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
Interface and Game Modes
Okay, so now that we know a little more about the instruments, the unique gameplay features of GHWT, and the songs, it's time to take a look at how it all comes together.
First, the gameplay interface. It leaves a lot to be desired really. It's harder to tell when you are about to fail as the little red yellow green meter is smaller and harder to see than the RB/RB2 failure indicator. Since you can't save individual people once they fail out, you have to keep the band in by playing better, which can be tough, especially if it's not clear when you are about to fail (failing can happen in a split second and seems much faster than Rock Band in the worst cases). There are indicators of how individual band members are performing under the overall meter, but these are impossible to read while playing and thus totally useless except maybe to the vocalist.
Star power is shared between all band members. Once you collectively acquire enough, anyone can use it. If you build up enough to do so, multiple band members can use star power at once. As with Rock Band, there is an upper limit. Again, the indicators are less than easy to read for all band members as they are the vacuum tubes above the failure indicator. You kind of just have to hope it's there when you need it and that you didn't steal it from someone who needed it more.
The "highway" and the notes are a little different than in Rock Band (more like Guitar Hero 3). The tilt and perspective are slightly different, meaning that as they come down toward you, the spacing of the notes is not exactly the same as on the RB series. The notes also have more "height" to them in GHWT, and this adds to the effect. On RB2, the highway is also slightly convex. Anand feels like you have to have more of an internal sense of timing, but I think it's more about what you are used to.
I will say that the flatter, rectangular notes in Rock Band are easier for me to follow visually though. For whatever reason it's easier for me to tell when a rectangle lines up inside a rectangle than when a circle lines up over a circle (or when a line passes through a bunch of circles). Maybe it's just me. You can get a good sense of the differences on youtube, just search for "ghwt rb2" and you'll find lots of side by sides. If you are coming from GH3, you'll be fine, but it might take some getting used to if you've only played Rock Band games.
Detailed stats. Awesome. I want this on Rock Band 2.
Another bit I don't like about the highway is that the timing lines are all the same shade in GHWT. In both games, there are lines every eighth note, but in Rock Band, all the "and" lines are lighter. This helps me keep track of timing much better and I don't lose the count as often when it gets super complicated. Again, it's all about what you are used to and what works better for you. Personally I like the RB approach better.
That about does it for the actual playing of the songs. Let's get on to the quickplay and career modes.
Quickplay lets you select up to 6 songs to play back to back from all the music you've unlocked and downloaded. This is where it's at for the party game experience. It's much nicer than picking in between every song, as it allow a smoother gaming flow. We are still working with a flat list, so getting around is just as tough here as it is in Rock Band, but you don't have the help of difficulty ratings (even flawed ones) to help you find what you're looking for.
In quick play, if you can't get past a song you picked, no worries. You can choose to skip that song. This is nice if you run into some unexpected difficulty.
Career mode is much more complex and allows you to unlock songs by going through 5 different "careers." These are the careers of a guitarist, a bassist, a drummer, a vocalist, and a band. I bet you didn't see that coming, huh? For each career type it starts you out with access to a couple different set lists that are geared toward the type of instrument you are using. It starts off with easier stuff and builds up from there.
The problem with this is that in playing through each career you have to start off playing the noob songs each time. If I have to play Beat It or On the Road Again one more time I'm going to lose it. While this is a fine idea, I wish that having unlocked gigs in other careers would carry over, or that I could have one "career" that I could either play solo or with a band when I wanted to. Sort of like Rock Band. The GHWT method just feels clunky and it gets in the way of itself. The cheesy story I could do without as well. I really don't care about battling evil with my music or whatever.
Look, we're in Poland.
With a name like Guitar Hero World Tour, I suppose I expected something a little more epic. With Rock Band 2, navigating gigs was really just going through a bunch of menus, but the game made it sort of feel like you were traveling around the world. You'd fly around when moving between cities, zoom into cities when looking through venues, and dive into the gig when you picked it. Sure, GHWT's gig locations, like Rock Band's, are unique and represent the place you are headed to play, but it just feels lame looking at a wall and picking between some flyers to decide on a gig.
Now we're in the USA. Awesome.
Oh, and you need to pay for some gigs. I think ... well, the last time I checked anyway ... when you play somewhere, the venue pays you. Unless you damage things. That's a whole other story. But seriously, I don't want to buy gigs. Let me unlock them when I've done enough. Or make me buy something else that allows me to play a gig if it's got to be necessary to expend resources to access the songs. But the premise of "buying gigs" is just stupid.
The only other big thing is choosing difficulty levels. You do this at the beginning of your career. The Rock Band model of choosing difficulty at least per gig if not per song is a much better solution. Somethings are too easy to play on less than expert and others are too hard to play on more than medium. I don't want to be stuck into one difficulty the whole time.
Well, you can change the difficulty if you fail a song. But that seems like a cheap cop out and I'd rather just skip that step.
All in all, career mode is not as satisfying and not as "world tour"ish as it could be (or as Rock Band 2). Quickplay is great, as that's what we normally do anyway when playing with friends. And that just leaves online play to cover.
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crash resistant - Monday, November 3, 2008 - link
Reply:1: You can hit both cymbals (can't believe I misspelled that 100 times) anytime and you will NOT lose your streak. It will automatically hit whatever notes were there. Try it. You need to try it before assuming you will lose your streak. Perhaps you are trying it at a bad time and not hitting them at the same time? I find this a fun and rewarding gameplay element. The only downside is that it is harder than the solo-session that RB provides. However the downside to RB is the solo-sections are not part of the original songs and, IMO, ruin the drumming in the song.
2: The kick will not slide if you don't push it away with your foot. You should practice going down with the foot instead of forward. As a novice drummer I found my leg to wear out faster and get knee pain after long sessions when I was carelessly kicking instead of bouncing or tapping.... Seriously- try aiming "further up" on the pedal instead of just applying random pressure on the entire thing.
In response to this article I had a friend play who I consider, well, an animal. His pedal moved about 6 inches by the end of Soul Doubt. This guy isn't a drummer or coordinated by any means- so it was the very best "worst case" scenario I could find.
In comparison, the RB2 pedal is crap because it feels like you have to travel twice the distance. I would prefer to hone my skills to use the GH pedal and have a much better experience than use the current RB2.
With that said, I can't wait for GH5 or RB3's kits- assuming they are even more tweaked.
3: The cymbals are not responsive in terms of "bounce"... I agree. They aren't brass or sheet metal... they are really thick pieces of crap. However they are 100x better than another drum to emulate a cymbal.
4: Oh yeah.. you can go progressive with cymbals with drums... true. However it's never going to appear or feel natural. It's relatively much harder and requires practice on different kits as they are all arranged differently.
E.g. I began drumming on a kit with a snare, two toms, and a floor tom. I got used to the 4. Then I played at a friend's house for several days and he had only 1 tom. It took some serious getting used to. Similar to having a splash cymbal front and center between your toms. It's awesome- but awkward at first.
5: The interface loads faster time-wise and feels better overall. Changing difficulty in the middle of a song with 4 players takes, at the most, 30 seconds. Try that on RB. (oh wait you can't) hehe
6: I was in line in front of Best Buy on Sunday morning. There were 24 people in line. After the store manager came out and asked to divide the line based on preorders, he asked for a raise of hands. I followed with this question: "HOW MANY OF US ARE BUYING THIS GAME BECAUSE THERE ARE 3 TOOL SONGS ON IT?"
I would say... all but 5-10 at the most didn't raise their hand. Proof that GH may just be a huge marketing game. (songs, cymbals, studio, etc)
I still love it and will buy both games until they merge or I die.
aGreenAgent - Saturday, November 1, 2008 - link
I couldn't disagree more with on the drum section of the review.First of all, the kick pedal is substantially better than Rock Band's. I've been playing drums for years, and this is much closer to the feel of a real kick pedal. I can't get the kick to move one bit. Once I set that kick pedal on the ground, it usually takes me a few seconds to peel it back off the ground. Enormous improvement over rock band. Also, double and triple kicks on the RB pedal are almost painfully difficult, but they're easy on the GHWT pedal. This pedal just feels much more like a real pedal.
Also, I've had no trouble playing anything, the layout of the drum kit in the game matches my real kit's almost exactly (except the ride is a little further to the left than it would be).
dblagent - Friday, October 31, 2008 - link
Look on the GHWT forums and you will see a LOT of upset people with instrument problems. The drums have got some press now, and they say that new production is fixed, but it is not confirmed as of yet that is for sure.As for me, I purchased the guitar and game kit, and the down strum broke on the guitar after just three hours use on easy mode! This seems to be a common problem reported widely and as of yet there has been no reply from the company. I exchanged and got a new one, and it now has about 4 hours on it and the strum has started squeaking horribly on the up strums. I strum up, my wife strums down so it is getting equal wear, but now this one needs exchanged as it is too bad to play with that is for sure! This was also reported on the GHWT forums and I can now confirm it too. Moral is, maybe wait for them to sort the issues out before I can recommend purchasing.
Lastly, the manufacturer is telling people to send in the instruments for exchange or repair, but you have to pay for the shipping! When RB had trouble they helped the customers for free and footed the bill, GH is not going to apparently. Not very cool on their part, and it is angering the early adopters who are the biggest fans. Hope they can sort all this out.
Now to do my second exchange tomorrow. Do like the game itself though, it just works better with my old guitars! I also looked at the demo guitars on display at Best Buy and the strum is different than what you get in the retail box. It is better feeling, stronger spring and better click feedback and feels GREAT. The ones you get in the box are more mushy and feel different. The ones in the store are wired, but otherwise identical units. I assume they are wired so no batteries and no theft, but I want one of those! They actually work. Myself and two employees compared both the first bad one and the one I exchanged for and there we could all tell the difference in the strum. Strange.
djdjohnson - Friday, October 31, 2008 - link
It's interesting that Rock Band is given the nod in this review. I own all of the RB and GH games, and I definitely prefer GH over RB.The main reason is that I find Rock Band not challenging enough. With most songs in RB, I 5-* the songs the first time through on Expert, and pass all of them on the first attempt (with a couple exceptions). In GH I 5-* a few at the beginning of a career, but by 1/3 into the career I'm barely passing the songs the first time through. Any farther and I usually have to play them a time or two before I can get it down.
I may be off base here, but if people are able to breeze through the hardest difficulty level in a game the first time through, doesn't that take some of the fun out of it?
My other big gripe with RB is the constant repetition of songs. When you pick the "random set list" option the game might pick a song, then that same song appears again on the next set list you have to play. If all of the songs were awesome, this wouldn't be such an annoyance, but it seems like most of the time it's the songs I don't like playing. It has made me turn off the game a few times because of it. Playing through a bad song once is frustrating enough, but to be asked to play it twice nearly in a row is enough to send me over the edge.
And contrary to the opinion of the author of this article, I actually like the layout of the GHWT drums. I did have to run their calibration utility to get mine to work properly, but once I did they are WAY better in every way than the RB version. And I actually like the pedal better too, despite its "wobbliness." It's a lot easier on the calf muscles than the Rock Band version. No more burning leg muscles for me.
Woodchuck2000 - Monday, November 3, 2008 - link
I'm with you on that one... The fundamental problem I found with RB is that all of the songs are just too easy. If I can sight-read my way through on Expert getting 5* all the way, then where's the challenge?I actually like the fact that I'm stuck on the last couple of songs for GH3 on expert - it's always good to have a challenge!
Does anyone know how guitar difficulty compares with RB1 and GH3?
crimson117 - Friday, October 31, 2008 - link
Regarding paying for gigs, many bands have a choice:1. Get hired directly by the venue/event organizers and get paid a flat rate (like playing a wedding or cruise ship)
2. Agreeing to play at a venue for no fee and just splitting the ticket revenue with the venue
3. Pay to rent out the venue and sell your own tickets, provide your own security, etc, taking on the risk and keeping the profits yourself.
Phish actually got started that 3rd way. "On January 26, 1989, Phish played the Paradise Rock Club in Boston, Massachusetts. The owners of the club had never heard of Phish and refused to book them, so the band rented the club for the night. The show sold out due to the caravan of fans that had traveled to see the band."
DerekWilson - Monday, November 3, 2008 - link
i've done 1) and 2) but never 3) ...that's a very interesting point though ...
Myrandex - Friday, October 31, 2008 - link
On the last page..."We prefer the non-cartoonish look over Rock Band, but that's just a preference issue really."I really think RB looks a lot less cartoonish than GHWT.
I think that I will rent this one to just play some of the cooler songs on here. I'm all about LP's "What I've Done" and the Tool songs look pretty sweet. There were some other ones on the list too that looked good, but of course there will always be some bad ones too.
Sanctusx2 - Friday, October 31, 2008 - link
You mentioned that the RB2 instruments don't have XBL headset plugs. That's incorrect.I usually play guitar and drums with the headset plugged in and it works fine. Maybe you missed it? They are pretty small holes.
jnmfox - Friday, October 31, 2008 - link
That's what she said...