With this latest installment, Guitar Hero attempts to emulate a formula it's developers weren't ready for
When lead developer Harmonix parting ways with Red Octane after Guitar Hero II to make their own music game, the overly superior Rock Band, the guys at Guitar Hero thought it best to try to emulate this new type of game, instead of trying to pull of the best "Guitar" Hero game possible.
As you'd expect from the name, Guitar Hero: World Tour, emulates the 'whole band experience' with Guitar, Vocals, Drums and Bass. Even though there are extras added to this new game, don't be fooled, it's very much still a Guitar based game.
The Guitar portions are fairly straightforward, and by now anyone within contact with a gaming system these days would know what to do. The new guitar, a design created by the team themselves, features a type of sliding sensor bar. You see, while you play on the normal highway with normal coloured notes, you'll come across darker tinged notes, strung together with a purple line. These sections (usually the blisteringly hard sections of difficult songs) are to played with the sensor part of the guitar neck. One wonders if this is a feature simply put in to help those who can play the harder settings, but can't to the incredibly still in-human fast sections of solos. Nevertheless, it's feature is interesting, if yet lazily added to the game since you can actually get by without using it.
And then we have the drums and vocals. The drums play much like Rock Band, except now you have three pads and two symbols, making five instead of four. You activate star power by hitting the two symbols at the same time... a long way away from the fun and exciting drum fills of Rock Band to activate 'energy', though one can't except GH to emulate RB to the letter.
The vocals are solid, playing much like any singing game.
The drum hardware is awkward, and annoying. At any time you play, a single hit feels like it'll break the thing apart. The stands are loose, and don't sit right on carpet, and the kick pedal is just plain lazily designed. This doesn't effect my opinion on the game, it's just annoying to note that the hardware is awkward to use.
For me personally, the game shine in the Bass sections (given it's own career in GH, the only one aspect I prefer over RB) Re-creating Bass Guitar a little bit more realistically, is the open E notes, performed by simply strumming without holding down fret buttons. Call me shallow, but as a Bassist myself, this makes for a rewarding experience. It's not Bass, but it makes it feel a lot more at home than any other featured instrument (excluding vocals) in this game
Now, how far does the game stem from Rock Band, and other previous GH games? Well! Gone are the tiers, the set list being bundled together in a series of stages, where you MUST play a series of three to five songs in one go. The idea behind this is obviously Rock Band's more superior 'World Tour' mode where it consists of not only single song sets, but multiple song sets with various degrees of variety. And this is the solo tour mode. Least to say, the band tour mode is the same, feeling tacked on, where it doesn't make the experience any better.
The presentation of this game is poor, very poor. When I loaded it up, not excepting ground breaking graphics, but something reasonable with the 360's engine, I was met with ugly character models which were poorly animated, a lazy set design for the venues, poor crowd animation. Did Activison have to cut down on the games engine to cram in all those needless extras? Needless to say, it felt like I was looking at a PS2 game circa 2002. Maybe the next gen versions weren't given any special effects or tweaks in the engine, maybe it simply was made to better suit the Wii and PS2? It doesn't matter, pick up the slack next time Activison, your in the big boy leagues now.
Speaking of extras, GH;WT brings in the Music Studio feature. It allows players to create their own GH tracks, the uploading it to a type of in game store where others can download it for free. The studio feature, in theory, is a fantastic idea. However, only will benefit those with musical and songwriting abilities, leaving the bulk of the user base to simply make crap or to ignore it. I for one, have chosen to ignore it. Why? I've written real songs before, and have found it's incredibly easy, yet, the complex studio on show here, is far too complex and tediously limited. Yes, it does present a chance for more content to play, but I don't want to get several hundred versions of Canon in minor littering my play list.
As for the songs, well, the bulk of the 80-something list, is crap. For some reason GH experts have thrown in some trashy unknown songs by unknown bands. Even the bands we know, the song choices are questionable. I can name, right here and now, the best songs from the 80 strong list. Both Ozzy songs, all three Tool songs, 'Beat It' by M.Jackson, 'Assassin' by Muse, 'B.Y.O.B' by System of a Down, 'Hot For Teacher' by Van Halen, and that's it sadly. Yes but the set list can grow on you, muck like Rock Band? No. After finishing the game on Bass, Guitar and Drums, I frank;y don't want to play this game ever again, just so I don't have to look at ugly characters singing ugly songs.
As for characters, a 'create-your-own-rocker' feature has been slide in. As Activison have a history of this stuff, one may think it's going to be good. Wrong. Because the character models are ugly as arse, the facial and hair templates to choose from are hideous. The clothing option, right down to the ability to create your own personal instrument (though cool, yes) are downright disappointing.
Guitar Hero:World Tour in my eyes, is a failure. It goes to great lengths to recreate the magic Rock Band had, but falls short when it simply tried too hard ti emulate it. There are shining points to this game, in the Bass and certain song choices, but that's where it really ends. I admit I have a critical view of this game, but all it's problems are out there for people to see. Perhaps a solid Guitar based game was in order this time around, while more research was done to create a more 'fuller' band game? I can see the rush to emulate Rock Band. If it weren't for Rock Band though, and World Tour was the same beast it is today, would it be better for it? Simply, no. This game is a miss mash of half boiled ideas that at it's core, still wants to be purely Guitar based. There are some interesting ideas here, but poorly and sloppily executed.
In closing, World Tour is a sour mix of the Rock Band formula so obviously stolen from the ground up and slightly tweaked, and the formula that made Guitar Hero so great, but missing some of it's vital elements.