- Title: Guitar Hero: World Tour
- Publisher: Activision
- Developer: Neversoft
- ESRB Rating: “T” for Teen
- Genre: Music/Rhythm
- Pros: Great on-disc song list; music creator; nice presentation; better note charts than GH3; Tool
- Cons: Can’t save friends in multi; still far more difficult than Rock Band; some new additions don’t work that well; GH3 DLC doesn’t work
If you have been a fan of the music/rhythm genre for the last few years, you likely already have a closet full of guitars, microphones, and drums. So rather than reviewing Guitar Hero: World Tour as a full set, we are going to cover the game and the instruments separately. All of the previously released instruments on Xbox 360 are compatible with it, so there is no need to shell out $190 for the full kit unless you just really like the looks of them. The new GH: World Tour instruments do offer some unique features, but we’ll cover that in another article.
GH: World Tour has all of the modes you would expect. There is a career mode that you can play through in order to unlock all of the songs, as well as quick play (where you can choose up to a 6 song set) and practice so you can just play for fun and learn to play better. Multiplayer modes are also included, of course, and playing as a full band is a blast. The biggest new feature is a music studio where you can create your own songs as well as download songs from other players. It is very complicated to use, however, and you can’t do any vocals, but it is an interesting mode that has already produced some interesting songs for download.
Gameplay
There are a few hiccups, however. Using Star Power on the drums requires you to hit the two cymbals at once, which is just ridiculously difficult to do while keeping your streak going. Also, and this is a pretty major sin, you can’t save friends in multiplayer. When they fail, everyone fails, and that sucks the fun out of the game pretty quickly.
Thankfully, the note charts are better than they were in GH3 so it is a little easier but still not as easy as Rock Band. There is an additional “Beginner” difficulty level, which is okay for newbies but isn’t terribly fun even for novices.
There is little question that Guitar Hero: World Tour has the best track list of any music/rhythm game yet. Check out the full list here Guitar Hero: World Tour Full Track List. There is a surprisingly wide range of music here from 311 to Billy Idol to blink 182 to The Eagles, Dream Theater,Sublime, Metallica, and more. Also, as an aside, I have to say I’m very happy to see my favorite band, Tool, in the game with three songs as well as a special venue based on their album artwork. The song list as a whole is very, very good. It is unfortunate, though, that DLC from Guitar Hero 3 (other than Metallica’s “Death Magnetic” album) doesn’t work in World Tour. Now I can’t play Dragonforce unless I switch discs, and that makes me sad.
Graphics
Guitar Hero: World Tour is a fairly nice looking game. You don’t really notice the venues and characters while you are focusing on playing the notes, but the game has a funky art style that is pretty cool overall. I’m a fan.
Sound
Sound quality is very good overall, and I particularly like the options where you can adjust the levels for the whole band so you can make your guitar nice and loud.
Bottom Line
