GH:WT Review

Hello readers, guess what monsieur nerdy fanboy got in the mail yesterday? Guitar Hero World Tour!!!

That's right, I purchased Guitar Hero World Tour for the Wii (dual guitar pack). The only other Guitar Hero I have is Guitar Hero II for the PS2.

FIRST LOOK:
As I ripped the box to shreds to get to the game, er, quietly and patiently cut the box open, the two guitars that came with it looked very nice. I had to inspect the great new guitar. The touch-sensitive slide bar fit in very nicely with the look of the guitar, and the star power/- and + buttons looked better as well. They don't look like knobs this time, they look more like a bridge. I really don't see the need for the analog stick though, it looks a little out of place. I immediately notice the whammy bar fit your hand better.

I took a look at the second guitar that came in the package and discovered it was really just a Guitar Hero III guitar, no slide bar. I also discovered that the game also came with Guitar Hero III the game itself as well (which I haven't even opened). Pretty nice considering I didn't buy it, and also means that those of you who did, you can just buy just the game and the GH3 guitars will work.

SETUP:
As those of you who have it/researched it, as opposed to Rock Band 2, you have to place Wiimotes in the guitars to play. You basically take off a part of the back of the guitar like a battery case, plug it in to the guitar like a nun-chuck controller, and cram it all in to the hole. At first it's difficult to stuff the Wiimote in there, but once you get the hang of it it's not too bad. It is quite annoying that you have to take out the Wiimote and select the disc channel and then cram it back in every time you start the game, but there's not too much the developer could have done anyways.

SETLIST/MUSIC STUDIO:
The setlist itself is pretty good, featuring songs like 'Living on a Prayer' by Bon Jovi, 'What I've Done' by Linkin Park, 'The Middle' by Jimmy Eat World', etc. I won't list the whole setlist because you can just look it up on Wikipedia. I obviously had to cheat and look at a few of the bonus songs on Quick Play, and there were quite a few good ones as well. The game also has downloadable content, which unfortunately, you have to pay for. Basically every song on there is 200 Wii Points, which for you non-Wii users, is about $2.00.

There is also a music creator and GHTunes, which will really allow the game to be replayable. Unfortunately, the music that the game generates sounds only slightly better than a MIDI file, maybe even worse. Sometimes the notes get cut off, and repeated notes sound like a record skipping, as said in IGN's review of GHWT. I did manage to play around in the recording studio, which was pretty fun. There are two parts to the music studio, one is just a live recording area where you play whatever you want on your guitar and it records it, and the other is a more advanced one where you can record it step by step. I really wouldn't recommend using the basic recording thing, it's difficult to figure out how to record and hard to keep on beat. GHMix (the advanced recording thing) is a little difficult to work using a guitar, but you can figure it out pretty fast. It also has copy and paste functions, which became really helpful in my song. It also lets you create guitar, rythym guitar, bass, drums, and even keyboard, although it fails to have microphone capabilities (which I can understand). If you want to play the song I created, search 'Drugs' on GHTunes (on the Wii of course), it'll be by 'Hardly Working.' My song is difficult because you can't use hammer-ons and pull-offs throughout the entire song. It is possible, I finished it on Expert, although it took a few tries (the lead guitar part is accidentally on rythym guitar, oh well).

QUICK PLAY MODE:
I had to start off playing a few songs to try out the new engine, slider bar, and of course the new songs. I had to calibrate the lag first, because I can't play Guitar Hero without about 60 milliseconds of lag. I don't know why. I was halfway storming my way through What I've Done (an easier song) on Hard when I noticed that the whammy bar falls down. No, it doesn't fall off the guitar, but it turns until it is facing away from you so you can't reach it when you need it. This is highly annoying, as you have to hold the whammy bar in your hands to keep it from turning away from you. I quickly tilted the guitar like I usually do in Guitar Hero II to activate starpower, then it didn't activate. I brought the guitar to a 90 degree angle and about 5 seconds later it activated starpower, although I had already broke my multiplier. The starpower button is hard to press as well, it needs a really firm push in the middle to activate which is difficult to do during complicated parts of a song. It's not any better on the GH3 guitar either.

The HUD or whatever is pretty sharp looking. The starpower isn't as obvious as it was in Guitar Hero II, instead it shows up in crystal like shapes. Just play the game or watch YouTube videos, I don't think I can explain it. I don't really have any problems with it though.

There are also 'set lists' which means instead of just selecting a song and playing it, you select several songs and play them in a row. I really don't see the need for this, but it's pretty cool I guess.

MULTIPLAYER:
Multiplayer mode is actually pretty cool. I had my friend come over to test out the band mode, where I played bass and he played guitar. It's a pretty solid try, although I doubt it compares to Rock Band. IGN's review complained that it's difficult to see when somebody is failing, but I can pretty much tell when my friend's highway is blinking red. It may be because it was just a 2-player game, not a 4-player.

The game also has online multiplayer functions. I quickly registered my other friend in my friends list (it does not use the Wii's friend list) and started a few songs. I was disappointed to found out that you cannot choose your difficulty level after the song has been selected, which really sucks because I can play Expert on some songs while I can't even play Hard on others. It also isn't obvious how to select your difficulty, instead of just selecting it at the start as with Quick Play and Career mode, you have to go into Preferences and set it. If you don't have any friends to play with, you can also just use the matchmaking function which means it just draws some other random person who's trying to matchmake and plays it. I left halfway through playing though because I didn't know how to switch difficulties yet.

CAREER MODE:
I don't really like the career mode in this game. Instead of just choosing a song and playing it and unlocking more like in the previous Guitar Hero games, you play gigs and you have to play two or three songs in a row. It also doesn't give you a choice if you want to play an encore, you just have to. I didn't really look too much at it, I only played one or two gigs then cheated to get the bonus songs.

MISCELLANEOUS:
Menus/interface:
The interface of Guitar Hero isn't too great, it looks nice but it can be confusing. For example, the tutorials are in 'Training' under 'Quick Play.' What's up with that? If I wanted to learn a tutorial, I wouldn't got to Quick Play first. I really don't see why Training is in Quick Play. There are also a few other things out of place as well. Then when you exit a song in Training mode, it doesn't take you back to the set list, it takes you back to choosing what parts you want to play of the song you JUST played. Look, if I had wanted to try again at the song, I would have selected 'Change Song Parts' or whatever, not 'Continue.'

Customization:
GHWT has extremely high levels of customization, which is really good. You can create your own rockstar, and the customization features on that are comparable to the Sims. Really. You can even customise your guitar to the fret board wood and spacer type.

Of course, not everything is free. Once you earn money doing gigs, you can buy new clothes and accesories for your character. It's pretty simple really, and you earn quite a lot. I got a lot of money, probably enough for an expensive shirt.

Cheating:
The cheat mode is pretty good in this game. Instead of finding some secret hidden place if you want to activate a cheat, the cheat screen is just right in the Options menu. Instead of entering some random 16-number code EVERY time you want to cheat, you can select previous cheats you have entered in and toggle them off or on. For example, if I for some reason didn't want all of the bonus songs in Quick Play, I could just go to the cheat screen and toggle it off. Simple as that.

Mii Freestyle:
Although pretty cool, this has no point at all. Basically, you take Miis you have created and go to this little room. You then just jam on the guitar. You can also earn 'trading cards' or whatever by doing patterns the game suggests. There are basically 9 patterns the game suggests, and you have to tilt your guitar up and down to see them all, as they only show up in groups of threes.

I do find that it's way too easy to sound cool in this minigame thing. I can hold down the orange fret and strum, and I'm playing the solo from Jordan. It does sound pretty cool to strum all five frets at once though.

I also forgot to mention that there is no point in earning the trading card things it gives you. No money, no unlockables. Nothing. I think I'll just stick to playing Wii Music to do freestyle.

OVERALL:
Although this game has it's obvious flaws, it's still really entertaining and replayable. I would probably give it an 9/10.

If you want to friend me on Guitar Hero World Tour (for the Wii), email me and we can swap codes.

OH YEAH!! HAPPY NEW YEARS EVERYBODY!