Air guitaring without the air..
Well, what's there to say. The gameplay remains the same, with a few new additions, that don't really add that much, because you aren't forced to use them, you can play just fine without using any of the new techniques. Other than that, it's still strumming while pressing the fret buttons shown on screen.
The guitar peripheral has slightly changed though. The model is different, of course, but the strum bar and the whammy bar have increased in size tremendously. There are also new additions to the guitar, such as what I guess is supposed to be an analog stick, which is really awkward, because the directions are not correct unless you face the guitar, so that's pretty weird, but you can still use the strum bar for everything, and the directions of the stick are only weird when moving sideways. Also new is a Star Power button, it's function being obvious : activating the Star Power multiplier. Now, in Gamespot's review of this game they say this :
"One nice thing about that guitar is that you can activate star power either by tilting your instrument or by simply pressing a new button below the strum bar with the palm of your hand. Just be careful not to press the poorly placed pause button while you're at it."
That, my dear friends, is one big pile of... pile-ish stuff. I really wonder how the heck the guys over at GS play GH, because not only have they pretty much destroyed the peripherals several times in only a week and a half, but it seems impossible to me to hit the freakin' pause button when going for the Star Power button, because the Star Power button is at least 4 times the size of the pause button, plus it sticks out more!
The last new addition to the guitar peripheral are some touch sensitive fret buttons, which don't really add anything useful to the game, because all it does is give an alternate way to create the "wah" effect, so it's basically a second whammy bar, which is just more out of reach that the whammy bar itself, and you can play notes with it, which is straight up a pain in the ass.
I can't really say anything about the microphones or drum kits, because so far I've only bought and played on the guitar.
I kinda believe that a music game is either made or broken by it's setlist. And World Tour is definitely made by it. Sure, new features such as playing on drums and singing are nice, but what's the use if you have to play/sing songs that you don't like? World Tour provides a rocksolid setlist though, including songs by 30 Seconds To Mars, Blink 182, Bon Jovi, Bullet For My Valentine, Coldplay, Foo Fighters, Jane's Addiction, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Eat World, Korn, Lenny Kravitz, Linkin Park, Lostprophets, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Metallica, Michael Jackson, Muse, Nirvana, Oasis, Ozzy Osbourne, Paramore, Rise Against, Sting, Survivor, System Of A Down, freakin' Tokio Hotel, and even Los Lobos' "La Bamba". Though it is weird to see that song sung by Ozzy Osbourne, who afterwards commits suicide, along with you and the other bandmembers by jumping off a building on Time Square. At least, that's my interpretation of the event. All in all, the song's form a strong package.
Also new is the Music Studio, but so far that hasn't really done much for me. I played "FurElise" once, thought that it sounded more like a C64 than a guitar, and haven't even tried to create a song for myself.
What more is there to say about this game? The visuals are pretty neat, not top notch, but hey, it's a PS2 game, no developer pays attention to those anyway. That said, they're still pretty good, and a sight to behold. However, unless you're not playing the game itself, you can't look at it, because you'll simply miss the notes you're supposed to play. I know that the game can't do anything about that, but it's just a shame.
The sound is good, which you'd expect from a game based on music. Allthough the focus is obviously put on the guitar (I can't really explain it, but the guitar sound sticks out more) in the songs, you can still hear the drums and the other instruments. Sometimes it is hard to understand what the singer is saying though, and you can't really say you hear the bass all the time, but that's normal. Another thing is that the volume of songs has been altered too. For instance, Lostprophets' "Rooftops" has been changed, so that the song is mostly in the same volume. This is messed up though, because it's supposed to be pretty silent, untill the chorus, where the song kinda breaks loose, and here you can hear that it is supposed to break loose, but the volume is just turned down on the chorus, which takes a lot of impact out of the song. Other than that, the sound is perfect.
All in all, I think Guitar Hero World Tour is a great game. Wether that is because I'm still a relative newbie to the series, or just because it kicks ass, is up to you to decide.