Guitar Hero World Tour: The Best, The Worst, and Everything in Between
by Derek Wilson on October 31, 2008 7:10 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
So what do we have? Something better, something worse. Something good and something bad. Guitar Hero World Tour is not perfect. But neither is it a waste.
Guitar Hero World Tour is, in our opinion, the best music game out there when it comes to guitar simulation. The added tweaks like open notes, the neck slider (even though it's tough to use and a little gimmicky), and the physical changes to the guitar itself have really gone a long way to keep the original franchise on top in this department. There are some songs with a more interesting guitar implementation on Rock Band 2, but then there are some songs with a better adaptation on Guitar Hero World Tour. All in all, GHWT is best for guitar and bass fun. That's not to say it couldn't be better if it took some cues from Rock Band for the interface. But the actual playing of the notes is just more interesting.
Having said that, for everything else, we prefer Rock Band 2.
The drum kit, while interesting, features the worst kick pedal imaginable (to be fair, we haven't tried Konami's, but we don't expect much there). The cymbal positions don't really feel right for some songs and the cymbals are not nearly as responsive as the awesome pads (which are better than everything but the ION pad). The pad layout is awkward at times, and the mapping of the songs to the kit can be frustrating whether on a GHWT kit or on an RB kit. The only reason to pick up the GHWT drum kit is if you have an electronic kit with a midi out and you would rather play that. But even then, if you're a drummer, you might want to wait and see how well that works (if it works) with Rock Band 2, as Harmonix built the better overall drumming experience. And activating star power with the drums is just unreasonable in some songs in GHWT.
Drumming in GHWT could be better with a properly laid out electronic kit or an ION Drum Rocker with the blue cymbal added on. I think I've got the best layout for it, but it's still more complicated than it needs to be and not as intuitive as RB2. For those that care, what you want, from left to right is: yellow cymbal, red pad, yellow pad, blue pad, green cymbal, green pad, blue cymbal. Obviously the cymbals would be raised, but you would also want to get the red and blue pads as close as possible and maybe raise the yellow pad up out of the way a bit.
Vocals in GHWT can be frustrating, as it's really hard in some songs to hit the transitions properly. It also seems pickier about matching pitch than Rock Band 2. Activating star power essentially requires interaction with the XBox controller as tapping the mic really doesn't work well.
The interface in GHWT is clunky and career mode is tedious. We prefer the non-cartoonish look of Rock Band, but that's just a preference issue really. But while we're at it, the character animation in Rock Band 2 is MUCH more acurate. the fingering and picking of guitars and bass and the drumming are very evenly matched and smooth in Rock Band 2 even on complex songs. In Guitar Hero, some things are just wrong and many motions are abrupt and jerky.
Picking difficulty for an entire career is also unsatisfactory. This should be on at least a gig level.
Honestly, I wish we could take the songs from GHWT along with the guitar innovations and some online play tweaks and shove them into Rock Band 2. That would give us nearly the perfect music game experience. Oh, but we need a better kick pedal. For both GHWT and RB2. And a hi-hat pedal. And more drum triggers (but done the right way)... On second thought, we've got a long way to go until we see the perfect music game.
But for now, GHWT is great for guitar and bass, but Rock Band 2 takes the cake for drums and overall gaming experience.
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Desultory - Tuesday, November 18, 2008 - link
I too have some issues with the drum kit and I also had problems with my first guitar. In fact, I ended up taking it back to the store for a full replacement. My down strum broke the first night and the cymbals were at once so responsive that hitting the drum pads activated them and also so unresponsive when I hit them. I'm not a "real" drummer, but I can play about half the RB songs on expert and all of them on hard and I was finding I couldn't hold a streak at all in GHWT. It was seriously ticking me off.After the exchange, I still had an unresponsive yellow cymbal. It was "dead" on one side...no problem though, switched it with the orange cymbal and it's much easier to reach the "good" side.
But the pedal...ferchrissake that thing sucks. Moves all over the floor and it's WAY too sensitive. My style may be to blame, but I learned to play RB drums keeping my foot down on the pedal and "bouncing". That's impossible with this pedal. The simple act of raising my foot often triggers a bass kick and once again it's impossible to hold a streak. I wish I could use my RB pedal with the GHWT kit. I like the kit better (more stuff to do and "real" cymbals) but the foot pedal makes playing drums impossible.
I actually found this article hoping to uncover some tricks for the pedal since I'm not the only person with this issue (Google is rife with people having the same complaint and two of my friends who bought the game are in agreement with me). I like the song selection better in GHWT but not being able to play drums is literally breaking my heart.
/sigh
jdport - Thursday, November 6, 2008 - link
It kind of bothers me when people write stuff about how Guitar Hero is the original franchise, that players "cut their teeth on". As I'm sure you know, this is true in name only. The creators of the original Guitar Hero moved on to Rock Band, so while "Guitar Hero" maybe have been the original... Guitar Hero World Tour shares nothing in common with it other than its name and the basic concept.
Also, the Rock Band 2 guitars and drums do have a hook up for the XBL headset. You just have to use the adapter that is supplied with the game instead of using the standard plug.
bootay69 - Friday, November 7, 2008 - link
I use the standard plug...the adapter is not necessary.afkrotch - Wednesday, November 5, 2008 - link
FYI: Guitar Freaks, Drummania, Piano Freaks, etc. Wiki Bemani. Now Guitar Hero was probably the first music game to be in the US, aside from DDR.EODetroit - Tuesday, November 4, 2008 - link
Honestly I'll never play more than two player mode, so I don't see the point of buying anything beyond my GH3 game.But I do like the commercial that I saw during MNF last night.
MaverickSY19 - Monday, November 3, 2008 - link
Honestly I like RB 1 and 2 better for the reason that they are not to hard! I mean a lot of us can't play expert at all let alone breeze though it. I honestly like playing the songs and having fun with it, because as a kid we all did the air guitar and its nice to actually play a song with a fake one you can at least hold on to. :)Shoot I'll be happy when I can play RB or GH through all the way on hard let alone Expert. Shoot my wife can't even do easy :P I have yet to try her on the beginner level they added to GHWT.
crash resistant - Monday, November 3, 2008 - link
GH isn't harder. It's more pure. RB has silly drum solos in the middle of every song, even on Expert.Singing in GH is harder, as you have to sing more to gain points- and there aren't cheesy tambourine solos that last what feels like forever.
I guess, it's true- GH requires more skill to attain higher scores- but it's relative to the game itself- You can't relate the score system to RB!
If you want to party, buy all 3 games. I'm telling you the truth.
DerekWilson - Monday, November 3, 2008 - link
i disagree that ghwt is "harder" ... neither one is "real" in terms of hitting all the notes. which sucks.if you look at youtube and see the side by side charting, you'll see that some songs are harder on rock band 2 and some songs are harder on ghwt ... the ones that overlap anyway ...
as for the song choice, that does have an impact, and some of the songs that ghwt picked are really hard and some of the songs that rb2 picked are really hard. it all comes out in the wash in my mind.
crash resistant - Sunday, November 2, 2008 - link
Whoever reviewed this game made several errors and assumptions without further testing. They didn't even verify how star power works while drumming....1: You hit both symbols ANY TIME and it activates.. no need to wait for a break- and it DOES NOT lose your streak. Sad...
2: The drum pedal has never slid away from me, on two different carpets (thick and very thin at an office) or on a marble floor. Did they get a pedal with no grips? How unfair.
3: The symbols are very responsive- the problem is the angle. I can barely tap the symbols to get the response even with the little sticks that came with the kit, it just has to be at the right angle.
4: Symbols are symbols. You don't roll around and hit symbols as if they are drums.
5: The interface is waaaaaaaaay more responsive than RB1 and RB2. (Mind you, I love all three games because of song selection)
6: Tool?
Go buy GHWT and RB2, full band kits- now.
DerekWilson - Monday, November 3, 2008 - link
1) you can't physically hit the cymbals anytime -- if you are required to play something else and you miss those notes, you lose the streak. any time you are physically capable of inserting a hit on both cymbals (either when nothing is happening or one cymbal is being played and you can just add the other one in) you'll be fine and won't lose your streak. The point of what I wrote is that it is very difficult if not impossible /in many songs/ to actually activate star power without missing other notes. there are some songs in which it's super easy to activate star power at any time with no problem. But the songs in which it is difficult are the ones you need it the most ...2) i've tried it on carpet and floor with no luck. if there are grips beyond the pads on the bottom of the kick pedal then we did not get anything else (and neither did my parents who also bought ghwt and are havign trouble with the kick sliding).
3) i mean responsive as in feel not activation of the trigger.
4) everlong. other's as well, but that's the big one. also, rolls on cymbals are not uncommon. especially on the hi-hat.
5) i dont know what you mean.
6) yes, sorry i didn't mention tool. tool is awesome. i love tool. i would have bought the game just for those songs ... but not everyone would ;-)