PS3 Review - Guitar Hero World Tour

GUITAR HERO: WORLD TOUR REVIEW

On November 8th 2005, the world was introduced to the phenomenon known as Guitar Hero. The franchise introduced us to what arcade players were used to, which was rocking out with fake instruments. It wasn’t a real guitar, but hey, it was a blast. Soon followed Guitar Hero II, which expanded on what the first one did, and added so much more. Finally, Guitar Hero was introduced on PS3, with the title Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock.

Though when no one thought the music based video game could be stopped, Rock Band was introduced to millions of gamers, and became an instant it. Rock Band also introduced gamers to the whole band, with a guitar, drums, and a microphone. So, how would Activision retaliate? Easy. They’d make their own Rock Band.

Guitar Hero: World Tour is the fourth installment in the console series, and it introduces GH fans to something new. Instead of having just the regular ol’ guitar, the game brought what Rock Band brought, which was drums, and a microphone. Even though the game has changed up a bit, you can tell it’s the same old Guitar Hero.

Once the crazy intro is done, you’re ready to rock. The menu showcases your options, which include Career (where you can either go Single, be in a band, or do training), Quickplay, Head to Head, Online, Music Studio, and Rock Star Creator. There’s more, but do you honestly want to known about the options or my downloads? Probably not.

Career mode is like the other Guitar Hero career modes before it. You play at a club, sing two songs (more songs later), and a get a good rating. If you’re great, congrats! You get to sing the crowd an encore, earning you more points and money. Boss battles are still in the game, but are a bit different than the ones from Legends of Rock. You can either do career as your band, or play with the guitar, bass, drums, or vocals with yourself.

Quickplay is basically what it sounds like. You can go in, and play whatever in-game song you desire. You can do this, again, with a band or on your own. In Head-to-Head mode, you can play against other players, but only with the same instrument. This mode has the battle modes you saw in the last Guitar Hero game. You can also go online for the Head-to-Head mode, and face off against other players from around the world. And hey, if you don’t want to go yourself, you can create a four player band and face off against another one.

The Rock Star Creator is a cool new feature, borrowing off of what Rock Band did back in 2007. This mode has you creating your own rock star, rather than the hideous characters from the previous games. Finally, the last mode is the greatest one, where you can create your own songs. Doing this is difficult, but it does pay off in the end. And with a wide range of songs already available for download off of PSN, you can have new songs everytime you play.

While you may be thinking that this game sounds great and you should go buy it, hold on. The game alone costs $60, and the entire instrument & game package comes in at a whopping $189.99. You may want to think about spending this amount before knowing some of the problems for the game.

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Guitar Hero: World Tour has some great songs. But unfortunately, certain sections of a song will make you think to yourself, “This doesn’t seem right”. And unfortunately, it’s true. Many of the notes in some songs shouldn’t be where they are, and the patterns can become confusing. Another problem with World Tour is that the game doesn’t support trophies, even though the game came out in October of last year. By then, you would think the developer would have at least put some thought into it. And no, there is no patch for trophies coming. Sorry.

And my main concern with Guitar Hero: World Tour is that it was a massive leap within the series itself, but that doesn’t mean it had a large impact on the music genre of games. Guitar Hero ultimately tried to copy what Rock Band did, but missed the mark by a wide margin. And unfortunately, the game feels sort of identical to Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. They basically built a sequel that’s set in the same location, but with different moves.

On the bright side, Guitar Hero: World Tour has a great selection of music, and it’s fun to play with and against others. That said, it’s too bad the game falls short of grabbing the throne for music games, as Rock Band still sits high up in that seat. The high price doesn’t help it out much either.