Guitar Hero World Tour: The Best, The Worst, and Everything in Between

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.