Guitar Hero World Tour Review

By Tom Bramwell Published 27 October, 2008

Fret management.

Version tested: Xbox 360

Master recordings may be the norm these days, but there's still a sense that Guitar Hero World Tour is an "As made famous by..." The Rock Band series is now two games and many dozens of downloadable songs deep, and developer Harmonix, having abandoned the Guitar Hero series it designed and launched to work on Rock Band with MTV, was the first to present this formula - two Guitar Hero-style inputs, drums and vocals - to the public.

But when Harmonix went off to work with MTV, it left more than the interface behind. RedOctane, now part of Activision, has always made the best Guitar Hero peripherals, and after widely publicised problems with the first run of Rock Band instruments, RedOctane and Guitar Hero World Tour's developer Neversoft hope that the game's alternative range will provide sufficient ammunition to reassert Guitar Hero's lead in the battle of the band game brands.

To begin with, the new wireless guitar peripheral introduces a slider bar halfway down the neck, which performs a similar function to the Rock Band guitar's solo buttons, allowing players to tap without strumming for certain note sequences. It's touch-sensitive though, so tapping is unnecessary. As the name suggests, you just slide, and once it clicks it's the most intuitive and satisfying attempt to expand on the Guitar Hero tradition yet. Those with older guitars can tap the fret buttons without strumming for the same effect, which is only mildly less engaging.

'Guitar Hero World Tour' Screenshot 3

The character creator and band shop are full of options devoted players can amuse themselves exploring in-between sets.

Like Guitar Hero III's excellent Les Paul, the new guitar also strums with a click, but there's a bit more resistance - a better implementation of the same approach taken with Rock Band's soft strum bar - while the whammy bar is longer for easier use, and a Star Power button gives players the option of palming for score multipliers rather than whipping the neck aloft. There are also new multi-part extended sustains, where you strum additional notes while keeping hold of others, building up chords. Rock Band's Bass Groove - a proper 'zone' feature for bassists - is an inevitable and much-missed absentee, but a purple horizontal line invites bassists to lay off the frets and play an open note to add a bit of variety.

As with Rock Band 12 months ago - or about five minutes ago in Europe - the drums are the most interesting element of Guitar Hero World Tour because they're the biggest novelty, and RedOctane has also outdone the Rock Band kit here with a five-pad set that includes two raised cymbal pads and a foot pedal made out of sterner stuff than its plywood counterpart. The rubberised, velocity-sensitive drums are more fun to play with and going back to the Rock Band ones afterwards is like being given a bicycle after a car. There's even a MIDI input at the back for add-ons.

In gameplay terms, it's a similar system to the guitars: the note charts show five lanes of descending symbols and as they cross the threshold at the bottom of the screen you strike the corresponding drum. When a horizontal line approaches, it's time to hit the pedal, and accented notes provide more points for hitting the pads harder. Having presumably been called before teacher, Neversoft includes support for the Rock Band drums, which lose one lane of input from the note charts to allow for fewer pads.

'Guitar Hero World Tour' Screenshot 6

The note charts vary in quality and complexity, but there are some addictive riffs, and some of the more impactful songs - like "Eye of the Tiger" - have you thrashing away at whatever you're playing.

For vocalists, the USB microphone is wired, unlike the guitar or drum-set, and like every karaoke game ever you're supposed to match pitch and rhythm, allowing those with a limited vocal range to sing their way through tough songs in relative comfort. You can also choose between scrolling and static lyric sheets. Scrolling follows the pitch and timing for better singing, while static gives you longer to take in the words. The difficulty levels are as forgiving as they are in Rock Band, but you still wouldn't want to venture into a "Hard" rendition without a sense of the pitch, which remains more useful than actually knowing the words.

Playing together is much the same as Rock Band, with a crowded screen showing note charts for guitar, bass and drums in the middle while vocals scroll along the top. Able to reuse the Guitar Hero interface rather than having to build a legally new one, as Harmonix had to do, players respond to familiar bright, round icons on the note charts while the traditional needle pointer for band performance quality sits in the corner, also keeping track of accumulated Star Power. Icons denoting individual multipliers sit next to each note chart for easy reference at a glance.

Star Power, collected as ever by completing highlighted note sequences without error, can be activated by individuals, but multiple players can draw upon it at once. You could argue that this doesn't engender band unity the way Rock Band's everyone-at-the-same-time Overdrive move does, but you could argue back that the experience is shared enough by physical proximity. If the group plays well in unison, the game rewards the band note-streak, while good players are able to carry poor ones. That said, failed players can't be rescued as they can in Rock Band, leading to more incomplete songs.

Career mode is also a relative letdown. It's split into decent single-player versions for each instrument and a multiplayer alternative for two players or more, but the multiplayer mode is rather flat next to Rock Band's slick, globetrotting gig sequences, which had a mix of individual songs and sets, some with mystery line-ups that incorporate songs from later in the game. Gigs in Guitar Hero World Tour are 3-6 song sequences, with only a few surprise encores to lighten things up. Small but important details are missed - Rock Band's load-screen silhouettes, the crowd singing along, "fans" as experience points - without satisfying replacement.

The occasional introduction of a famous rocker is also rather incidental. Sting, Ozzy Osbourne, Hendrix; throwing in celebrity musicians to play with and against used to be a way of injecting personality into a single-player rhythm game, but in a genre that now puts the emphasis on the band in the lounge instead, the presence of these caricatures is anachronistic, as are the cartoon visuals and wacky venues. However, there are leaderboards for each song post-play, you can set up your own set-lists quickly and intuitively, and there's online four-versus-four Battle of the Bands.

And away from Career, there's the Recording Studio. Thanks to a series of tutorials and a handy wizard, the Studio interface allows players to set backbeat, bass-line and tempo quickly and then start laying down songs by ear or musical experience. Guitars can be used to input lead, rhythm, bass and keytar, or act as drum machines, and the actual drums are also supported. The interface is tightly packed here, even compared to regular four-player play, and juggling controls for input, recording and playback can be fiddly until you learn your way around, but there are some nice touches - like raising or lowering the guitar neck to move between octaves.

'Guitar Hero World Tour' Screenshot 2

Ah, the background stuff nobody has time to look at. Rock Band wins out here, managing effortless cool while Guitar Hero struggles with caricature.

Then there's GH Mix to nudge notes, create loops, re-record parts and generally mess with the sound, and for every shortcut available, there's a manual route to add subtleties that matter. Once a song is tagged with genre, the correct instrument parts and album art, it can also be uploaded to GH Tunes. Activision has said it will delete copyright-infringing material upon request, but we doubt this will stem the tide.

Overall Recording Studio is versatile, and even though creating music is less immediate and visual than other games that rely on user-generated content, like LittleBigPlanet, it's easy to envisage this becoming a cult attraction among Guitar Hero's many legions of fans, whose work will then benefit the musically illiterate. Any song produced in the Studio - whether created locally or downloaded - can be played as a song in the regular game, and the only missing part is vocals.

It should also be noted that the game, as a whole, does not just play to the most talented and devoted. Difficulty can now be adjusted when you fail a song, even if it's the middle song in a set-list. Faced with one of Guitar Hero's notorious difficulty spikes, of which there are a few here, the option to try again at a human level is very welcome. Neversoft has also allowed access to gigs at any stage of a Career mode on any difficulty level once they are unlocked, even if they were originally accessed through a lower skill setting.

'Guitar Hero World Tour' Screenshot 5

The Recording Studio will make a small section of people very happy, but GH Tunes has the potential to keep a lot more of us entertained.

All of this leaves Rock Band at a slight disadvantage, but it makes some of that back in its soundtrack. Guitar Hero World Tour has 86 songs on-disc, but still has fewer anthemic, sing-along selections. It's important that songs in a group-based rhythm-action game are recognisable, because the vocalist often sets the agenda, and while the instruments accept skill and reaction as compensation for foreknowledge, ignorant karaoke can be disastrous.

However, it's easy to imagine Guitar Hero World Tour players tearing through the set-list and then - thanks to the cross-compatibility of instruments - going back to the shop to pick up a Rock Band 2 solus disc in a few months, which also grants access to the Harmonix game's downloadable content archive. The small number of people who bought Rock Band in May or September can do the opposite and buy the Guitar Hero World Tour disc to take advantage of the Recording Studio and extra songs.

Were Rock Band 2 on the market today, the decision would be more difficult, as the gap between instrument quality would be reduced and the software battle would go in Rock Band 2's favour. But it isn't on the market, we don't know when it will be, and its new guitars and drums aren't so wildly different or superior to justify waiting. And by the time it is available, Harmonix may discover that the tables have turned, and that Rock Band 2 is competing for money "As spent happily on" this instead.

9 / 10

Read the Eurogamer.net scoring policy
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About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (61) Latest comment 3 years ago

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

  • JediMasterMalik #1 3 years ago

    Still haven't got any GH or even RB. Everything is just so confusing!

    First post? How quaint
    Edited by 1 at 27/10/08 @ 01:06

  • TheSaint #2 3 years ago

    9 not bad but think I will stick with Rock band.

  • Law07 #3 3 years ago

    So as good as LBP then?

  • magikdodo #4 3 years ago

    or as good as saints row 2? lmao

  • sirtacos #5 3 years ago

    Holy mackerel!

    I'm still not going to get it. I find it scary because it has the potential to render real guitar playing obsolete.

    Not really, but I still have an instinctive dislike for the entire Guitar Hero series.

  • SimonM7 #6 3 years ago

    You can talk all you want about how RB and GH differ, but at the end of the day it's either fun to be hitting buttons to the music or it isn't. Turns out in this sense they're pretty much identical whichever way you slice it, and best music selection = best game. I really don't think anyone can pretend to be as content with this over the seemingly limitless amount of music coming (and already being in) RB's way.

    I say this as a disenheartened believer in GH as a purer more hardcore "guitar" experience, but now that they seem intent on competing on RB's terms with the whole instrument set they're really exposing themselves for what they are; The weaker list of songs.

    With RB2 content already downloadable and playable with pal RB discs, importing some RB2 drums and buying a few new albums seems like the better alternative.

    I'm baffled at the apparent lack of understanding this outcome on the devs' part.
    Edited by 1 at 27/10/08 @ 01:51

  • AhrimaaN #7 3 years ago

    Basically because joe average isn't going to check compatibility, or tracklists too cloesly and just go 'oh yeah it's that game you can try and be in a band with others that everyones talking about - let's get it for the kids/myself'

    win win. They beat out RB2 = more of a win than you may think. Seeing that Rock Band 1 is barely even out in say... Australia... there could be some strange sales numbers going on around these titles.

  • Lave_from_PA #8 3 years ago

    Are they releasing a drum + game kit? I got GH III last xmas, and paying about the same for the GH:WT but with a drum kit instead makes perfect sense - but all I;ve seen so far is the really, really expernsive full pack.

  • Eraysor #9 3 years ago

    I am a Rock Band man, but the lack of an RB2 release date is driving me to buy this one. The setlist is a little lacking here though :S

  • JahB #10 3 years ago

    good review i'll be picking this up as soon as it's out and buy the rock band 2 disc whenever that comes around

    so when do we get an official GHWT release date?

  • Der_tolle_Emil #11 3 years ago

    I bought RB when it came out and had tons of fun with it. I sold it to a friend last week because I also want RB2 with the newer instruments but no sense in having two drumsets and four guitars (have GH2 and GH3 as well).

    GH WT looks great but I will wait for RB2 - Both guitars I got with GH2 and GH3 had defects while the RB stuff was excellent. I might pick GH WT up later though.

  • Daikon #12 3 years ago

    I wonder if there's any way to access my GH3 DLC in this game...

  • Hamflank #13 3 years ago

    Scores a meagre 7.8 on IGN:
    IGN Xbox 360 review

    Wii version scores an 8.8, though. The online stuff is being praised:
    IGN Wii review

  • muscleblade #14 3 years ago

    "Still haven't got any GH or even RB. Everything is just so confusing!"

    You are missing out.

  • dr_faulk #15 3 years ago

    Hmm, review almost read like an 8. But I guess, considering the high standards set by both games, EG have to split hairs.

    Why is Rock Band 2 taking so long to come out here? My impression is tha the download store for Rock Band is much better than Guitar Heroes. In which, case, do what EG suggest: pick this up, finish it, buy the Rock Band 2 disc.

  • curtlikesmeat #16 3 years ago

    I guess it remains to be seen how interested people are in buying a second lot of instruments. Personally I won't be buying any more unless the original RB kit gets sold on ebay or something.

  • Razz #17 3 years ago

    Heh! I knew this would be good. :)) £150 quid though.... :/ I've got enough to keep me going till this drops in price.

  • Chufty #18 3 years ago

    More mentions of Rock Band than a Rock Band review

  • Phily50 #19 3 years ago

    GH III on PS3 at least, didn't even support online play with friends. Hopefully they have sorted it out this time around.

  • Harrihotpants #20 3 years ago

    I have pre-ordered this (full band kit) and taken the 14/11 off, this and COD WaW in the same day, should be a good session......

  • andywilkie35 #21 3 years ago

    as this supports the Rock Band instruments I'll get the game and use those. Its good that the drum kit works on this coz I didn't wanna get another

  • FooAtari #22 3 years ago

    I didn't buy Rockband. But I badly want one of these games and the drums.

    Think I'll wait for RB2 though as GHWT just cannot compete with the number of songs available for RB2 and new song packs being released every week. (I take it RB2 is getting a PS3 release?)

    Music games are all about the songs, and in this regard RB spanks GH.

    Edit,

    Ah yeah never thought about using these instruments with RB. I don't really want the other instruments though and I think you can buy the RB instruments separately. Just want the drums!
    Edited by 1 at 27/10/08 @ 09:08

  • stampax #23 3 years ago

    Basically the games seem like they'll be pretty similar - the biggest difference is the amount of downloadable content - and guitar hero has been woeful at that compared to rock band - is that going to change at all?

  • FooAtari #24 3 years ago

    Anyone know if that premium drum kit is available over here...

    Edit
    they are

    They are. Little expensive though. Wonder if they can be used with other drum software on pc.
    Edited by 1 at 27/10/08 @ 09:23

  • Blackthorned #25 3 years ago

    The lack of a UK release date yet again for a Rock Band game is astounding to me - why would they do that again?
    Despite preferring RB as a game – and the sequel has the edge on song list over GH IV – I hope that kind of arrogance to punished with GH pulling in a large user base.

  • morriss #26 3 years ago

    I bet it's shit.

  • FairgroundTown #27 3 years ago

    Count me in with the "confused" crowd. It is a lot of money to spend, and I'm scared to spend it in case I make the wrong choice. Plus there is additional platform confusion, so I'm never quite sure which one I'm reading reviews of.

  • dingo75 #28 3 years ago

    @Harrihotpants

    The world will play "WoTLK" however which comes out a day before. ;)

  • viper_h #29 3 years ago

    Sick of these shitty cash cows getting high scores.

    This is the new age of gaming, and it blows.

  • jaxon58 #30 3 years ago

    I resisted RB, helped by the ridiculous treatment of us Europeans. On the instruments front though, having a raised hi-hat makes the world of difference to me with the drums, so I'll certainly be getting this and then getting RB2 solus should it ever appear on these shores.

  • Harrihotpants #31 3 years ago

    @dingo75

    In the interest of my marriage, I have pledged to stay away from such evil bits of software....

  • DUFFKING #32 3 years ago

    Some of the Expert charts on this game look like utter shit again, and frankly, the engine looks as terrible as GH3s.

  • skullcommander #33 3 years ago

    I rekon the way to go is to buy the guitar hero world tour set up (especially since limited editions have the second guitar/bass included), then buy rock band 2 solus. I thought that the rock band instruments felt weedy and unresponsive.

  • Pobman #34 3 years ago

    Is there going to be a separate review of this for the Wii?

  • nickthegun #35 3 years ago

    Does anyone know if there is an unlock all code floating around for this?

    I really cant be doing with fuckarseing around in the tour mode.

  • Jimpanse #36 3 years ago

    first !

  • Jimpanse #37 3 years ago

    eg.net searchplugin for your browser -->
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  • Thunderbolt #38 3 years ago

    I dont know if many people here have problems with their GH3 guitar but after swapping the faceplate on the guitar, the green button doesnt work so well. It works okish but I cant use the whammy bar as it doesnt register. My friend also switched the faceplate oh his guitar and had a similar problem.

    So I'm thinking a getting the new guitar and then the RB2 disc.

    On the whole I dont play GH3 anymore only RB as its a much more enjoyable experience. Hope it changes with this new edition though.

  • IneptPercy #39 3 years ago

    Looks good to me, I resisted rock band and glad I did.

    Buy this for the better hardware then buy rockband when this gets boring.

  • beastmaster #40 3 years ago

    It's out on Nov 7th. Same day as GOW 2.

  • Kyle #41 3 years ago

    As good as Peggle Deluxe then?

  • kangarootoo #42 3 years ago

    @Thunderbolt!

    Sounds to me like your faceplate is interfering witt the neck joint by not allowing the neck to seat as far into the body as it should, so sometimes the connection for the green button isn't making proper contact.

    Without a diagram its hard to give a decent suggestion. I might suggest sanding off a little bit of the very edge of the faceplate, underneath the "fretboard" where it won't be visible. Hard to say without seeing it properly though.

  • Thunderbolt #43 3 years ago

    kangarootoo,

    Thanks for the reply and I'll try out your suggestion.

    I've kind of gotten used to its quirks, its seems to have a extra strong spring on the neck pushing it out and causing the lack of contact. And it also helps if the batteries are new and so no rechargables.

    It just made me weary of getting faceplates (which is a pity as I have cool flames on mine).

    So I was thinking of just replacing the whole package and starting again with GH WT

  • theLU #44 3 years ago

    I have found that putting on a rubber band, connecting the "strap knob" on the neck to the one on the bottom, pushed the two parts together and fixes the button problem completely.

    ...a Star Power button gives players the option of palming for score multipliers rather than whipping the neck aloft.
    The Guitar Hero series has always had one of those. Although it was labeled "Select" before.

  • darc #45 3 years ago

    Activision (or whoever was accountable) dropped the ball when they opted not to support RB peripherals in the last round. I wound up downloading tons of RB songs because I had two usable guitars for RB and only one for GH. Now we've just bought RB2 (software only) and there's no way I'm going to bother to switch back now. I can only buy so many boxes of huge plastic controllers before I start to feel guilty. Have already passed that point, actually.

  • aphexstwin #46 3 years ago

    good review. rock band is the only competition, hence the references btw.

    question - how do you use accumulated star power on the drums? rb had those wank fills with that even more masterbatory(!) drumkit sounds placed in illogical spots (hmm, run to the hills?) is it the same system on ghwt?

    to agree with a few points, tool, especially schism is for the epic win, and rb/rb2 solus with gh peripherals too, simply due to drums having cymbals. that ion kit wont be much use on rb2 if the cymbals are cross-matched with no clear identification as to whether its a drum or cymbal note on screen...

  • brazzauk #47 3 years ago

    I have RB1 and RB2 on PS3 and I don't agree with this review.

    Spent five or so hours on GHWT this weekend and its not a patch on RB1 let alone RB2. It's a good fun game but its not a patch on Rock band for me. Some really bad decisions in GHWT for me. Whole band fails out if one person fails, only 6 songs in create a setlist, vocals are pony imo, grpahics too cartoony for my taste, have to complete every song with each instrament to unlock it all, band setup is non-existent.

    The song creator is not that good and that for me was the main difference. Good setlist but a lot of it is in RB1 or 2.

    My RB catalog is now nearly 400 songs so I don't see me playing this too much. There is room for both though but if you are only buying one I would go with Rock Band 2

    As for the comment about the drum rocker, you only have one extra pad on the GHWT drum, they still dont map all Hi-Hat, Ride and Crash. There are still remaps. A standard kit would need at least 8 inputs so the six on GH is still two short. Solution - learn the song!!!

    Also they say in the review about no release date for RB2, cobblers its out over here on the 21st of November on 360!!!
    Edited by 4 at 27/10/08 @ 16:15

  • Feanor #48 3 years ago

    Spent five or so hours on GHWT this weekend and its not a patch on RB1 let alone RB2. It's a good fun game but its not a patch on Rock band for me.

    Your argument seems a little patchy.

  • Jdoki #49 3 years ago

    The one thing GH and Rock Band reviews never seem to take in to account is the 'feel' of playing the game.

    For me the single biggest factor is the Rock Band note patterns feel much more in tune with the song than Guitar Hero 3's.

    I'm pretty shoddy at guitar games in general, but I can play on hard mode in Rock Band because it feels more natural - Guitar Hero 3 got it all wrong in my opinion, and nothing in the review really addresses that aspect in GH WT.

  • Barry619 #50 3 years ago

    I just have a serious question and i'd like peoples opinions on the answer.

    Is this, or RB / RB2 worth getting if your only intrested in it for the guitar playing side?

    It's a issue i've not seen covered with the all around instruments, but i've always been a fan of GH2 and 3, but recently sold them, i'm considering purchasing this GH then maybe latter the RB software, but i'm not really intrested in the vocals, the drums might be fun later, but i'm not that bothered, but am i missing out on too much of the game just using the guitar to justify buying it? Thanks.

  • darc #51 3 years ago

    @Barry - if you're mainly going to play guitar, the most important factor to consider is how many of the songs you really dig in the tracklists for each game. I like Rock Band because the drums are fun, and my wife likes to sing, and it's good for parties, but if I was just going to play the guitar, I'd probably still be playing GH2. I prefered the guitar-centric music of Guitar Hero (seemed appropriate...) whereas Rock Band is largely pop songs chosen for familiarity and vocal accessibility... and it's a lot of contemporary stuff that I happen to dislike. 80% (random large percentage) of enjoying either of these games comes down to listening to music you enjoy.
    Edited by 1 at 27/10/08 @ 19:31

  • UKGN_Zoidberg #52 3 years ago

    I had heard that EA plan to release Rock Band 2 in the UK at the end of November, so I'll be waiting for confirmed news before buying anything.

  • BOFH_UK #53 3 years ago

    Rock Band forums are reporting that the PS3 GH:WT drum set does not currently work with Rock Band 2. 360 seems to be okay and the RB1 and RB2 drums work fine on GH:WT on both platforms. Great...

    Oh, and there seem to be a significant number of reports of problems with the GH:WT drums and guitar having issues in much the same way the RB set had last year.

    As for the game, the Guitar Hero franchise lost me with the awful music charts in GH3 which sacrificed fun for difficulty. By the sound of this review not only has that issue not been addressed but GH:WT hasn't managed to develop a good career mode for either single or multi player when compared with Rock Band. I think I'll pass on this one unless I see it cheap either on offer or second hand.

  • Rodafowa #54 3 years ago

    Is this, or RB / RB2 worth getting if your only intrested in it for the guitar playing side?

    I've only got RB, but much as I love it I'd have to say hand on heart that the guitar playing is probably the weakest aspect of the game. There are just too many songs in there that were picked for great drum or vocal parts that are (whisper it) actually quite dull to play on guitar.

    Which isn't to say there aren't some gems, and the fantastic DLC support helps immensely. But I probably wouldn't pay full-price for it purely as a guitar game.

  • Joco84 #55 3 years ago

    Hi everyone

    I've spent the day reading reviews on this (Guitar Hero World Tour) and Rock Band 1 & 2.

    I am looking at getting either GHWT or Rock Band for the PS3. I like in the UK and I am unsure what my options are.

    Is Rock Band 2 out for the PS3? I heard somewhere that the 360 had exclusivity rights over it, so it took forever coming to PS3.... or is that Rock Band 1? :S

    I'm looking to get one of these for the Xmas season, to have a laugh with my friends and family.

    I have GH3 & GH: Aerosmith for PS3 and also GH: On Tour on DS and find all of those enjoyable.

    Please could someone advise whether Rock Band 2 is coming to PS3 in the UK this year? Also, whether I would find Rock Band or GHWT more enjoyable?

    I'm also confused what peripherals work with the other game, GHWT instruments working with Rock Band and vice versa. Please note that I'm asking about PS3 peripherals, not 360 or Wii
    Many thanks in advance.
    Edited by 1 at 28/10/08 @ 16:15

  • DAN.E.B #56 3 years ago

    so if you have rock band gear can you use it for this? or is it just the other way round?

    for 360
    Edited by 2 at 28/10/08 @ 18:08

  • BOFH_UK #57 3 years ago

    @ Joco84 - my honest advice right now would be to wait. The PS3 GH:WT drum set does not currently work with Rock Band 1 or 2 and until they've got that sorted out I wouldn't recommend buying GH:WT just in case it never DOES get sorted out. Rock Band is out now for the PS3 but there's some fairly strong hints that Rock Band 2 may arrive before Christmas.

    After reading several reviews on GH:WT I wouldn't recommend it for anyone that uses these games as 'party games' with friends who may never have played these type of games before. The multiplayer mode in Rock Band allows you to 'save' a player that fails a song up to three times and even if someone fails more than three times it's possible to scramble through to the end of the song if the remaining players are very good (and you're close to the end of the song). On GH:WT if one person fails, even once, everyone fails.

    It also seems that they've still not managed to nail the note charts in GH:WT and, on the harder difficulty levels, will have you playing notes that don't exist in the actual song. This is fine if you're interested in the maximum possible challenge but it really gets in the way of having good ol' fashioned fun as you play a note and don't hear anything from the soundtrack. Then there's the lack of an equivalent to Rock Band's world tour mode which encourages you to think in terms of a band and gives you some very nice little touches (fans, roadies, managers etc) as you progress.

    So yes, I'd say wait for Rock Band 2. From everything I've read it's the better game, in my opinion has a far better track list and has a vast library of DLC to choose from.
    Edited by 1 at 29/10/08 @ 09:27

  • Joco84 #58 3 years ago

    Thanks BOFH_UK

    I was close to importing RB2 last night, but I'm now hearing stories that the DLC on the UK PSN store does not work with imported versions....

    Anyone else got advice for me on which to buy?

  • gmjapan #59 3 years ago

    Sorry, some really stupid questions for this regarding the Wii version...
    will my GH3 guitar play this GH:WT?
    can i even buy the game on its own?
    If i buy GH:WT with the new guitar, can i use the GH:WT new guitar to then go back and play GH3 with a friend?
    Can the different instruments play at different levels in the same song? (Drums on easy, voice on medium, guitar on hard, bass on expert - that sort of thing because it annoys me endlessly on GH3 with either getting booed off on hard or bored mindless on easy depending who is over playing).

  • paulf #60 3 years ago

    @Jdoki - the note patterns in GHWT are much better than GH3, I play at medium/hard difficulty level and have done around 80% of the lead guitar tracks and I've not once though i was just mashing buttons, they seem to be much more 'in tune' with the song

  • Kafkaesque #61 3 years ago

    There's some interesting comments being made in here in response to people asking whether to get GH or RB, some I can agree with, some I can't. My two cents for what it's worth, this is coming from someone who has been playing since Guitar Hero was launched in the UK and has every iteration of both franchises (bar the awful DS version of GH - less said the better!).

    I'll also pre-empt any accusations of bias up front by saying that personally I prefer the GH series, but I have my reasons which I'll try to make clear.

    Party game for everyone
    This has been summed up quite well. Let's start with Rock Band. The key thing as has been stated is that RB has the "rescue" option. Individual players in a band are allowed to fail a song up to 3 times before they are out of the song for good, and can be rescued by another player who is still in the game triggering star power. This is a big bonus for people who aren't used to playing, and in theory there will always be one "gamer" who is good enough to have SP on standby to rescue the person who has dropped out. On GHWT, if one player crashes out the whole band fails the song, however this can be mitigated by careful SP management. To explain - instead of players saving SP for band members who fail, the player who is failing should activate SP to get out of the danger zone. To be fair this should be standard tactics in RB anyway, the save is a last resort.

    The flip side of that is that if a player is failing, they probably have the difficulty set too high for their standard. Whilst it might be frustrating to fail a song, really if you're struggling you should go back and try it on an easier setting. GHWT now has a level below Easy called Beginner, it would be hard work for someone to fail on this level and reintroduces the concept of GH for the masses. This also opens up a greater portion of the full set of songs to all players, but let's be fair - the harder songs shouldn't be easy to complete.

    The difficulty curve for the absolute novice is not that steep, and both games cater well for the more casual player. That brings us nicely to the song selection.

    Track list
    First off, if you've never played before you might only consider the tracklist as a way of choosing which franchise to opt for, so as Darc suggests it makes sense go for the one which is more aligned with your taste in music. Pre-GHWT, the sheer size of the catalogue of songs available on RB meant there was usually something for everyone and swung the balance in its favour. With GHWT clocking in at 80+ songs that's perhaps less of a divisive issue now, and don't forget you pay for additional content on RB, it can become an expensive hobby.

    There are two downsides to selecting purely using this method. The first is liking a song doesn't necessarily make it fun to play. Freebird is one of my all-time favourite songs, but (note charts aside - I'm coming to that :p) it just doesn't lend itself well to GH. It's 9 minutes long and the first 5 are mind-numbinglly tedious to play. There are other examples - Ziggy Stardust on GH1 is great fun to play on real guitar, it's a pain to play on GH, a big disappointment for me The reverse is true of course - songs which you wouldn't list of being songs you'd choose to put in the game, or might not evn like, are fantastic fun to play. You can put anything by Heart in this category for me.

    The brings me to the second point, namely that the GH series has introduced me to a lot of new music and broadened my horizons. I'll not list my musical tastes here, suffice to say there are bands I now listen to I would never have listened to before, or hadn't even heard of.

    As such, personally I wouldn't let the tracklist be the only factor in choosing one franchise over the other. If you don't mind shelling out for the additional songs when they come out and there are no songs you HAVE to play which are exclusive to the GH series, then with the wealth of download content RB is the winner here purely on the basis of the amount available.

    The guitar game
    I have gaming mates who disagree with me on this so it's a bit of a marmite one I think. There are two aspects to this - peripherals and note charts.

    Let's be quite clear on this - I am very biased on the peripherals side. I can't stand the RB guitar controller. The strummer feels woolly and loose and not precise enough for trickier strumming parts, sections I would nail on GH I couldn't get a decent combo going on RB with the proprietary controller. The buttons on the fretboard similarly feel clunkier and don't help on intricate parts. For me the GH controller wins hands down on the usability front.

    As for the note charts - ahhh, the note charts. Quite a lot of history to follow on this to put it into context, but if you can't be bothered to read it all the summary is this - don't be put off by the naysayers talking about overly complicated note charts on GHWT, to my mind for the pure guitar experience it's still the better of the two franchises.

    When GH1 came out, a few people got to grips with it earlier than others (Priest et al) and people watched the Youtube vids mouth agape as they got 5* on Bark at the Moon on Expert. However by the time GH2 came around a lot of people had been putting the hours in and reached a decent level of competency. The result was that a not-insignificant portion of the gaming community finished the game on Expert the first night it came out, and it wasn't too long before people had 5* on every song as well. The gamers achieving this were understandably quite vocal about their achievements on the GH boards and elsewhere. The natural conclusion drawn from this was that GH2 was "too easy", and the devs said they aimed to address this on GH3.

    Move forward in time a little, and the devs delivered on their promise. This proved rather divisive - the note charts were made more difficult but at the same time the window for hitting the notes, i.e. how precise you had to be with timing, was lowered. The result was that if you could contort your left-hand to the appropriate shapes it was actually easier to hit 5* on what would have been a ridiculous feat in GH2, meaning the hardcore gamers had less of a challenge, and there was a populist movement to decry the note charts as overly difficult. Cue the GH backlash.

    It's interesting to see people don't think this has been addressed in GHWT. From my perspective, GHWT is a very different beast to GH3. For starters, the tracklist has much more of an RB feel to it. There are a lot more nice-to-play songs which don't need too much thought to get through and are actually fun to play. I'll be the first to admit I never went back to the first dozen or so tracks on GH3 once I'd cleared them.

    The note charts themselves seem to match the songs - easier songs have easier charts, and if the song is difficult then the note chart accurately reflects that. Beat it, Hot For Teacher and Satch Boogie need to have tricky solos and tbh have made a good stab at recreating the feel of the tapping solos within the confines of the tools available (i.e. 5 buttons and a strummer), especially Beat It. BYOB and Assassin have similarly done a great job of creating the manic feel of the main riffs as well. Perhaps the one thing which has gone wrong is that the devs have addressed issues of a perceived too-high difficulty level by changing both the note charts AND the tracklist. There's no Jordan and no Fire and Flames on here, which means there's no song which could take you weeks or even months to master.

    As I said at the top - there's a very bandwagonesque feel to knocking the GH note charts, don't be put off by this. I certainly never questioned this aspect and was surprised by the amount of noise it has generated.

    Bass
    Bass was always the poor relation in both GH and RB. A fantastic idea when it was introduced, but online you would see people drop out of co-op games if they didn't get to select being guitar first, highly indicative of the fact that a tedious bassline means a bored player. There are of course songs with great basslines which are fantastic to play, but you can't build your entire songlist purely to ensure each has interesting parts for all the players, similarly you wouldn't reject a song purely on this basis.

    I'm sure this wouldn't sway people on its own, but the introduction of the open note in GHWT (where you strum the note without holding the fret buttons down) has opened this up enormously. On a real guitar there are a lot of times when you play an open string, or pull-off to an open string and I was surprised this hadn't been introduced earlier. It's a shame this wasn't added to the guitar as well, but I suspect they wanted to give the bass a unique selling point to make it more interesting, and it's worked.

    Drums
    Drums was the main reason I got RB. As a casual RL guitarist I'd never had the chance to play drums, but what music fan wouldn't relish the chance to batter the skins. What I didn't suspect was that within a week the only instrument I'd be playing on RB was the drums, for all the reasons I've listed above. I was lucky in that I got a drum set that worked and didn't break (especially as I imported), and had great fun working my way up to being fairly competent at most songs, and with some practice not too shabby at the really tricky later songs - Won't Get Fooled Again, I'm looking at you! Good job RB.

    I can understand people's reticence to fork out again for more drums when, on the 360 at least, the RB drums are compatible with GHWT. We'll have to wait and see how the RB2 drum peripheral shapes up, but for me the leap from the RB drums to the GH ones is as big a leap as the changes to hammer-ons and pull-offs between GH1 and GH2.

    First off - the layout. Plenty of pixels have been dedicated to this, but in brief the RB set is like a set of drum pads, GH is a more realistic layout with two cymbals. After one night playing pro face-off on drums, my GH/RB gaming mate and I both agree the GH layout just "feels" so much better. Purely from a comfort perspective, we were both able to play much longer.

    Then there's the quality of the equipment itself. One of the main criticisms of the RB set was that there wasn't enough bounce in the pads. On a real kit you should hold the stick lightly between thumb and forefinger and let it bounce back up. Experienced drummers managed to do this very well, but for the casual gamer this was not forthcoming. On the new GH set, even a novice like me could get enough bounce to do some nice double hits (where you let the bounce make the stick hit the pad twice for each time you bring the stick down) which makes faster sections much easier.

    Until the RB2 drums come out, GH has stolen a march here.

    Summary
    Having played both franchises for countless hours, if someone asked me which one to go for I would always recommend GH based on the peripherals and the gameplay experience, with a caveat that RB has more songs. Hopefully the above will be useful background information for anyone who is trying to choose between the two.

    One final point. I'm writing this from the perspective of a gamer who plays mostly with other gamers. I'm working on the assumption that if people are on the boards here they are also gamers who are looking at this from two angles - which would be better for me, and which would be better for friends and family having a go. I think my thoughts as a gamer are quite clear, what I hope I've put across is there's something for the casual gamer in both games.

    One final final point - I've not mentioned singing here because I wouldn't want people to mention my own awful singing and it only holds a passing interest for me, but both seem to do a good job. If you want karaoke though just go and buy Singstar ;)