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Guitar Hero: World Tour Review (X360)

About.com Rating 4 Star Rating
User Rating 4.5 Star Rating (3 Reviews) write a review

By , About.com Guide

Guitar Hero: World Tour Review (X360) Activision
Guitar Hero III was a good game but a bit rough around the edges as new developer Neversoft had to learn on the fly how to make a decent music game. With a year of experience under their belt, they are back to take another crack at the genre. And, boy, they are ambitious this time around. In addition to the guitar gameplay we all love (with far better charts), GH: World Tour also includes drumming and singing as well as a music studio so you can create your own songs. Not only that, but it also features arguably the best on-disc soundtrack of any music game yet. Not bad for a second effort.
Quick Hits

  • 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

Activision
The gameplay is mostly what you expect. There are a few new tricks thrown into the mix, though, that will throw you through a loop at first. First up are the tap notes that are connected by a purple string. You don’t need to strum these and can just tap them with either the normal frets or the touch pad on the GH: WT guitar. There are also held notes where you play a note and hold it, and then have to play and hold another note while still holding the first. The bass player also has a new trick where there are open notes represented by a purple bar on the note highway where you just strum without pressing a fret button. The drummer, as long as you are using the official GH:WT drums, now has three drum pads, two cymbals, and the pedal to worry about, and if you are used to playing Rock Band’s drums it takes a while to get used to it. Also, the game knows if you are using a RB or GH drum, and adjusts to compensate for the RB drums having one less thing to hit.

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.

Song List

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

Activision
In the end, Guitar Hero: World Tour is a very good music game. For fans of the genre, there is a heck of a lot to like here. The tracklist is easily the best on-disc soundtrack of any music game yet, there are plenty of modes to keep you busy, and the gameplay has been tuned so it is a little better balanced and not crazily over charted like Guitar Hero 3. The music studio is a beast to use, but you can make some pretty cool stuff in it and just downloading other people’s creations will keep the game fresh. All in all, Guitar Hero: World Tour is an excellent game that is highly recommended.

User Reviews

 4 out of 5
Was it better then Rock Band?, Member KillaMike

I personally feel that this game was a really good response to Rock Band's huge impact on the gaming market. Was it better then Rock Band?... I think so! The game is 4-stars to me because I am a very big guitar hero fan. I love the challenging songs on guitar. This game does not offer a real challenge if you are an expert guitar player. If you mastered expert on GH3, then this game will not challenge you. But what is very exciting is now you can move over to the drums and give that a try. That is the real challenge of this game. If you only want to play guitar then stick with GH3, but if you want the full ""band"" aspect, this is a great buy. If you are looking to buy this game to have a good time with your friends then you made a really good decision. GH World Tour is probably the best multiplayer out there along with Rock Band. You will never have another boring night sitting around the TV with friends when you have this game. Yea it is expensive, but is it worth it? YES!

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