're promised the "most realistic drum experience ever in a video game". Unlike Rock Band's four pads-plus-kick-pedal set-up, World Tour will offer three pads and two raised cymbal in addition to a bass pedal.

The pads are also velocity sensitive and apparently quieter to hit than That Other Game. There's also a "newly designed" and "more responsive" guitar, though there's no specific info on what's changed.

Band Career mode will be fully playable online for up to four of you, and you can take on another quartet anywhere in the world in Battle of the Bands mode, which could be hilariously chaotic. Tweak-freaks will doubtless also enjoy the ability to put together their very own monster of rock from top to bottom, customising everything from tattoos and types of pick, designing band logos and creating album artwork.

As for the tracklisting, so far the acts confirmed for inclusion are: Van Halen, Linkin Park, The Eagles and Sublime. All very nice. But the secret weapon could be Music Studio, which offers "a full compliment of tools to create digital music from scratch". Once recorded, you can perform your track in game, or upload and share it with your friends online via the new GHTunes service.

One feature that doesn't look like making the cut, however, is the 'Jam Over' mode. Already shown to select press, this would have allowed you to 'jam' over the top of existing tracks in the game. But a spokesperson today confirmed to Eurogamer that it had been dropped "for now".

"With Music Studio, we are once again delivering unprecedented innovation that has the potential to revolutionize consumer generated music, much in the same way that video sharing hubs have driven user generated video," RedOctane man Dusty Welch told a press release.

For more face-to-face quotes, gobble-up some of our snippets from a recent trip to Neversoft HQ. You can also saunter over to Eurogamer TV for the very first Guitar Hero World Tour trailer.

Guitar Hero World Tour will release on PS3, 360, PS2 and Wii later this year - the full online shebang is likely to be restricted to PS3 and 360. And before you ask, they're saying nothing on pricing just yet.

By pure coincidence, EA and MTV's Rock Band releases on 360 in Europe this Friday.

Picture of Johnny.

About Johnny Minkley

Eurogamer TV's Johnny Minkley is a veteran journalist with a lifelong passion for games and the games industry. He uses Twitter more than most people use air.

Read more articles from Johnny by visiting the Johnny Minkley archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (14) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • neuroniky #1 4 years ago

    Let's see how much they will ask for their instruments here in Europe...

    /me gets ready to see another rape-the-customer price...

  • phoopipe #2 4 years ago

    Red yellow blue red yellow green blue.....yaawwnnnn

  • groovychainsaw #3 4 years ago

    Surely releasing after rock band will be a flop though? Once people have spent >£100 on rock band, they are not likely to do the same for their competitor, surely? Other than that, it sounds good, but i think they'll have their work cut out getting people to spend the money again...

  • Perjoss #4 4 years ago

    guitar hero 3 wasn't very musical compared to the previous ones (the ones made by harmonix) it seemed like it was designed more for the difficulty then for the 'musical fun'. So I doubt world tour will be any good, i hope I am wrong though, you never know they may have learned from mistakes and gotten more people on board with more of a musical background, it just feels like GH3 was made mostly by game developers and had hardly any musical input from actual musicians at all :(

    The songs in GH1 and 2 felt more like you were playing the instrument and the button presses felt like they made more sense and went along with the songs better. I hope that made at least a little bit of sense.

  • jaluuk #5 4 years ago

    I was planning to buy Rock Band when it came out (hell, I've been saving since Christmas) but with all these competitors, perhaps the smart move would be to keep going on GTAIV online and let these lot duke it out and - hopefully - lower each other's prices.

  • Killerbee #6 4 years ago

    The pads are also velocity sensitive and apparently quieter to hit than That Other Game.

    This would definitely be a good thing.

    I saw a couple of blokes playing Rock Band on a demo pod in HMV today, and whilst the guitar looked all right, the drummer looked... like a 35-year-old office worker playing on a half-size kids' drum kit. And the tap-tap-tap of the sticks on the pads made it sounds horrendously cheap and nasty. You can definitely get a better kit from Argos for less. It just won't be compatible with your 360, but hey...

  • stepneg #7 4 years ago

    If it's cheaper than Rock Band i'm in, say no to EA & Harmonix rape!

  • Beano #8 4 years ago

    "By pure coincidence, EA and MTV's Rock Band releases on 360 in Europe this Friday"

    Is UK+Germany+France the definition of Europe?

  • DrKuK #9 4 years ago

    Of course this will sell. Plenty of people bought gh3 as well as rockband. Nothing surprises me these days, look at how ridiculously overpriced rockband is over here, it'll still sell bucket loads (ditto with the ps3 and various other forms of entertainment). Once the marketing machine starts leaking out the songs and hyping up the drums it'll be de ja vu all over again.

    Personally as a huge fan of the genre i'll get the game for the guitar bits, and its huge set list intrigues me. On the one hand having more songs than gh3 on one disc is great, however it does seem to imply GH4's online DLC will be just as lacklustre as GH3.

    Sod it i'm gonna be the odd one out and go for Konamis drum kit, i heard its gonna be compatible with RB, GH4, MGS4, GTA4 and any other abbreviation being released this year.

  • Stu #10 4 years ago

    Will the RB instruments be compatible with this?

  • jaluuk #11 4 years ago

    Stu - pffft no. That would make too much sense, surely.
    Edited by 1 at 21/05/08 @ 17:01

  • JonFE #12 4 years ago

    Stu, I hope the x360 ones will be, with Microsoft's reported strict control over custom peripherals et al...

  • sanctusmortis #13 4 years ago

    Different amount of inputs, so incompatible - on purpose, natch. And you'll look even sillier, as it looks like my son's Fisher Price drumkit.

    GH III was ass - it lacked the charm and design of the Harmonix pair. It may hurt wallets right now, but Rock Band FTUMFW.

  • Zomoniac #14 4 years ago

    you never know they may have learned from mistakes

    It sold better than the last two so as far as they're concerned it was a step in the right direction.

    You can definitely get a better kit from Argos for less. It just won't be compatible with your 360, but hey...

    With some MIDI to USB conversion stuff it will work with it.

    Anyhoo, I had a decent session on Rock Band in HMV yesterday, and as someone who's been playing proper drums for 12 years and has owned several 'real' electronic kits here are my thinkings: The pads are ridiculously loud. I'm going to use an old 22" kick silencer pad, cut out four circles and stick them to it. Partly for the sound and partly because they don't play very nicely. They're too hard and the rebound is awkward, it's like playing on a table. However the kick pedal is surprisingly meaty, it has a decent feel and response and I think it's actually better than a lot of the 'inverted kick simulators' that come on low-end e-drums.