Guitar Hero: World Tour: Add a game review or opinion!

[Runa216]

Mod edit: Please keep all impressions on GH:WT to this thread.

Don't flame others' reviews. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, be it an awesome one or a horrible one.

Guitar Hero World Tour: I wanted to like it!

(I know there's a billion Guitar Hero World Tour threads, but I couldn't find any that were a straight up review thread...so here I go.)

Well, we all know I like Rock Band a lot more than Guitar Hero, so anything negative I say will be misconstrued as fanboyism, but I assure you, it’s not. You see, last night after I got LittleBigPlanet, I came to find out that Guitar Hero: World tour was coming out today! Well, for some reason, I was stoked, and planned today around getting and playing it.

Got up nice and early to get the game, happily jogged to the store (a good 45 Minute walk, I might add.) thinking to myself the entire time how happy I was to get another band game in my repertoire, and how much I looked forward to playing L’via L’viaquez, Pull Me Under, Hot For Teacher, Crazy Train, and about 20 other songs I REALLY wanted to play. I was really pumping myself up for disappointment…

I got home, popped the game in my system, installed it, and got ready to have my mind blown! I started by making a Rocker, which was surprisingly unfun, considering how shallow the Rock Band create-a-rocker was, and how much more fun it was to play round with. I ended up just picking some basic trenchcoat and spiky hair, but I really didn’t customize him all that well, I just didn’t care, I wanted to play the songs.

Anyway, I didn’t get the bundle, I think that is relevant to this review, as I cannot and will not discuss the Guitar Hero instruments at great length, but from what I hear, a lot of the guitars and drums are faulty….I wish to enjoy that bit of irony for just a moment….that’s right Brian Bright, you’re an idiot.

So, I get to the first set, which is a new way of playing. Instead of Tiers, it’s sets, and instead of picking each song you want to play out of it in whichever order, however you wish, you pick the set, and are forced to do the entire set in one sitting. Each Set is 2-6 songs long, and most have encores that you can’t see in advance.

It’s rather irritating, but it works, at least it’s better than Rock Band 2’s erratic world tour mode that has you do the same songs over and over again before advancing. The main problem with this is that there seems to be no rhyme or reason behind the order you play them in. In most games, the difficulty would increase as you played, but here, it would go all over the place. I was getting 100% on songs, then almost failing the next song in the set, then going back to getting near perfect. It’s really quite irritating, and this is what makes me long again for some sort of comprehensive tiering system like in Rock Band.

I do apologize for all the references to Rock Band, but it’s a good comparison, as it’s the game that did all this first…and better.

Anyway, I start playing songs, and I’m noticing far too many are songs I’ve already got in Rock Band…but that’s okay, because for some reason the songs that are in both happen to be amongst the most fun songs in Guitar Hero: World Tour.

Anyway, as for the charts and stuff, there’s some Pros and Cons I’d like to point out. (keep in mind, I was only playing Guitar….so you know.)

Pros:

1 – The game, as a whole, is far cleaner and more polished than Guitar Hero 3. the notes look the same, but a lot of the effects, such as the fire on the notes as you hit them, and starpower when you get it, are far less obtrusive. Even the “Star Power ready” and “100 note streak” notifications are far less invasive and distracting.

2 – You can FINALLY get star power while in star power! Thank you Activision, this is necessary!

3 – The sustains work somewhat differently, as you can hit other notes while during some sustains. This irritated me at first, and can be ignored without penalty, so it’s just a nice aesthetic, I suppose.

4 – The purple string mechanic, where you can use the touch strip, is really fun. It can feel like I’m cheating, since on the Rock Band guitar, using the basic OR lower frets works as if you were touching the touch strip. I suppose it makes the game easier, but it’s more fun.

Cons:

1 – holy Overcharted batman! Words cannot describe how bad the overcharting is in this game, but from what I can tell, it’s FAR worse than in Guitar Hero 3. In this game, almost every song is overcharted in some way or another. Even Livin On a Prayer, which was the first song, had a set of ascending triplets that were supposed to just be a whammy bar. I know a lot of people like excessive challenge, and good for them, but I can’t stand seeing a WALL of nothing but 2-4 note chords, all the time. It seems that over 50% of the notes were chords, and there was a lot of “strum when that should have been a whammy” or “that was just a sound effect, but I’ll strum a note for it anyway!” I’m sorry to say the Overcharting is worse than ever.

2 – Undercharting is there too! Yeah, there were even a few songs where I could clearly hear a far more interesting guitar part playing in the background, but I was reluctantly placed on rhythm. Band on the Run and one of the Tool songs are the only examples I can think of at the moment.

3 – Aesthetically ugly game overall. It’s better than GH3, but it’s still not as clean as it should be, and just navigating menus is a chore and hurts the eyes.

4 – it was EASY! Seriously, when guitar Hero is known for it’s difficulty, I found this disappointingly simple, save 2 songs. I was able to get through pretty much the entire game without using starpower and without leaving the green, even on the solos for Hot for Teacher and Crazy Train. Maybe the HO/PO window is still too large, and it doesn’t help that I have the touchstrip functionality on my frets, but it really was NOT a hard game. The only exceptions were BYOB, which angered me to no end because the chart is almost identical to Rock Band, but I kept failing at 4-10%, and that enraged me. The only other difficult song was Satch Boogie, which is only challenging for one part that’s nothing but a slide up and down the fretboard constantly for a minute or so. I still am unable to do Satch boogie, but I stopped caring.

5 – Was that a story they were trying to convey? Something about the devil and souls and **** like you teaming up with Ozzy, Sting, and travis Barker….I really don’t know, it was dumb and made no sense.

6 – Still Broken boss battles. Not as bad as GH3, but still irritating and unfun. They also aren’t bosses, just people you randomly meet and have to see if you’re ‘cool’ enough to shred with them.


Now, there are some things I didn’t really touch on, like the music studio and band functionality, but as it stands, I didn’t really have the chance. This is just the preliminary run-through playing all the guitar charts (Because this IS Guitar Hero, not Band hero…) Expect a more thorough review later if and when I ever play the game.

As it stands, I’m very disappointed. The Track List was far less fun than I was expecting, the features seemed unimpressive and bland, and overall, I really think they could’ve had a winner here, but like I said, I can’t help but be incredibly disappointed.

Overall Pros:

RB instruments work with it, new guitar functionality, diverse and large setlist, Music Studio, Indepth character creation, fixed game mechanics for starpower.

Overall Cons:

Disgustingly overcharted songs, ugly presentation, horribly thought out world tour mode, music studio is far too complicated to take full advantage of, about 30% of the setlist is actually quite boring, too easy, Lame attempt at a story.

Reviewers score – 72/100

Conclusion - I wanted to like it, but Rock Band did it first, and Rock Band did it better.

[Aragha]

I don't believe you. Make it more honester.

[Runa216]

Posted this on the GH forums too...I bet I;ll get flamed and told to play the whole game before judging it so harshly...as if I need to play any more....I've already done all I ever planned on with Guitar Hero.

[PaulMend]

Good Review Runa...

I was first introduced to these games via GH3 and instantly fell in love with the genre. Then I Played RB1 and realized, :wow this is WAY better". Now round 2... RB2 vs GHWT. I of course got RB2 (PS3) as soon as it came out and fell in love all over again with the series! I got to play GHWT (Wii) tonight and it's...meh? I really had high hopes because of some of the good songs on the list, but the game, first off on the Wii is UGLY! The lyrics for the singer are HARD to read (they chose a bad font to display the words) and the full band fails if one person fails rule is awful!!!! My group, we are decent players and we played some GHWT songs over and over again because 1 person was struggling. It sucked the fun out of it, something we NEVER had a problem with on RB! So Congrats Harmonix your game is MUCH, MUCH Better.....even though I think GHWT will outsell RB2 like 4-1, I am very happy to know that I own the BETTER GAME!

[guitarguy6]

So you went from saying that "I was getting 100% on songs, then almost failing the next song in the set, then going back to getting near perfect. It’s really quite irritating"

to

"it was EASY! Seriously, when guitar Hero is known for it’s difficulty, I found this disappointingly simple, save 2 songs. I was able to get through pretty much the entire game without using starpower and without leaving the green, even on the solos for Hot for Teacher and Crazy Train. "

[Runa216]

yes, becuase I was playing a set, still getting perfect scores, then I'm falling asleep, and a solo comes out of nowhere and has me down to the red before I wake up....then I go back to kicking ass.

But even on the hardest songs, since I was expecting them to be hard, I was paying attention, and they were actually really easy. Like I said, I made it through Hot For Teacher without Star Power and still only went out of the green once....That's the last song in the main setlist! (there is a secret setlist after you beat it which has Satch Boogie..)

[trench762]

I love it, like it better than rb2, will continue to play both. But the next few weeks rb2 will be seeing less attention from me, even with the nirvana track pack I just downloaded. Graphics of characters are the only thing lacking imo, but when your looking at note charts it's a little easier on the eyes to me, the tool venue was one of my most looked forward to features of the game, It messed with me a little, gave me a third eye kinda feeling. It was kind of lacking but cooler than watching a bunch of tool avatars dancing around.

[Runa216]

I wonder if this can be the only "Review GH:WT" Topic....I think it would be a good thread...keep it all in one spot, you know? I want to know what others have to say about the game.

[Rukiath]

I really hate having backgrounds on the tracks (highways?). Character Customization and Instrument Customization is miles deeper than RB's is. The songs kinda bore me, but I'm not too far into the game yet. I have a huge problem reading some of the text on a few menus. Character models are no where near as nice as Rock Bands's. Music Studio has proven entertaining, and that was the reason I bought the game in the first place.

IMO, RB > GH, still

[rockfresh126]

Since the reviewer didn't touch on it...the songs you can download from GHTUNES? I haven't touched the music studio yet, but seriously....if you're hyping a music studio...shouldn't it sound like instruments? Not like ur playing it on a keyboard? LAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEE

[Rukiath]

The music studio instruments all sound realistic, and the sound of a keyboard might be because there's a keyboard options in the music studio. "Fills" during drum gameplay on actual disc songs annoys me though because the sounds are crap.

[afterstasis]

The music studio instruments all sound realistic, and the sound of a keyboard might be because there's a keyboard options in the music studio. "Fills" during drum gameplay on actual disc songs annoys me though because the sounds are crap.

i haven't heard any even semi-realistic instrument sounds, dude.

have they purposefully avoided these sounds in demos and uploaded custom songs in favor of the most terrible sounds available or something?

[Plowens]

An enjoyable read, im getting well fired up for the UK release, even with the mixed bag of reviews, everything i read just makes me want to try it for myself more and more.

[trench762]

While I admit the music studio seems a little lacking, it is a good tool to get users familiar with the interface. Some decent songs on the ghtunes downloads, If you get bored with your songs and wanna try something different it's ok for that. Instruments do sound crappy, but seems great for making video game tracks, even if copywrite issues become a problem could still make your own to play. And hopefully by the time the next full guitar hero comes out the song creator/studio mode will sound alot better.

[Jixzer]

You know, I've thought about renting GH:WT and making a Military Theme Song Medley. Drum part would suck since most military music is mostly snare...but I can embellish a bit. :)

[icecoldd]

I rented it today. And since i hated GH3 i didn't think this would be for me, but actually so far i like it.. I'm far from a fretmaster, but im about 40% in the game and only failed one song so far on expert..Sure there will be more once i get to the final 10 or so..

Actually like the tour mode better then RB's.. RB's is far too boring, Make 2 songs list, make 3. Play this over and over and over.

Timing window is HUGE in GHWT. I know if they had the window RB had i'd fail alot more songs then 1 so far.

I still like Rockband, and it's better then GHWT, but GHWT isn't far behind at the moment. Only Con that i don't like is the Battles.. Still don't see any point in them...

[instantdeath999]

While I agree with the overall message of your review, I have to say I did notice one contradiction... you list, in your cons, that the game is overcharted... but also too easy.

[Johnny Webb]

I have both as well, and I play mainly drums. With no bias one way or the other as far as the RB/GH war goes, I'll say that Rock Band is head and shoulders better than GHWT. The guitar is much better, the drums and drum charts are better, and although the details (like real life characters and such) on GHWT are cool; the presentation and polish on RB is much better. Obviously, they have had much more time to get it right, but even RB1 is better than GHWT.

On a side note, when I went to the store to pick it up, I saw at least 12 folks grabbing GHWT kits and only one with a RB2 kit. Such a shame, I hope the name recognition of GH doesn't decide this battle between the two games because honestly RB is a much better game and deserves to be the better seller.

EDIT: I have to mention that the fills/bre's on GHWT are done with the worst drum kit i have ever heard in my entire life. Not that it kills the game, but I'd rather not even play a fill than hear those sounds.

[RealMessiah]

I played through the setlist once today on the new guitar (which I like...I just with the whammy bar was placed a little differntly...will have to use the GH2 Axe when I want to get bigger scores).

All in all, I had a lot of fun. I liked pretty much every song in the set.

I would say the games are about even with rock band having a better song selection menu, but the statistics in GH more than make up for that.

By the way OP, you don't have to play entire sets at once. If you quit, the next time you start that set, you will be playing the song you left off at.

[rockfresh126]

Hey quick question....where the hell is the music store at? Not GHTunes, but where you can get the DLC?? All the reviews I've read have mentioned it, but I can't find it anywhere

[woofmix]

They did the impossible.

Overcharted Coldplay.

I have to agree with your review. Some songs I liked more then others. Also the undercharting/overcharting part is true. The Kill (very easy) then Demolition Man (WTF? failed 6% first 3 attempts)

However, I did like some of the charts better in GH:WT then in RB2: Ramblin Man.

The music studio is cool in theory, but I did not like it. If you can spend a lot of time messing around with stuff then you can do amazing things.

I did like how they made rock band drums compatiable.

However they just kinda combined orange and blue together (thus making it more confusing and difficult. Assassin for example)

Also, Jimi Hendrix is only playable during his songs (I think?) Which makes me sad.

Its better then guitar hero 3, no where as good as the first 2 though.

/end review.

[Kamikazee]

My two cents:

I'm lovin GHWT. The setlist is astounding. "Touch me", "Hotel California" and HENDRIX are all a blast to play on guitar. "On the Road Again" is also suprisingly fun on guitar, although it's just plain stupid on drums.

The graphics are a nice change from RB. Sure they're cartoony but not quite as bad as GH3. It's funny cuz my "hot chick" GHWT character is waaay hotter than her RB counterpart. In fact I've missed some notes while checking her out (sproooiiiooooiiooong). I guess I like my women cartoony.

Drumming in general is a minor step down from RB, mostly because of the gimped chart for the RB drumset. There are some pretty wierd phrases charted that seem to require superhuman agility but they are few and far between. Overall, drumming in GHWT is still alot of fun!

The one major gripe I have with the game is the sound editing. Some songs are fine but some songs... I swear it sounds as if a drunk monkey is playing with the instrument volume sliders. Individual instrument tracks will randomly become loud and fade away. On some songs you can barely hear the drum track, even though your playing drums!!! And the sound editors absolutely butchered the chorus in "One armed scissor" by making the lead singer extra loud while leaving the backup nearly inaudible. It's so bad it's just plain ridiculous.

But overall the game is very fun and I'd recommend it to any non-fanboy RB lover (fanboy's probably wont be able to get far enough past their own fanboyism to allow themselves to enjoy the game).

[trench762]

DLC has to be dl'd from the marketplace as far as I know, haven't even got around to the 4 free tracks, (2 activision and 2 guitar battle tracks)

[ESCOBEN]

so im pretty much waiting till the drums stop being faulty. i was gonna buy it tomorrow BUT all the stuff ive read ill wait till i find out if its just a few isolated incidents or a major crap shoot. i know people complained about RB1s drums but mine are still working even tho my rb2s needed to be rma'ed. also the dlc is a factor i want to see what they put out. if they dont drop stuff weekly, even if its just one song, screw it.

[Magnet]

I wonder if this can be the only "Review GH:WT" Topic....I think it would be a good thread...keep it all in one spot, you know? I want to know what others have to say about the game.

Good idea. I've renamed the title, and I hope we can keep all future GH:WT reviews to this thread.

[CloudWolf]

2 – Undercharting is there too! Yeah, there were even a few songs where I could clearly hear a far more interesting guitar part playing in the background, but I was reluctantly placed on rhythm. Band on the Run and one of the Tool songs are the only examples I can think of at the moment.
I think BYOB has it too. In the chorus where in RB you have a thrill, GH:WT has a sustain. That just doesn't feel right...

[kevuwk]

I'm going to stick with my original thoughts posted somewhere on here before that this game is actually boring to play and it is the songs that do it. The songs just seem to drag on, it is like they chose songs that were 5 minutes and over (thats what it felt like anyway) and tool are extrememly boring. I'm probably going to be called a fanboy for this comment but the set list for rock band 2 and in general most songs available from rock band 1 and as dlc are more fun to play and I turned gh:wt off and put rock band on and I wasn't actually bored playing this type of game anymore which only leads me to think that it is gh:wt that is a poor game in my opinion.

[Danarchy99]

The OP needs to take his RB goggles off. I did spring for the bundle.. and i kinda regret it. its a fun game no doubt, i had MUCH more fun playing multiplayer in rock band. im gonna lay this out there before i say more i think harmonix is pretty stupid in the fact that RB2 is not really a sequel and the fact that the Band world tour still suck pretty bad to play it just isnt fun its grinding.. its like playing an rpg and not being able to progress the story until you level up 5 times to beat a boss. now guitar hero really hasnt come up with a "cooler" way to use the band carreer but they have made it feel MUCH less repetitive and more streamlined. you all pick instruments charecters and difficulties, then you pick a set list and play.. and repeat(but not songs THANK GOD!)

BWT aside rock band wins in for "experts" i play expert drums and guitar, i was around 150 on drums leaderboard to give you an idea. rock band imo is much funner when played by yourself or with people that are going to play as a hardcore gamer would. when you bust out beers and rock band and casual gaming friends chaos insues and the fun goes to the ****ter, guitar hero has solved this for me. it will be my defacto multiplayer rhythm game now.

as for the instruments... ill start with the drums, the rb2 guitar and drums impress me greatly its hard to imagine better instruments. the drums are fine for GH they are weird at first but you really can enjoy them once you get the hang of it. i still prefer the RB2 set though even though the cymbals are a blast. the guitar.. if youve played a les paul youve played this one exactly the same with a touch pad... which is very gimmicky and hard to learn how to use effectivly, not too much fun really if you like to score as high as possible you will hate this addition. I really would like to try the GH drums on RB but i havnt had a chance to yet i will soon and report the findings here.

bottom line gh is fun does a few things better than rockband but if you like to play for scores rb is your game. rb is visually much more pleasing and has a much nicer aesthetic.

[v0lum3]

Well I did get a chance to play w/ all the peripherals extensively yesterday. A friend of mine (GH fanboi) picked up the bundle and I helped him break them in yesteray. (BTW, I play expert on everything)

We went through 2 guitars: Downstrum broke TWICE :( One we got exchanged, but after the second we couldn't manage to talk them into it again. RMA requires the consumer to pay shipping... WTF?

So I'll mostly touch on the instruments w/ the game:

Drums: Horrible design, I've never hit my sticks so many times in my LIFE, the cymbals are too low, they have almost no rebound, they're in completely awkward angles (I don't want to hold my right hand 6 inches farther out than my left... WTF?) I HATE the fact that my Ion kit doesn't work with it. Cymbal rolls dropping to the snare are uncomfortable as hell... the snare has... issues... the velocity sensitive function is useless on this kit from what I've seen... The bass pedal is IMHO completely interchangable w/ a RB1 pedal, and I expect it to break just as fast. The drum kit is waaay too top heavy w/ little support on the bottom to keep it steady, on carpeting it rocks like a futher mucker. The sticks are useless, but so are the sticks that come w/ RB IMO. The OD activation is ******ED. Picking a spot to just swap hands in most cases in order to activate SP is horrible, and the times when you NEED to activate it will likely cost you 2 or 3 hits just to get it activated and that's time where you're just failing away. The pads themselves are a lot better, feel wise, than the RB pads, but the overall kit = POOP.

The guitar: Well this is one of the first GH guitars I've actually liked: However the SP button is oddly placed and not as useful as I would have liked, but it's workable. The slider is fun. The strum bar is a HUGE improvement over their previous strum bars... at least that is while it's working. The buttons IMHO suck, I really like the MadCatz buttons on my bass and wish I could stick them and a slider on a guitar and I'd be set for LIFE. The wammy bar is seriously long overdue to feel like a wammy, thank god it finally does. If you like GH guitars, this one is the best (if you can find one that doesn't break) but I still prefer my RB2 strat :D

The mic: It's a mic...

Now, on to the way these interact w/ the game:

I absolutely HATE the purple bar... it's a ***** to see it on most of the chart backgrounds (which I absolutely hate as well) I tend to miss double bass notes when scrolling quickly by because I only notice the first purple bar. As previously noted (but it sucks so bad it needs to be said twice) the SP activation is HORRIBLE. And I can never tell when I have a fill that I can do or not... I didn't run through the tutorials, but I don't believe there are any visual indications when a fill applies or not... I just hit the drums sometimes when nothing is going on and there are notes instead of fail notes... that means I'm in a fill. Honestly, the drums in this are not that fun...

The guitar: Okay, point one, the open bass notes are about damn time. Even though they're the same annoying purple bar, they're a bit easier to see because there are never any other notes competing visually w/ them. These need to be implemented in RB on guitar and bass, they're a necessity IMO. SP gaining while burning = about damn time. The slider sections = too easy, but I guess that's okay... they make anybody feel like a pimp on the guitar when doing them... they're fun and easy and can get a good guitarist through a lot of sections. (note I only got to do 2 slider sections before the guitars both were broken :()

Vocals: The SP activation button is AWESOME. Activatins vocal SP whenever you want is a great idea... now if it just EFFECTED EVERYBODY ELSE... I absolutely hate the "fill" portions on vocals... why do I have to make a ton of noise over one of my favorite songs just to get a good score??? Leave it like it WAS.

Band stuff:

Shared SP is a horrible idea, it just becomes a fight to see who can activate SP first whenever the group earns it, especially since each person is scored individually at the end... and god forbid one instrument has an auto activation issue, now the whole band is screwed. Since SP has no effect on your band mates it means that someone in the middle of a horribly challenging section has to activate SP on their own... so even though our bassist, drummer, and vocalist aren't doing anything, they can't save our guitarist in a solo... he's on his own. The worst of this is the poor drummer w/ that crappy activation system... when he's in trouble he's screwed. Then there's the issue that each activation of SP lasts for a specific amount of time... just long enough to drop you back in halfway through a solo. So during any long difficult section you wind up activating over and over and over and over again... drums = screwed once again.

The "one fails you all fail" crap sux BAD. We wound up replaying songs 3 or 4 times due to one person having a rough time... that's no fun at all. It makes playing w/ others a liability instead of a benefit.

The UI while playing in a whole band is horrible... we had difficulty telling if we even had SP, it's all the way up in the left hand corner. And god forbid if we know if someone's in trouble until they've actually failed. The best part though: It doesn't even tell you WHO failed. We had a few instances where we'd be at the fail screen w/ no idea who failed out... WTF?

Overall I honestly don't find this game fun... there are a few songs which I had been looking forward to playing, and I've played them now... but w/ the rest of the crap going on in this game I don't feel the drive to play them again:

Final score: 6 out of 10.

[ESCOBEN]

well after reading **** loads of reviews from sites and actually players...im passing which sucks because there are a few songs id liek to play but with a MASS amounts faulty peripherals storys and the fact you are charged for shipping for a rma is gayer then little richard. the talk of gameplay sucking and create a rocker feature being boring and like the last GH game ugly to look at. the "one fails all fail" is useless for band my friends suck horribly and when we played band i ALWAYS had to bail them out. i dont like the whole "lets get a whole bunch of famous people to get people into it so we can sell more" idea kinda sucks. i like the fact the old GH characters are there but ive always hated GH animation. i guess getting all these famous musicians to do motion cap didnt help at all. still emotionless and robotic.

i still wanna try it out but ill wait for the drums on there own to come out screw paying $189 on something im not even sure ill like. i had hopes for GH to return themselves to what it was like when i first picked up GH2.

[ThatAuthoringGroup]

I got the game only. I seriously didn't have enough room in my house for ANOTHER drum set and guitar. Plus I've heard the issues with the kits, so I'm happy with my decision.

Now on to the review.

I was really looking forward to playing the game, but I was a bit trepiditious(and cautiously optimistic at the same time oddly enough.

I really think it's a step that the GH franchise needed to take in order to keep up with the Jones' so to speak, but I don't think they're quite there yet.

I was playing the songs(haven't finished them all yet btw), and everything is there that needs to be there, but it just feels like there's something missing. I can't really put my finger on it. I'm not saying the game isn't complete or fun, because it is, but there's something that feels off for some weird reason.

There's some confusing bits when using RB equipment instead of the GH stuff. You need to pound on the mic to get star power to activate, but it only activates in certain spots for some strange reason(seems to be at the very end of a vocal section as I couldn't get it to activate at the start or in the middle for the life of me).

Drums are the same, and I never want to activate my star power on the drums because I'm not sure if trying to hit the two notes to activate will cause me to lose my streak.

These two issues may be because I'm using RB equipment instead of the recommended GHWT stuff. Not sure but I wanted to point it out.

The game is overall easier than I expected(so far). I'm doing hard drum, expert bass, hard vox, and expert guitar).

I've 100% 95% of the songs I've played so far on drums and Bass. Guitar I'm in the upper 98, 99% on sight reads, and the only thing I'm having problems with is the vox. It seems to be easier to hit the correct pitch phrase than in RB, but there is no indicator of how well you are doing during the phrase. Yeah the meter turns a yellowish orange when you are hitting it perfectly, and blacks out if you are missing it, but there's no overall meter like in RB to tell you how close you are to doing well enough to keep your multi going.

There's a lot of songs here that I really enjoy playing(and watching your lead singer during Beat it is comedy gold), and on the other hand there were some songs that I was just bored to tears. It's a really mixed bag IMO, and while there are some REALLY big name bands/songs on the disc, they are accompanied by some real head scratchers. However I believe finally getting to play Tool, Korn, Doors, Hendrix, etc all for the first time in a music game makes up for the weaker choices from other bands.

I'm really excited to see what and how often the DLC is. I have high hopes that we'll get some really great DLC choices, and hopefully on a regular basis. Again I remain cautiously optimistic on this front.

There are some good ideas here, but they aren't quite polished yet.(The best idea so far is the open notes on the bass IMO).

So in short it's fun, but seems to be lacking a certain something, and a bit of polish.

Hopefully next year they'll nail it.

[NickyStardust]

I just can't **** with this game. I can get past how ugly it looks and sounds. The only thing I felt when playing last night was switching to RB 2. If I could get a refund I would. It sucks too cause I was real hyped for GH WT, I was happy and excited to go cop it. I don't know...since I can't return it I'll give it another chance and hopefully it'll grow on me.

[jeccaneko]

I've seen a lot of Rock Band 1/2 versus GHWT reviews. I'd like to see a more general GH3 versus GHWT review. Pretty much everywhere I've seen mentions Rock Band in the review somewhere, even on non-Rock Band related sites. Just would like to see less Rock Band bias in a review. I love Rock Band too, but want to see a review from that point of view.

Thanks in general though for everyone's thoughts. It's interesting how I keep hearing some complaints over and over, such as how hard it is to activate star power for drums. I know people have wanted to activate overdrive for drums at any time in Rock Band and it looks like it wouldn't of worked out as well as people would've hoped judging from how it works in GHWT.

[Runa216]

Truth be told, there were a lot of songs i expected to like...but just didn't. the Doors were a good example. L'Via L'Viaquez was another one. Yet on the flipside, there were songs I didn't expect to enjoy that I did, like On The Road Again.

I'd also like to say that I downloaded all of Death Magnetic, as well as the Neversoft tracks and the Battle Tracks. I haven't played any of them.

[Coldplayer]

I already reviewed the game a few days ago in the Alternative Masterthread, but I should post it here too, so:

My opinion about GHWT:

PROS:
- The songlist is really great
- The characters look more realistic, especially the figure itself
- The ingame celebs like Billy Corgan, Travis Barker, Sting etc. look really good
- Those new chords where you have to hold one button and play others with the other fingers are interesting
- When you pause the game and then start it again, it shows a countown of 3 seconds until the game goes on. That's a great idea, because so it's possible to not loose his combo even if someone pauses the game
- you can change difficulty very quick (maybe even in the mid of the song, but not sure, because I haven't tried it. I just know the option is there when you press pause)
- when you play setlist you can skip a song if you fail on it and don't have to cancel the whole setlist if you can't beat one song
- RB 1 drums and guitar work with the game
- You have a lot of audio options, you can adjust every kind of sound there is; guitar, drums, vocals, bass, background vocals, other instruments, crowd and more...
- It's a good idea that the drummer can activate Starpower by hitting both cymbals.
- The character animations are pretty cool, when you play Beat It the singer actually does MJ moves, Moonwalk included

CONS:
- You can also make the characters look very unrealistic
- The venues still look very cartoony and unrealistic and doesn't fit the more realistic characters at all
- The stage effects are not really there, especially if you compare it to all the effects in Rockband
- You can only make a setlist of 6 songs or less
- The cartoony menus look aweful und the navigation is bad
- Those new notes mentioned in the "pros", although they are interesting, are also little strange. Don't know if they actually make sense. Maybe you can think of them as Barré Chords, but I don't think they are actually necessary.
- the charts are pretty bad most of the time. Especially my favourite song on the setlist, Shiver, is very bad charted IMO
- The soundmix is aweful for the most part and you can't really make it better even with all the audio options you have. The crowd is too quiet and I hate that sound when starpower is activated. Especially in Shiver you can see how bad the mix is. You play the... I don't know, I guess it's acoustic guitar in some parts of the song (ending for example) but you don't really hear the guitar
- I don't really hear singalongs, which is sad, I heard them in GH:Aerosmith
- All the songs that are also in RB2 are easier here in GHWT. Not only because the timewindow to hit the notes is bigger in GHWT but also the charts are just not that difficult
- The fretboards look aweful. You feel like you're playing the old Guitar Hero games, in a bad way
- Although most of the character animations look pretty chool, the expressions in the face look stiffly or... bored... whatever
- The ION drums don't work right. (maybe there will be a patch someday?)

Haven't tried the Song Editor, I'm not that interested at the moment. It looks difficult


You see, GHWT has some good features, but bad charts, bad graphics and bad sound make the game fail. Rockband 2 is definitely the better choice.


ALSO, the ION DRUMS DON'T WORK!
It's strange, the game thinks you hit the orange note and another note when you play the cymbals. So, let's say you play the yellow cymbal, the game thinks you play yellow and orange. So you can't play on the cymbals because you will destroy your combo. And if you actually have to hit orange, you will destroy your combo too because there is no orange on the ION drums. If you hit a cymbal you hit orange, but also the color of the cymbal.

Maybe Activision releases a patch for this one day.

[prowlingDead]

i had hopes for GH to return themselves to what it was like when i first picked up GH2.

you know that won't happen, concidering Activision picked up a game type they have no idea what to do with.

and.. Looking back at there history, they flurked up most good franchise they have

[Highlandlassie1]

I spent all day Sunday playing this game.

Pros.

Setlist is awesome. Rockband needs to take notice here.
Songs are fun to play and for the most part not boring or repetitive.

The flow of the notes on guitar/bass is awesome.
I felt like a pro, nailing sections that I never would have been able to in RB2. FUN!

The slider notes are great, so much fun.

The open notes in bass really add a nice touch to a boring part of the game, the bass.

The create a rocker option is very detailed and accurate. Better than rb2.

Gameplay on the guitars is great, the flow of the songs is smooth, and the RB2 guitars work better than they do on RB2.

Just a very fun game overall.

Cons.

Premium RB mic does not work. Stock one does. Now I have 3 mics on the mic stand, RB stock, premuim, and a Shure pg58 to the Marshall amp.
Looks like a press conference.

Can not turn down the original singer all the way for the vocalist.

Could not figure out how to activate starpower on RB drums.

Still looks cartoony.

Menus not great.

No fans.

Does not take your band name into consideration on the leaderboards. Big minus there.

Leaderboards not up to par with RB.

DLC does not seem to be available from previous games for guitar and bass.

Still appears to be aimed at kids, even though the songs are more likely to appeal to older adults.

Almost makes a mockery of rock and roll itself at times.

Overall opinion:

Well as a HARDCORE Rockband fan, I must say, I was impressed with the setlist and gameplay of GHWT.

I had more fun playing it than I do playing RB2.

Why?

Something changed with RB2. I seem to miss guitar and bass notes when I know I should not be.

GHWT makes me feel like a plastic guitar god, with its superior gameplay.

GHWT is FUN to play, I had many moments of sheer joy, not rivaled since
RB1.

Sure it needs much improvement, but for $60 it is well worth the price.

I used all RB equipment, Rb2 guitars, and rb1 drums.

Harmonix, take note, great songs and great gameplay are important.

Add that to your your strengths, which is everything else, and you will be unstoppable.

[prowlingDead]

ALSO, the ION DRUMS DON'T WORK!
It's strange, the game thinks you hit the orange note and another note when you play the cymbals. So, let's say you play the yellow cymbal, the game thinks you play yellow and orange. So you can't play on the cymbals because you will destroy your combo. And if you actually have to hit orange, you will destroy your combo too because there is no orange on the ION drums. If you hit a cymbal you hit orange, but also the color of the cymbal.

Maybe Activision releases a patch for this one day.

Thats funny, concidering they said "Every electronic style drum set will work on "our" game"

[v0lum3]

However I believe finally getting to play Hendrix, for the first time in a music game makes up for the weaker choices from other bands.


... Hendrix was in GH1 ;)

[Nextonex]

Thanks everyone for posting your reviews. I'm still on the fence. I loves GH1 and GH2 and I guess GH3 wasn't that bad, but I haven't played it once since RB came out.

I know that if I do buy GH:WT, it will be the game only.

Thanks again for the reviews

[Uk Evil Homer]

Thats funny, concidering they said "Every electronic style drum set will work on "our" game"

To be fair they said any MIDI capable drum set would work. The ION lacks the MIDI capable brain. And from what I have read, it seems to work very well. Therefore GH:WT drum set is cheapest option for using e-drums with RB2 and GH:WT. Only reason I'm buying it really.

[Runa216]

well, I just scoured my entire list of ratings, and this is what I got for Guitar Hero:

90s - 3
80s - 25
70s - 28
60s - 21
50s - 7
<50 - 0

Whereas on Rock Band, I got:

90s - 15
80s - 36
70s - 25
60s - 6
50s - 1
<50 - 1

SO yeah, I'd argue that the Rock Band 2 setlist is in every way superior. Far more 80's and 90's, and almost nothing under 70. (70 is my base level of enjoyability.)

90s - Means they're absolute gold, I will NEVER say no to playing these
80s - Means they're a lot of fun to play, and I enjoy playing them thoroughly
70s - I like the song, I enjoy playing them, but I don't LOVE them
60s - I don't particularly like the song, but I'll play from time to time
50s - I'll play em, but I really prefer not to.
<50 - keep it the hell away from me...I will not play this if I can get away with it.

There are far too many songs in GH that I really prefer to stay away from or don't really wanna play. Lots of 70's too, which means there's far too many that aren't catching my attention, but aren't bad.

Overall there's 28 songs I really enjoy (a good amount overall) and another 28 I enjoy, but don't love.

The setlist isn't bad, but You're all letting Ozzy, Hendrix, And Halen speak for the entire set. it's really not fair.

[Coldplayer]

Thats funny, concidering they said "Every electronic style drum set will work on "our" game"

Well, they "do work", but not correctly. lol :p

[Highlandlassie1]

well, I just scoured my entire list of ratings, and this is what I got for Guitar Hero:

90s - 3
80s - 25
70s - 28
60s - 21
50s - 7
<50 - 0

Whereas on Rock Band, I got:

90s - 15
80s - 36
70s - 25
60s - 6
50s - 1
<50 - 1

SO yeah, I'd argue that the Rock Band 2 setlist is in every way superior. Far more 80's and 90's, and almost nothing under 70. (70 is my base level of enjoyability.)

90s - Means they're absolute gold, I will NEVER say no to playing these
80s - Means they're a lot of fun to play, and I enjoy playing them thoroughly
70s - I like the song, I enjoy playing them, but I don't LOVE them
60s - I don't particularly like the song, but I'll play from time to time
50s - I'll play em, but I really prefer not to.
<50 - keep it the hell away from me...I will not play this if I can get away with it.

There are far too many songs in GH that I really prefer to stay away from or don't really wanna play. Lots of 70's too, which means there's far too many that aren't catching my attention, but aren't bad.

Overall there's 28 songs I really enjoy (a good amount overall) and another 28 I enjoy, but don't love.

The setlist isn't bad, but You're all letting Ozzy, Hendrix, And Halen speak for the entire set. it's really not fair.

My opinion is just the opposite.

I could not find a horrible song on GHWT yet. (The Coldplay song comes close to horrible)

They abound in RB2.

The setlist is the best part of GHWT.

[Runa216]

Really? what are some bad Rock Band songs? I didn't like PDA or Psycho Killer or So whatcha Want, but they are vastly outnumbered by songs like Panic Attack, Night Lies, and Master Exploder.

[PCTraitor]

I'm mostly concerned about the problems people are having with the instruments. I was hoping the GHWT guitar would be the answer to my constant guitar troubles but according to the GH forums that may not be the case. It feels like Rock Band 1 all over again over there.

[SuburbanHell]

Strictly on an opinion basis... After playing for quite a bit yesterday, I *think* I might be all done with Guitar Hero games. Don't quote me on that though. Anyway, Here's my 2 cents...

CONS:
First off, Popped the game in, instantly had to pick a band name and a logo before I could even get to the main menu, that was a little irritating.

Singing SUCKS in this game, even had to sit through the tutorial to see if we were doing anything wrong, nope, the singing just sucks, RB Totally FTW on this one.

Character & Logo Creators are quite limited from what we could tell, moreso than RB1/2

WAAAAAAAAAAY too many songs crossover from RB2 in this game, it's as if Neversoft had a bug in a pitch meeting for songs that HMX were looking at.

Another thing that started to bug me as I went along in career mode is that it's almost as if they were trying to sell all the Star Power they got on this game -- focusing primarily on big names rather than the music itself in a kind of "Hey look, Travis Barker and Billy Corgan and the Paramore chick and Ted Nugent and Zakk Wylde and all your rockstar "pals" love this game, so you should too!" way.

PROS:
The new "tap" notes are kind of fun once you get the hang of them.

The "battles" are WAY better now that they're strictly who can play guitar better and not based on arcadey powerups.

[meck77]

The setlist's for both games have some less then desirable tracks on them. I must agree with the OP, RB did it first and RB did it better.
First and foremost you can not bring players back in once they have failed, they fail you all fail!
second, I do not like they individual instrument icons in the upper left hand corner of the screen, its almost like you have to look away from your chart to see whos's failing and then its to late!
Third, the whole situation with the ion kit is total BS!!! Dont tell me they didnt know that was going to be the situation. Well only time will tell if Activision will step up and do the right thing.(my guess is NO, knowing those greedy bastards)
fifth, whats up with only being able to use a certain amount of OD at one time, if I want to engage in OD and use up all 6 lighted bars then I should be able to do that. The game only allows 2 at a time.
The plain and simple fact is both games have great music, I dont think you can judge either game by its setlist, there both good and bad.
So you have to judge these games by there realism and gameplay and IMO I think the OP nailed it when he said RB did it first and RB REALLy did do it better.

EDIT: oh and one more thing, RB did it perfect with the drums in concern to OD. I love the fact that theres a fill just before I engage in OD, the double cymbal thing is just to hard to hard to do when you are flying through these songs in expert. GL finding the space to engage OD without losing your 4X.

[nicko68]

I'm mostly concerned about the problems people are having with the instruments. I was hoping the GHWT guitar would be the answer to my constant guitar troubles but according to the GH forums that may not be the case. It feels like Rock Band 1 all over again over there.

That's so weird, a lot of people complained about the LPs, but I had no issues with mine (Wii). And I find the GHWT guitar to be great too.

[Highlandlassie1]

Really? what are some bad Rock Band songs? I didn't like PDA or Psycho Killer or So whatcha Want, but they are vastly outnumbered by songs like Panic Attack, Night Lies, and Master Exploder.
All songs you listed I do not like.
There are many more, but I do not remember the names of them, since I am not familiar with those types of songs.

There are only 10 or so songs on RB2 I have played so far that I can really appreciate.

[v0lum3]

There are only 10 or so songs on RB2 I have played so far that I can really appreciate.

... please name those.

[hiraven2204]

I couldn't be more disappointed in this game. I love the previous Guitar Hero's... but this crap... no. I'm a girl and my love of video games could rival any guy on this planet. I can not grasp how people can like this game no matter how hard I try. I'm forced to play songs in an order they want. The difficulty jumps around, the creepy translucent buttons annoy me to no end and I'm sitting here feeling completely ripped off. Not to mention I played for a little over an hour and an achievement popped up saying I was halfway there, WTF where is the rest of the game? I played Guitar Hero Aerosmith and knew that the World Tour had to be better, if anything less annoying. Ha. Jokes on me I guess. All the great music got lost on the previous games, besides the songs on the World Tour that are not on Rockband they basically suck, if I have to listen to one more song in a different language... or play one more crappy song that lasts twenty minutes I'm going to scream. What a waste of money. I will give it to them on the graphics though, but they were never a problem were they? Maybe these people should stick to graphic design and leave the music to people who obviously know what they are doing. Until then, I'm returning to my Rockband 2 and Halo 3, anyone want to buy this game for cheap? I'm pretty much done with it.

- Disgusted.

[MF-PO'd]

Having only played for a few hours so far, I'll just offer brief opinions. I just bought the standalone game, and only play guitar, so I can't comment on the band aspects or the new instruments.

Some things I like that RB2 is missing:
- Keeps track of both stars and scores for each difficulty level
- Keeps bass scores (bass and guitar are separated, which I appreciate)
- I don't believe there are any restrictions when dropping down from hard to medium (a la not being able to access certain setlists in RB2)
- Difficulty seems toned down which I appreciate as someone who can only handle hard (and medium for the tougher songs)
- The timing window is larger than RB2s, and that's a plus for me. Again, I'm not an expert player. :) I struggle with HOs/POs.

A few things I don't like:
- Menus can use improvement. I could see the song selection becoming very ugly once they have as many songs as RB.
- Why so many of the same songs on RB2 and GHWT? That CAN'T be a coincidence.
- I don't know if it's the mixing or what, but the songs often just don't sound... right. For sure, the crown sing-alongs are too quiet. They were perfect in the Aerosmith game I thought.

Overall, I think I like RB2 better, but I'm still very happy with this game so far. If you're a music game fan and just want more songs to play, you might as well pick up this game.

[SuburbanHell]

I couldn't be more disappointed in this game. I love the previous Guitar Hero's... but this crap... no. I'm a girl and my love of video games could rival any guy on this planet. I can not grasp how people can like this game no matter how hard I try. I'm forced to play songs in an order they want. The difficulty jumps around, the creepy translucent buttons annoy me to no end and I'm sitting here feeling completely ripped off. Not to mention I played for a little over an hour and an achievement popped up saying I was halfway there, WTF where is the rest of the game? I played Guitar Hero Aerosmith and knew that the World Tour had to be better, if anything less annoying. Ha. Jokes on me I guess. All the great music got lost on the previous games, besides the songs on the World Tour that are not on Rockband they basically suck, if I have to listen to one more song in a different language... or play one more crappy song that lasts twenty minutes I'm going to scream. What a waste of money. I will give it to them on the graphics though, but they were never a problem were they? Maybe these people should stick to graphic design and leave the music to people who obviously know what they are doing. Until then, I'm returning to my Rockband 2 and Halo 3, anyone want to buy this game for cheap? I'm pretty much done with it.

- Disgusted.


That's where I'm leaning myself, I think I'm going to finish out career mode for the sake of finishing it and then sell it back.

[lynx44]

I played it yesterday for a total of probably at least 8 hours with the GHWT peripherals. Since most people on this board have only played it with the RB instruments, I'll start out with those.

GHWT DRUM PERIPHERAL
--------------------

I actually like these a lot. It takes a bit of getting used to though, since the pad configuration is less than intuitive. I would often end up hitting the orange cymbal instead of the blue pad for whatever reason. It would have been nice if they would have graphically separated the cymbal hits from the pad hits on screen (for example use a triangle for a cymbal, also something that I wish RB would do).

Both the pads and cymbals have good bounce to them. The pads feel slightly odd to me, its like you're hitting a vinyl seat or something...there is a layer of padding over them.

The pedal is kind of odd IMO. The travel on it is like 1/2 inch. Again, I'm not a real drummer so I don't know if there are some pedals out there that are like this, but it was a weird feeling transitioning from the RB pedal that I'm used to. In a way I really like it. In RB I always hold my foot down and move my foot close to the top so I don't have to travel very far for each hit. On the other hand, having such a small amount of travel makes me feel somewhat disconnected from it. Its almost like you're just tapping your foot to the beat. Its kind of a toss up on which one I prefer. I think I may like the RB one better, but both have their advantages and disadvantages. Also, the pedal for GH feels kind of cheap to me. Not that the RB is high quality, I've had numerous ones break on me.

The drums feel very sturdy. I don't feel like I could break them very easily, however the set that I used was already somewhat defective. It worked fine most of the time, but at least the red and green pads would often drop notes (the blue pad doesn't come up often in many of the charts, so I'm not sure if it had the same problem). It seemed to work better when you hit directly in the center.


GHWT GUITAR PERIPHERAL
----------------------

First let me say that I've always been partial to the GH guitars, and this one is no exception.

I like just about everything about it. The neck is a bit longer, the whammy bar is longer (much like the Strats), and even the strum bar is longer. They've added a "star power" button to the left of the strummer which I thought I would really like. On the Les Paul, I got really used to hitting the select button for star power with the palm of my hand. However, since I'm so used to it on the LP, it kind of threw me off in the new location and I ended up just tilting my guitar instead. Anyway, I'm sure everyone else will like it better in this position, and its not really a negative for me.

The touchpad is pretty cool. There's not much to say about it hardware wise, it works as you would expect. I'll get to the gameplay mechanics about it in the "Guitar Gameplay" section. One thing that I hope they'll change in the next version is to add slightly larger bumps in between each color of the touchpad and maybe a couple of bumps on the yellow pad just to remind you of your position. Its possible to lose your place when you're sliding your finger across the pad, but not by any means frustratingly bad.

DRUMS GAMEPLAY
--------------

I can't say much about the charting as I'm not a real drummer, and later on into the game I started playing on hard. It seemed pretty good to me, although I had a feeling that it wasn't too accurate simply on the basis that there weren't very many "tricky" parts, it all seemed very straight forward.

I don't like the way Star Power is activated. Since you're playing the song almost the entire time, you don't have a chance to hit the cymbals to activate it without breaking your combo. This is something I thought I would like, I thought it would be nice to be able to activate it whenever, but it just doesn't really work out.

There are some sections for drum fills, but I don't really think they add anything to the game. They're basically the empty sections where the drummer wouldn't be playing in the real song. Sure you can throw something in there, but its certainly anti-climatic since its not where you'd usually put a fill. Also, the drum sounds they used sound terrible and are difficult to hear.

One cool thing about any of the "freestyle" sections is that you can make your kit sound slightly different depending on the amount of force you put into hitting it. For example, if you just tap the orange cymbal, it sounds...well, like you're tapping a cymbal. However, if you hit it hard, it will sound like a crash. Its a nice touch, although I found it a little difficult to get the crashing sound, I had to pound on it pretty hard.

I don't really like the way the "note highway" looks for drumming on this game. I've always been fine with the way its looked on the previous Guitar Hero games (on the guitar charts, obviously), but it just doesn't seem to translate well for drums. I didn't feel very connected with the chart for some reason. The purple kick lines just blend in a bit too much with the background. I don't think I ever missed a note because of it, but its just harder for me to read. In Rock Band, I feel like I can interpret the note chart so I can tell what I'm going to be playing, but in this game it was more difficult for me to anticipate what was coming.

It also felt like I couldn't read very many notes ahead of time, like they didn't show enough on screen at a time. In a way, this may have been a good thing. I did feel like they got the scrolling speed right, however, I didn't feel like I could anticipate notes all that well.

One thing that differentiates the drumming from Rock Band is that certain notes have a "hovering" circle around the top, which means that they want you to put greater emphasis on it. When you hit one of these notes with greater force, then the note itself "blows up" differently - I'm assuming you get more points, but are not deducted if you just ignore the emphasis. I like this because on many drum rolls, drummers will hit the snare with extra force to emphasize a particular note...or at least that's what it sounds like to me. It also is abused sometimes though, like they'll emphasize a note on the yellow cymbal, when clearly that's just the high hat opening or closing. Of course since the game does not have a high hat, I suppose that is somewhat acceptable - its optional anyway. Which leads me into my next point...

I don't like the way that they charted some of the songs in terms of the high hat. Songs like Everlong make you play the yellow cymbal as the high hat, yet still make you hit the red pad for the snare. This is completely unnatural, and I'm not sure why they decided to stick with that configuration. I really think they should have moved the "snare" to the blue pad for songs like that.

Another new feature is extended notes (I don't really know what to call them). They look the same as when you have to hold a note on the guitar. On drums, you have to continually hit whatever the color is. I have mixed feelings about this feature. On one hand I think its kind of cool, but on the other, you can basically just bang out any unorderly random pattern of hits and it still counts as if you played it beautifully. Also, if you don't hit it fast enough, it will cause you to lose points. I failed one song because I didn't hit the notes fast enough, and it seems like they count for a lot of points because you start failing fast if you miss a few in a row.

Another thing I don't know that I particularly like is the timing window. Let me first say that I've never had a problem with it in the past. GH3 and GH:A, I was fine with a fairly large timing window. I don't think you need to be quite as accurate on a guitar, but on drums, I felt quite a bit more disconnected. I guess I just feel like the beat is very important in a song, and being off by several tenths of a second seems very unrealistic. On the other hand though, I've seen many people fail on RB drums on easy, so maybe its a good thing. More people can enjoy the game this way, and that's the whole point.

GUITAR GAMEPLAY
---------------

Its mostly the same. The timing window feels about the same as in the previous GH games, and that's fine with me. The guy I was playing with was hitting just about everything because of it. On RB he often fails charts that are as crazy as they are in this game. This is totally a preference. I don't really care one way or another, but it was probably more fun this way in a band setting because people were doing better because of it.

When you see dark colored notes, you can use the touchpad. Along with the loose timing window, this is incredibly useful. There were strings of notes that I couldn't dream of playing on any other game that were much easier to hit because of this. Basically, when this situation comes up, the notechart will "string" together the notes, and you simply follow the pattern by sliding around on the pad. It has a surprisingly low learning curve. I thought it was a fun addition, but I'm a little unsure of whether it has an analog in real life, as I don't play guitar. I guess it doesn't really matter though, its a game and the point is to have fun.

Additionally when the dark notes come up, you can simply tap the normal fret buttons, like you would do in a Solo section on RB - except you can use the normal frets.

Also, they added note sustains. It reminds me a lot of DDR, where you would hold one note and continue to tap others while still holding that initial note. I personally picked up on it pretty quick, although my buddy had some problems. Again its another feature that may be completely unrealistic, but I thought it was a fun addition.

BASS GAMEPLAY
-------------

Not much has changed except they added open notes. When a bar (it looks exactly like the bass pedal line on drums) appears, you strum without holding any frets. It took me just a second to get the hang of it, but I thought it was another fun addition. I know its used in real life, so I hope the next RB game will also incorporate it.

WORLD TOUR PROGRESSION
----------------------

This somehow may be its greatest strength and weakness at the same time.

I really liked this mode in comparison to RB's world tour mode - in terms of playing it on the first day. There are basically a bunch of set lists of 3-5 songs posted on a "wall" that you can choose to play. Once you play the setlist, you unlock those songs. You can stop at any point in the setlist and it will still count the songs you beat. The thing I really liked was that you could quickly unlock all the songs without repetitively replaying the exact same things you already played. I played RB2 all this week and I still haven't earned all the songs, and I've played a lot of songs that I hate numerous times. On GHWT, we unlocked just about everything in about 8 hours. I have to say though that I haven't played the "challenges" mode on RB2 yet, so maybe that's a similar idea.

In the long run however, I can already see this mode getting old. Once you beat it, there isn't much of a reason to go back and play through it again. Also, there are no fans or anything, and there doesn't seem to be much emphasis on stars. In that way, RB has much more depth and longevity.

BAND GAMEPLAY
-------------

The band gameplay experience is obviously a combination of the above. I didn't get a chance to sing, but from what I heard from my over excited friend it was "really fun." Overall, I personally felt like it was a little worse than the experience that RB provides, but it was nice that they made the mechanics different.

One annoying difference is the layout, IMO. Almost every statistic for your band is in the upper left corner of the screen. Its a similar control panel to what you saw in GH3 and GH:A. The panel is split into a number of different sections depending on who is playing. Each section shows how well each member is doing. Its nice that its there, but its so tiny and out of the way that you have to take your eye of what you're doing in order to see how well you're doing.

Star power is a pooled resource in this game. Everyone contributes to it. If you played GH3 or GH:A, you'll recall that you filled up 5 separate "glass tube" things. This game is no different. What is different is how star power is used. Anyone can activate star power at any time (provided there is some available of course). Once they have activated it, they will use one "glass tube" full and it will then stop. As far as I could tell, it only benefits the player that activated it, no one else.

Failing is really strange in this game. On one hand, you can do pretty bad and still stay in the green. However, once you start failing, its easy to quickly make your whole band fail. If you start doing bad, your note highway will flash red, just as it does in RB, but if you continue to do just as bad for just a few seconds longer, you'll fail and cause your whole band to fail. You can't save other members, you just make everyone lose. The biggest problem is that at the end of many songs, you have to play the same freestyle notes that the original artists did, which can be pretty tricky, and if you don't do well enough you can cause your whole band to fail in the last final seconds, even if you did amazing for the rest of the song.

OVERALL
-------

Although I posted many negative comments, I still think its a fun game. All of flaws I found with the game are fairly easily overlooked. One thing I didn't mention above is that I like the song selection much better than RB2. That's a personal preference of course, but I never really felt bored playing it like I did with RB2.

Overall, I would choose RB2 over GHWT any day of the week, but I think its a fun game and worth $60 if you're a fan of the genre. I personally like the interface for RB much better, and at least for drums, I like the timing window to be smaller. Also I like the band mechanics of RB much better.

If you don't have RB already, its probably even worth picking up the whole bundle. While the drums I tried were slightly defective, I think once you have a working set they are going to work forever, and the layout seems more fun. I've also always been more of a fan of the GH guitars, and this one is no exception.

[lmsublimedragon]

i had hopes for GH to return themselves to what it was like when i first picked up GH2.

Of course, GH2 was made by Harmonix!:D

[chico76]

My impression of GH:WT, so far, has been relatively good... I'm not regretting my purchase at all.

I'll review it as a sort of in-order walk-through of start to finish...


Menus - these are definitely a place where Activision needs to do some work. Something like having 2 people signed onto the Xbox at the same time doubles the processing/waiting time (it goes through "saving" or "updating" for each player each time through). Once you choose your character, you are supposed to choose your difficulty, which then locks you in once you go to the gigs screen. You have to back out to change it, but then that means everyone has to go back through the process. Very time consuming & irritating when someone accidentally hits the Red button.

Gigs - Too linear. I like that you always have the option of doing up to 6 songs of your own choosing. It's weird that, when you select a gig with more than 3 songs, you can't scroll down to see the rest of the songs' information (or if you can, I'd be happy to find out how, cause we tried everything we could think of and never could).

Game-play - This is where there a HUGE hit & miss. Playing the music is great. The lenient timing windows makes the game much more accessible to people (and reduces the effects of lag, especially since having so many wireless instruments can create different lags). I especially like the leniency with the HO/PO notes on guitar/bass and the bass pedal on drums. They remembered we were playing a video game, not playing real instruments (something HMX could do well to even out a bit). Now, a big minus for us was how to deploy star power. We spent a long time, first, just figuring out who gets to do it. It seemed like I would deploy it with a full set of lights, and it would go away after I used up maybe 2 of them. It's also very hard to even see the meter way up in the corner. Eventually I got my peripheral vision trained, but it's not easy to interface with. After songs, it's nice that we all have to indicate being ready to move on. Gives a chance for a quick pause during a set with something to read (more stats! good job!).

The drums are awesome. It feels MUCH MORE like you're a real drummer than on the RB pads. The raised cymbals are the ticket here. It's still obviously not a real drum kit, but it does give you a better overall feel, which really gets you into the game. The bass pedal is superb, especially with the small travel distance. You can basically toe-tap it, which will certainly help with longevity of the pedal itself.

The guitar... is very awesome. I like the longer strum bar simply because it gives me some leeway with where I can set my arm (I always get tired of my elbow hurting from sitting in the same position too long). The slider bar... takes some getting used to. I only figured out late last night (after playing since midnight Saturday) that it works as a strummer, no matter where you tap it. I'm still working on getting decent at actually sliding where you can do that, but I'm already using it more than I ever used the RB Strat solo buttons. I like that you can simply HO/PO the sliding notes. Lots of options for guitarists, which helps you make the experience what you want it to be. And the open notes on bass, while tough to get used to, are a definite plus.

MUSIC ... this is where it's at. We made it more than 40 songs into the game before we hit one we really didn't like. Our first play through of RB2 yielded dozens of songs we couldn't stand to play (and thus avoided when we could). There are only 12-15 songs in RB2 that I go out of my way to play... there are only 8-10 songs in GHWT that I avoid... that says something about my preference, to be sure. But I think it also speaks to the song choices themselves. HMX is definitely into choosing stuff that is, in many ways, unproven, while Activision obviously sprung for the stuff that will yield an immediate payoff (ie. popular, popular, popular).

Overall, I'm glad I own both games. I definitely like GH:WT, but the really bad menu design is going to wear on me, I can tell already. But, good menus alone don't make a game, so HMX needs to do something about their song selection if they want to keep up. If GH5 were to get the menus right (I think we can all assume annual installments at this point), then RB3 is really going to have it's work cut out...

[3star_hero]

I'm thinking about picking it up today but there are two deal breakers for me:

1. Does the fretboard shake when you miss a note?
2. Does it play that crap squonk sound if you miss a note?

Could some kind person please answer this for me? Thanks!

[lynx44]

I'm thinking about picking it up today but there are two deal breakers for me:

1. Does the fretboard shake when you miss a note?
2. Does it play that crap squonk sound if you miss a note?

Could some kind person please answer this for me? Thanks!

1.) No, I'm pretty sure it doesn't. Did it in the other games? If so I didn't notice it.

2.) Yeah, I think it uses the same noises they had in the previous games. In the band setting though, it seemed like it was quieter. I'm not sure if its louder when you play solo guitar though.

[Runa216]

I'm thinking about picking it up today but there are two deal breakers for me:

1. Does the fretboard shake when you miss a note?
2. Does it play that crap squonk sound if you miss a note?

Could some kind person please answer this for me? Thanks!

Yes and Yes...it's not as bad as GH3 though.

[3star_hero]

Yes and Yes...it's not as bad as GH3 though.

Awe. :( I tried playing GH3 the other day to get back into the GH mood and couldn't do it. The shaking of the fretboard bothers me immensely and the squonking sounds gets old after a while. When I play cliffs of dover, you hear more squonk than actual notes. :D

Thanks for answering my questions, guys.

[Sunwentai]

Tried GHWT. Personal impressions, and I only play guitar:

I love the guitar peripheral much more than the RB Strat, although I haven't been able to try the RB2 Strat yet.
I used to be playing with the Les Paul, but the new one is just as great when it comes to actual "feel".

Drums look great, but the red pad seemed to not pick up some hits, judging by what my friend said. Might be him adjusting, or the pad itself. We'll look into that.

Singing is so much more difficult for our local singer. He gets scores of like 85% most of the time, whereas in RB1 and 2 he would consistently get 98-100%. Weird.

Guitar gameplay is in-cre-di-ble. I'm used to playing on hard and down-up strumming actually works! Also, it's much more permissive, not so strict as RB, so I can get in some notes a little late and it doesn't matter. And basically, that's fun, and having fun is what's most important. Also, the difficulty for Hard songs was much-much-much less than that of previous GH games. The sliding is awesome, but getting used to the touchpad is really awkward. I also don't know when I can use the touchpad and when not!

As for the World Tour aspect, it's still pretty fun. Although the gigs are all pretty much the same, with set songs and 1 unknown Encore at the end, they're fun to play, but I'm sure they'll quickly become more of the same, missing some of the fun unusual gigs found in RB2.

The band Star Power is really nice, since someone who needs more Star Power because the song is harder for him/her will be able to use more to stay alive. But boy does Star Power not last long! Also, on the GHWT screen, I can never figure out what my score multiplier is, as I can't see it, supposedly it's next to the highway, but it's very small.

I was also incredibly disappointed that I couldn't choose a Firebird-like body for my in-game guitar. Really, that's what I was most expecting!

All in all, I thought GHWT would win out against RB2, since RB2 was pretty much more of the same, while GHWT would have had the time to come up with something similar, but with more options, but frankly, although it's a very fun game, I think it's missing a lot of options from RB2 (like saving other band members, for example) and isn't up to what I would have expected from a company that has had so much time to develop a competitive product based on two previous releases from the competitor. So is GHWT good? It is. Is it superior to RB2 (or RB1, for that matter)? No, it isn't, although it isn't necessarily inferior to it either.

[kiggidykev]

I bought the Guitar bundle for the 360 yesterday. Had to oil the strum bar so it would stop squeaking so damn loud. And now they damn thing isn't able to keep up on the fast notes.

In the middle of Everlong, I was missing so many notes that I turned off the GHWT guitar and switched for my trusty Strat. Didn't miss nearly as many notes after that, so I don't believe it was the calibration at all. I think the strum bar is faulty on it, or maybe the touch-bar thing is trying to hit notes when I'm not touching it.

In any event, the GHWT guitar that I got is getting to be unreliable. I may have to check into RMA'ing it, and I've never had to do that with a guitar instrument before.

[Jules_Winnfield]

For people who are not buying GH:WT, at least rent it. I guarantee you after playing this, your level of fun on RB2 will increase. It will just make you appreciate the greatness that is RB2 even more.

[Dartagnan64]

I can't believe all the people saying that the relaxed timing windows = fun.
Are these the same people that were saying RB charts were "too easy"?

Personally, I like that HMX penalizes sloppy play. That way, a FC is more real in RB IMO. There are so many button mashing overstrummers from GH3, they need to be forced to play a little tighter.

I've only played a little of GHWT at BEst Buy (they didn't get their shipment of 360 guitar/game stock), but I must say it was the same old thing as GH3. Bad charts, overly generous windows, cartoony graphics. While I still plan on getting the game, I think I will still commit more resources and time to RB2.

[kiggidykev]

I've filed for an RMA with my guitar, so we'll see how that goes.

[Aragha]

Must... Post... In... STICKY!

[nashphx13z]

Must... Post... In... STICKY!

Yeah, that's pretty much my thought process, too. Agh! I can't get out! It's... Too... STICKY!

[Aragha]

Yeah, that's pretty much my thought process, too. Agh! I can't get out! It's... Too... STICKY!

That's what she said :cool:

[nashphx13z]

That's what she said :cool:

lol More like what he said xD

[Aragha]

lol More like what he said xD

That's what he said? :confused:

HEY YOU EDITED!!!

[nicko68]

Ok, I played some more today.

First off, I had been having issues with the yellow cymbal. I noticed that it wasn't quite plugged in all the way, after pushing the jack in firmly, it's working great.

The only problem I'm having with the drums is I can't seem to consistently do a RY combo. The R doesn't always register. It does most of the time, but not always, so it causes me to break combo. I don't know if it's my technique or what, because when I play in freestyle (which is fun btw) I seem to be able to do it much more often.

The guitar is awesome. It will always be my favourite instrument to play. I don't know if I'm going to really use the touch strip though. But I like the new strumbar, and the guitar is bigger, so I'm still glad I got it. And I like the sunburst design.

And Activision started out strong with the DLC., I have already downloaded a couple of free tracks which are pretty good, and "Rock and Roll Band (Boston)", "No Rain (Blind Melon)", "Jessie's Girl (Rick Springfield)" and "Hot Blooded (Foreigner)" Not bad for the day after launch. There are also 3 Metallica tracks, but I'm not really a fan, and I've never heard of the ones they are offering. But as a Wii owner, DLC is very exciting.

[nashphx13z]

That's what he said? :confused:

HEY YOU EDITED!!!

Yes, I edited quickly because I thought of something better to say. I was like a ninja. Anyways, it's what he said because it was sticky and HE couldn't get out. Man parts vs. woman parts. Get it?

/conversation

[Aragha]

Yes, I edited quickly because I thought of something better to say. I was like a ninja. Anyways, it's what he said because it was sticky and HE couldn't get out. Man parts vs. woman parts. Get it?

/conversation

But I had my "That's what he said? :confused:" thing before I noticed your edit.

[TkDiamonD]

edit: wow i just finished playing both everlong and crazy train, christ, were they trying to make cross compatibility of drums a failure on purpose?

[nashphx13z]

But I had my "That's what he said? :confused:" thing before I noticed your edit.

Really? I was finished with my edit before you posted that. :confused: Maybe I edited it while you were typing. That's probably it. I thought you were asking me what I meant by that. Yeah, that's gotta be it.

[teddybgame]

Pros:
-Setlist. I love it. I know this is opinion, but it's incredible. I haven't run into many songs that I don't want to play again. Tool, Eagles, Ozzy, Nugent, Van Halen, Jimi, Doors, Etc...
-Stars in the song selection screen. This is huge for me personally because after the initial play through I spend tons of hours going back trying to improve my star rating. It may seem small to some, but not to me.
-Open notes on bass. Makes bass so much more enjoyable
-Looser timing for HOPO's. I'm not very good at guitar so this makes it a lot more fun for me.
-Downloading peoples creations. There aren't many good ones right now, but there is no doubt there will be when talented people spend time with the music creator. Plus it's free
-Character creator. Many options. Just about anything you can think of is adjustable.

Cons:
-Graphics and animations. Not very pretty to look at, but it isn't as important in a music game when the only thing I'm really seeing is circles or rectangles while I'm playing anyway.
-Purple lines. Seriously who's idea was this. It needs to be a different color that's easier to see.
-I wish I gained fans in WT. Plus any songs you've unlocked solo should already be unlocked in WT.
-Interface needs improvement. It's not easy to see your star power guage or multiplier without taking your eyes off your chart.
-Deploying OD on drums. Personal preference, but I prefer RB's way much better. Plus it gives me breaks to ease the pain in my right forearm on songs like Rebel Yell.

[schmeankman]

I bought the game yesterday. Fun messing with the song creator. Good soundtrack. No complaints really, but I still vastly prefer RB.

[Aragha]

Really? I was finished with my edit before you posted that. :confused: Maybe I edited it while you were typing. That's probably it. I thought you were asking me what I meant by that. Yeah, that's gotta be it.

Nah, I read it and then pressed quote. It just takes what it's supposed to show.

[nashphx13z]

Nah, I read it and then pressed quote. It just takes what it's supposed to show.

Oh, okay. BTW, what system are you on?

[MF-PO'd]

I can't believe all the people saying that the relaxed timing windows = fun.
Are these the same people that were saying RB charts were "too easy"?

I can't speak for others, but my guess is no. Personally, I always found RB's easier charts more enjoyable because I could handle more songs on the hard difficulty. With GH3, I had to drop down to medium for a lot more songs. With relaxed timing, it helps someone like me because I'll enjoy a song more if I can play it on the hard difficulty.

I'd have to say that the people who complained about RB's charts being too easy will probably be complaining about GHWT now being too easy. They've made it more accessible to non-experts compared to GH3.

[dt_torres]

I think ghwt is trying to win on the wii because rb2 is better at 360 and ps3, but now that hmx announced dlc for wii their plan must have been screwed, thats why they didnt make rb instruments compatible for wii, so u have to buy the hole thing

[MF-PO'd]

There are also 3 Metallica tracks, but I'm not really a fan, and I've never heard of the ones they are offering.

Which 3 Metallica tracks are you referring to here? The Death Magnetic songs? (There are 11 of those.)

[IBNTTT]

So far this is what I think...

I've had or currently own all games in the GH and RB series except the Aerosmith GH, so I am not a FAN BOY. I love the music game genre and will buy it if I like the music. I have only invested about 6 hours in GHWT so far and have the RB instruments, so I can not tell anyone about the GHWT drums, new guitar or music creator, which I hear you can not add a vocal track to so I DO NOT CARE. Please correct me if I'm wrong about this.

GHWT seems very kiddy to me for lack of a better term as far as the menus, sound affects and whole look and feel of the game go. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that RB2 seems to appeal more to the 25 to 40 crowd. Where as GHWT appeals more to the 10 to 24 year olds based on the track lists and setup of the 2 games which is most likely why GHWT sells better, that and the original fan base from GH1 and 2 (thanks to hmx).

I am OLD!, 38.

I have only played bass on expert and expert on vocals in GHWT. I like RBs style with the square notes more and it seems like you can see more while playing. The scrolling on the vocals is the opposite you can see the lyrics sooner in GHWT (maybe a smaller font?) but its more difficult to do well because the mic is too sensitive. My friend was playing drums and I had to stand a good 10 feet away from the drums or it would throw off the pitch while I sang. It also grades your vocals on the whole song not just a phrase (so that aspect may be a better design although more difficult) The GHWT game gave me a tip to hold the mic away from my face when I wasn't singing because it picks up breathing which makes it kinda tough since I generally have to breath at least every once in awhile (or it would throw of the syncing to the next phrase if it was the same pitch).

I have to admit I don't care so much for playing career mode, I just used the cheat code to unlock all the songs and played the new ones that RB doesn't have in quick play and about a dozen online, so I won't comment on career mode. I think these are great party games and I generally like to play them in groups or online.

Here are the songs that BOTH games have available in the main set list or as DLC and I have downloaded a ton in RB. So 16 songs are gone right off the top.

"American Woman", "B.Y.O.B.","Dammit", "Everlong", "Eye of the Tiger", "Feel the Pain", "Float On", "Go Your Own Way", "Lazy Eye", "Livin' on a Prayer", "Love Spreads", "The Middle", "Mountain Song", "One Way or Another", "Ramblin' Man", "Today"

The selling point IMO for GHWT were the songs below since I prefer vocals, I have done the button smashing thing and guitar and bass are growing old, I'll probably do the drums when I get bored with singing.

"About a Girl" (Unplugged), "Are You Gonna Go My Way", "Crazy Train", "Hollywood Nights", "Hot for Teacher", "Hotel California", "The Joker", "Love Me Two Times", "Mr. Crowley", "Obstacle 1", "The One I Love", "Purple Haze" (Live), "Rebel Yell", "Santeria", "Shiver", "What I've Done", "The Wind Cries Mary"

I guess thats worth $60, their are a few others I enjoy that I did not list, but above is what sold me.

DLC for GHWT (that I like so far) - "Hot Blooded", "No Rain", "1979"

As for RB2, I prefer the design of the game and Online play is much smoother (again only 6 hours in GHWT so far), I had an easier time communicating with the other players in RB2 and generally it wasn't so much about how well we did as a whole and what our score was but its about having fun playing the game.

Its much more difficult to save the weak link in GHWT which seems to be a pretty big problem online. Their is nothing like playing a 6 minute song with 4 people and failing because of 1 person. It easier to hold that player up in RB2. So if you are new to these games the online experience will probably work out better for you in RB.

The selling point IMO for RB2 - "Alive""Aqualung""Battery" "Carry On Wayward Son""Chop Suey!""Drain You" "Give It Away""Hungry Like the Wolf""Man in the Box""My Own Worst Enemy" "One Step Closer" "PDA""Pinball Wizard""Psycho Killer" "Rock'n Me""Round and Round" "Shooting Star""Spirit in the Sky" "Spoonman""Tangled Up in Blue""White Wedding (Part 1)""You Oughta Know"

DLC for RB2 (that I like so far) - "3's & 7's""Little Sister""Sick, Sick, Sick""Synchronicity II""Roxanne""My Iron Lung""Move Along""Gimme Three Steps""Hard to Handle""Limelight""Interstate Love Song""Last Train to Clarksville""Wonderwall""Working Man""Sex Type Thing""Casey Jones""Truckin'""More Than a Feeling""Simple Man""Message in a Bottle""Call Me""Hysteria""Just What I Needed""My Best Friend's Girl""Margaritaville"c"Snow ((Hey Oh))""Tell Me Baby""Closer to the Heart""Behind Blue Eyes""Baba O'Riley""Toxicity""Rio""Girls on Film""Tom Sawyer" (Original Version)"Red Barchetta""She Sells Sanctuary""Breaking the Girl""Suck My Kiss""I Could Have Lied""Under the Bridge""All Right Now""Nearly Lost You""Dr. Feelgood""Kickstart My Heart""Without You""Don't Go Away Mad (Just Go Away)""Breed""Lounge Act""On a Plain""Polly""Something in the Way""Stay Away""Territorial Pissings"

Lots of GREAT DLC, even more I did not list. I was however very disappointed in the "FREE 20 songs"

As a whole I have to say RB WINS! very easily so far.......

Please keep up with the great DLC, I think thats the major selling point. Anyone out their, have both drum kits and can write an honest review about that or the music creator?

[benson111]

I had fun. That is all. ;)

[nicko68]

I'd have to say that the people who complained about RB's charts being too easy will probably be complaining about GHWT now being too easy. They've made it more accessible to non-experts compared to GH3.

Ha, yup that's happening on sites like Scorehero, where the best players hang out and compete for high scores. Personally I thought GHIII was ok until the last tier, which was ridiculous. I can't finish that game on hard.

[nicko68]

Which 3 Metallica tracks are you referring to here? The Death Magnetic songs? (There are 11 of those.)

Sorry, I don't know a lot about Metallica, but yes, it's 3 tracks from The Death Magnetic. Looking at the track listing of that CD and going from memory, I think they were "Broken, Beat & Scared", "Cyanide" and "My Apocalypse".

[MF-PO'd]

Sorry, I don't know a lot about Metallica, but yes, it's 3 tracks from The Death Magnetic. Looking at the track listing of that CD and going from memory, I think they were "Broken, Beat & Scared", "Cyanide" and "My Apocalypse".

Ok. Yeah, those are available for download, and they are great. :D

You do have buy all 11 though. They don't sell them individually.

[nicko68]

Ok. Yeah, those are available for download, and they are great. :D

You do have buy all 11 though. They don't sell them individually.

I didn't try to buy them, but in the Wii music store they look like separate tracks, each is 200 points ($2). I know HMX won't be able to do bundles with RB2 because they'd want to be able to sell songs both individually and in bundles, and Nintendo won't let them do that. I guess Activision is breaking them up on the Wii as well.

[ImBillPardy]

My closing thoughts on Guitar Hero: World Tour...

Guitar Hero is like that hot crush you've had since back in the day. On the PS2 shared a few good times and maybe gotten a kiss or something. By the time Guitar Hero III comes out, she becomes a total whore and blows your best friend (let's not even bother with GH: Aerosmith). Guitar Hero: World Tour looks like things maybe okay and can be good friends again, but instead get STD's on 1st base and you wonder why you didn't heed the warnings.

[leroystanks]

VERY disappointed that Neversoft didn't use the album version of L'Via L'Viaquez. More than half the song is missing in the radio edit, not to mention the rest of the guitar solo and a really cool drum solo, too

[ESCOBEN]

My closing thoughts on Guitar Hero: World Tour...

Guitar Hero is like that hot crush you've had since back in the day. On the PS2 shared a few good times and maybe gotten a kiss or something. By the time Guitar Hero III comes out, she becomes a total whore and blows your best friend (let's not even bother with GH: Aerosmith). Guitar Hero: World Tour looks like things maybe okay and can be good friends again, but instead get STD's on 1st base and you wonder why you didn't heed the warnings.


LMGDFAO priceless

[rancej]

My closing thoughts on Guitar Hero: World Tour...

Guitar Hero is like that hot crush you've had since back in the day. On the PS2 shared a few good times and maybe gotten a kiss or something. By the time Guitar Hero III comes out, she becomes a total whore and blows your best friend (let's not even bother with GH: Aerosmith). Guitar Hero: World Tour looks like things maybe okay and can be good friends again, but instead get STD's on 1st base and you wonder why you didn't heed the warnings.
Great one...lmao

[MF-PO'd]

I didn't try to buy them, but in the Wii music store they look like separate tracks, each is 200 points ($2). I know HMX won't be able to do bundles with RB2 because they'd want to be able to sell songs both individually and in bundles, and Nintendo won't let them do that. I guess Activision is breaking them up on the Wii as well.

Oh, interesting. I guess it's different on Wii. That's good you guys have an option. On PS3/360, you have to buy the whole album (11 tracks/$17.99).

[the_evil_monk]

Got RB2 last week, still trying to unlock all the songs (which honestly feels more like a chore by having to endlessly replay awful songs - but I WILL PREVAIL!!) Love the RB2...but honestly, it feels to RB1 like GH3 felt to GH2...it's like they added a few new cool features, but otherwise just jacked up some stuff that used to really work. That, and it definitely feels to me that it's just $60 (I just bought the game, not the instruments) for a sh!tload of new songs...which I am totally cool with. Definitely not as much fun as I was hoping for.

Got GHWT yesterday, couldn't put it down. I bought the instrument pack...the guitar is wicked good - best GH guitar since my GH2 wireless (although my original "fixed" RB1 strat is still my fav by far!)...drums feel much more solid than my RB drums, the pedal is less realistic in it's movement, but much easier on my shins (totally sucks that my Omega pedal won't work with this kit...yet)...played about 2hrs on drums, 2hrs on guitar...really enjoyed all the songs...they were all familiar (I had also downloaded the Death Magnetic album in advance). I didn't get the same feel I had from RB2 where a song would come up and I would go, "who is this again??". Don't get me wrong, there are some awesome songs in RB2...but overall, I have to say I like the setlist in GHWT better so far.

Bottom line is...lets quit hating like the red states and blue states...isn't there enough room in your life for TWO rythm games??? I got them both...I love them both...and I will enjoy both of em!

[v0lum3]

Got RB2 last week, still trying to unlock all the songs (which honestly feels more like a chore by having to endlessly replay awful songs - but I WILL PREVAIL!!)

... dude you're on this forum and you haven't found out that there are challenges which unlock all the songs in order by difficulty??? Really???

Dude, go do an instrument challenge and just keep going, you'll have all the songs unlocked in a few hours.

[the_evil_monk]

... dude you're on this forum and you haven't found out that there are challenges which unlock all the songs in order by difficulty??? Really???

Dude, go do an instrument challenge and just keep going, you'll have all the songs unlocked in a few hours.

Oh...I saw it...on Monday morning...but by then I was far enough along in unlocking songs that I would have had to play through some of the craptastic ones again to get to the final tiers...didn't seem worth it to me since I was far enough along. Like I said...I'm making room for both games...

[kiggidykev]

Got a polite email from Activision apologizing for the faulty guitar I bought. Apparently I can bring it back to the store for a return, so that's on my agenda for tomorrow :)

On the Scorehero forums, it looks like a LOOOT of people are having problems with these guitars. Makes me glad to know it wasn't just a freak occurrence for me.

[Jay7705]

I liked the fact that GHWT got songs from Jimi, The Eagles, Tool and of course Van Halen amongst others and I like character creator/instrument creator, but I hate the fact that the extra songs you have to pay for are quite boring and I don't want to attempt to sing in Spanish!!!! If RB can pull some of these artists, and get some Black Sabbath that isn't a cover version, I'm going to stay playing RB! I'm pretty much over the new GHWT game though.

[v0lum3]

On the Scorehero forums, it looks like a LOOOT of people are having problems with these guitars. Makes me glad to know it wasn't just a freak occurrence for me.

... why would that make you glad? That means that instead of just having one of a few faulty guitars, you've got one of thousands, and your odds are increased that you may just get another faulty one...

lol, good luck.

[Slacker]

My take is pretty simple: I like GHWT, but I have much more fun playing RB2. I play on hard drums, and mostly expert Guitar/Bass.

Likes:

- The open note on bass is really fun, and adds a fun challenge to playing bass, to the point that it has made RB bass a little be less fun since I've played it.

- Less metal-dominate then GH3, which for me was a good thing.

- Band vs Band on LIVE is cool.

- Like the detailed end-of-song stats, and the score bars that show best score across each instrument + band mode.

Dislikes:

- Its odd that the character creator is so detailed and intricate, yet the art style of the characters is so Tony Hawk Skateboarding ugly. I would love the detail of the customization set to the visual look of the RB characters.

- HATE the star power activation in drums. It actually makes me anxious to thing about breaking a long 1/16th note streak to hit the two pads needed to activate star power.

- Really don't like the add-on sustains -- feels inauthentic (though I'm no musician).

- Don't really like the career system. BWT is not perfect, but I definitely find myself more vested in it than how GHWT works. Hate having to spend (in-game) money to unlock venues/events needed to complete the career.

Overall, to me GHWT feels like a video game, Rock Band 2 feels like a music experience.

[liskedr]

Well my GHWT is going to be a trade in tomorrow for something else. This has been a horrible experience for me and I wish I listened to everyone before buying this game. First off, straight out of the box the guitar down strum did not work and my friends guitar had the same problem (will have to RMA). Second, when I tried to play online with my friends we couldn't get through a single song without someones connection dropping out. These are the same people I play RB2 with all the time and never had that problem until GHWT. So today I figure I'll give it another shot and try to stay calm, and the damn thing lost my save file. I was about 80% complete last night and when I started today, only 43% complete. It still showed my rank correct, but everything I unlocked went away. Yes, I have autosave on and was using the same character and everything. Now that all this has happened I have such a bad taste in my mouth for this game. I can't say much for any of the other features of the game, because nothing really stuck out to me. The charts on some songs were decent, but I kept thinking that I just wanted to play RB2 instead. My main reason for buying GHWT was to play online and play the songs that RB2 doesn't have. I was really pumped up for Hendrix, but then I played the songs and they really weren't that great. It just didn't feel like I thought it would, like I was rockin'. This game is a big fail in my book and a testament to the fact that we may not know just how good we have it with the RB franchise.

[nicko68]

Bottom line is...lets quit hating like the red states and blue states...isn't there enough room in your life for TWO rythm games??? I got them both...I love them both...and I will enjoy both of em!

Amen, man, I feel the same way. I can't wait for RB2 to come out in Dec (for Wii) and in the meantime I'm having a blast with GHWT.

[mlothar16]

I rented GHWT and am personally very happy I did not buy it

Now I owned both RB and GH3 but RB with dlc and suck quickly became the main thing, having long since traded in GH3 I knew that the new one would not replace RB2 as my game of choice I was still hoping for a solid game.
I was wrong for the most part

While I love the setlist, the presentation remains poor with an awful interface, looking away from the song to see star power or how well your doing, etc is annoying as all get out. Generally I have not enjoyed the charts at all. This game is in now way terrible, but compared to the polished product that RB2 is, there is no true comparison

[TheSonicGamer]

Guitar Hero World Tour Review

GHWT (Guitar Hero World Tour) has a habit of reminding me of certain qualities that Rock Band has; qualities I never really paid much attention to but I now appreciate. Rock Band has set the mark for band music games, and it's only fair to compare any other game that tries to emulate that experience with Harmonix's accomplishment. GHWT tries to set itself as an alternative to Rock Band, a better alternative, and in order to prove that, it must compare equally or better to Rock Band 2. What's the final verdict?

Not only does GHWT not compare to Rock Band 2, it has many flaws that make it inferior to even the FIRST Rock Band that was released a year ago.

Let's take a look at the first Rock Band game. The meat of Rock Band was the Band World Tour, a mode that allowed you to create your own characters, bands, and tour the world gaining fans and money. It proved to be a successful mode that integrated any downloadable songs you have while setting it apart from previous music titles where you simply went through a list of songs. For GHWT to justify itself, it would need to emulate this type of band mode, with, of course, major differences to set itself apart from their competition.

However, GHWT does not even attempt to. It's career mode, for both single and band modes, is way too simple to really compete with Rock Band's Band World Tour. You pick a set list and play through the 2 or 3 songs, with an unknown encore at the end. Completing the set will unlock more groups of set lists. While this is definitely an improvement over Guitar Hero 3's career mode, the fact of the matter is, it pales in comparison to Rock Band's Tour mode, which is deeper, more interesting, and more personal.

So, it fails to compare when it comes to its career mode. What about the actual game play? Guitar Hero has always been known for dishing out some of the hardest and insane guitar note tracking, and it's found here in full force. But this game is trying to emphasize 4 player band game play, so how does it fare?

Remember when I said in the beginning of this review about how GHWT reminds me of things I never really did learn to appreciate in Rock Band until now? It's made most apparent during gameplay. Things such as information that is displayed during game play. In Rock Band, there is a meter in the side that tracks each players position and how well they are doing. It's large enough to be visible to everyone and small enough that it doesn't take too much screen space, which is already pretty low with 4 sections of notes scrolling away. Each section has their own multiplier and Overdrive meter. When someone is doing bad, their section begins to flash red. Everyone knows who is doing badly as can form a strategy on the fly to save them. If someone does so badly that they fail out, someone can activate their own Overdrive to bring them back into the song. All of this makes for a music game where cooperation and communication, verbal and nonverbal, make it a very deep experience.

GHWT has none of this, losing the very band experience it tries so hard to give to you. The screen displays a rock meter that lets you know if you're doing good or bad, but it does not specify everyone's position on the meter. When I played a song with 2 other players for the first time, we failed the song. We had NO idea who's fault it was, and we immediately assumed it may have been the vocals or drums, and had to play the song a second time to realize it was that the drums were not properly calibrated.

Something like that would NOT happen in Rock Band. There is also no way to save someone should someone fail out; in fact, if someone fails out, the entire band loses, making it even more frustrating. The interface is confusing and non-informative, and really made me realize how simple and clean-cut Rock Band's interface is.

As for graphics, it's not surprising that GHWT continues Guitar Hero 3's overly metal attitude of rock, with a force feeling of "rocking out" plastered all over the game, even the loading screens. I'm sorry, but I'd prefer reading little bits of helpful game play tips, trivia about the band whose song you're about, and amusing scenes of your band (yes, your customized characters and band name) over seeing little figures "rocking out". Rock Band just has a more mature feel to it. It's camera angles of your band performing during game play were realistic and believable, whereas in GHWT, the camera angles really make it feel like a video game and not an actual band performing. The way the characters perform in GHWT is also really out there. I'd like to see a person accurately and perfectly play a guitar while jumping and spinning around. I'm sure it's possible, but not very realistic.

The song selection is good, with more then 80 songs to choose from. However, while GHWT's developers spent a good amount of money to get all of these master tracks, Rock Band still trumps it with one aspect; downloadable content. With a year's head start, Rock Band's music store currently has more then 250 songs to choose from, all playable with both Rock Band and Rock Band 2. Also, for a small fee, you can rip 55 songs from the first Rock Band for use with Rock Band 2, making it feasible for a person to have more then 130 songs once you unlock all of Rock Band 2's songs, not including any songs you may have downloaded.

GHWT has A LOT to catch up with on the downloadable side of things, and makes an attempt to correct this with its Music Creator mode. However, there are a number of flaws that stop the true potential of this mode. The quality of the sounds made In the music creator mode is barely above midi, and there is no way to create vocals for your created song (and as the singer of a virtual band, that's a big letdown for me.) The creator is also largely unintuitive and complicated, meaning that only a select few who really take the time to create songs on this will really take full advantage of the creator, but for average people like me who don't usually have the time, patience, or creativity to make songs using this, it'd only be marginally worse if the mode wasn't there at all.

Perhaps the only place where GHWT really triumphs is not anything within the game, but its hardware. A short history lesson, if you will. Guitar Hero and its sequel were created by the team of Red Octane and Harmonix. Red Octane was known for its music peripherals and designed the guitar controller we all know and love, while Harmonix was the creative side of the team, creating the game play elements. After they split, Red Octane went to Activision to continue creating Guitar Hero games, while Harmonix went to EA to create Rock Band. It's obvious which side was good with what. While Harmonix has mastered how to make extremely enjoyable music games, their hardware is severely lacking, with many people preferring the Guitar Hero guitars. The same can be said for the drums of GHWT, which are expertly built, quiet, and very functional. The guitar also features a touchpad that can be used to nail harder solos, a nice addition to an controller that many people, myself included, wondered if it could be evolved even further.

Overall, though, the game does not justify its price point or its place as an alternative to Rock Band, much less Rock Band 2. It's presentation, song selection, and interface are all inferior to what Harmonix started a year ago. Even fantastic instruments cant save this game from being compared to the superior franchise, and in the end, is simply better viewed as what it should be. A great guitar game, but not a great band game.

[DethBoxx]

I'm surprised to see people say they have trouble seeing the purple bar. I think if you have this problem you may need to adjust your brightness and contrast settings for your screen. I've had no such problems with that.

[bmaninc]

I actually really like Guitar Hero. Haven't played the game yet, but I always wished the GH3's setlist were the one for the Rock Band disc.

[rancej]

After spending 1/4 of my day playing GHWT, I have to agree with TheSonicGamer. His review is spot-on. Love the hardware, not really impressed with the game. Decent song list though. My son and his friends came over to play it. I left them alone for about an hour (hey, they're 16). When I went to get their opinion, they were putting RB2 back in the 360. They pretty much said the same....love the guitar, drums are alright, think the game is crappy (their words, not mine). I think I'm going to take it back to Best Buy tomorrow for a refund.

[JMaqIsYourHero]

I bought it mostly for the music creator (search for Valhalla, and help me in my quest to pimp out my awful (but catchy) song!), and am mostly not let down. It's almost more work than it's worth for the quality that you get, but I've had so many songs floating around in my head for such a long time that actually playing one in a GH/RB-level game is a dream come true.

Haven't touched any other part of the game yet.

[shapeshifta]

Having 2 days with it under my belt (wii version), playing at my friend's house, I'm somewhat disappointed with the entire package.

Drums: Fun to play, but bad hardware. It just doesn't work right. If it's not one thing, it's another. Mind you, this is with two different packages. The first was returned since the pedal didn't work. This one has cymbal problems.

Guitar/Bass: The only thing that works fine.

Vocals: Again, vocals are fine. Just the god awful choice of font for the lyrics makes it impossible for me to read. Blurry and squished together is not a good mix.

Overall graphics (standard def): Is it me or does everything seems so narrow? Mostly a problem for me when playing guitar/bass.

Overall the game could have been more fun, but I ended up more frustrated with these little problems that add up and take away from the whole experience. GH:WT has a bit of a quality issue and hopefully further down the line, it gets fixed/patched so that I can actually enjoy it like I enjoy RB.

[Demonthault]

My eyes hurt after playing it. Colours are too harsh and the animation is still creppy puppetry. Lacks the overall pleasantness and lifeyness of even rb1.

The character creation is both good and bad. Made myself a misfits lookin' dude after trying a bunch of stuff out so that was good, but I don't feel any attachment to the character like I do my rb guys. I did appreciate that I could make a large and slightly hefty dude to better match me, much closer then the strapping triangular rb version. The gf loves it though, 'cause she was able to make an accurate version of herself.

I love the fact that ghwt switches between male and female. It's the only real win over rb for me.

One question though, I haven't gotten to far into it but it seems to be missing the four staple bandmates in the previous gh's, and a few other characters. Where the frighteningly gape-mawed singer, or the sexty dread-headed temptress? No beefy drummer and thing-like bassist? I'm hoping they get unlocked, 'cause I rather miss them so.

Also, I now hate Billy Corgan even more then before, while still loving his music.

[Jaeger]

I haven't played World Tour, so this is just an impression.

I like what they did with the bass sections (over charting or under charting aside.) The idea of just strumming with out holding frets down is a plus, since in a couple of the songs in RB2 you can see the bass player not holding down any frets. It makes it feel like its own instrument instead of another guitar you can play (and yes I'm aware of the irony.) Although a different color other than purple needs to be used, it makes it hard to see sometimes in the videos I've seen for it.

The drums seem like a move in the right direction, but it seems like they dropped the ball on it. I much rather have attachments that you can ignore than actual cymbals that need to be hit. It makes for better game play. And once again, the kick pedal being purple seems like a bad idea for the same reason above.

The characters in the World Tour seem more lively compared to Rock Band's characters, but then again they look like something out of a bad cartoon so I guess you have to consider what is the lesser of two evils.

As far as the set list goes, yes World Tour has good bands, but it seems like they throw more good bands than good songs in. I like Tool, really I do, but I would rather have Schism in Rock Band and the other songs as downloads than have more of their songs in the game at the word go. I know it sounds weird but if you think about it it makes sense.

All together World Tour has some things going for it, but it drops the ball it seems in a few key areas. In the end Rock Band will be my music game of choice. But if Harmonix can look into a few of the features (particularly the bass bit) in World Tour and consider them it might improve it.

[ImBillPardy]

I haven't played World Tour, so this is just an impression.

I like what they did with the bass sections (over charting or under charting aside.) The idea of just strumming with out holding frets down is a plus, since in a couple of the songs in RB2 you can see the bass player not holding down any frets. It makes it feel like its own instrument instead of another guitar you can play (and yes I'm aware of the irony.) Although a different color other than purple needs to be used, it makes it hard to see sometimes in the videos I've seen for it.

The drums seem like a move in the right direction, but it seems like they dropped the ball on it. I much rather have attachments that you can ignore than actual cymbals that need to be hit. It makes for better game play. And once again, the kick pedal being purple seems like a bad idea for the same reason above.

The characters in the World Tour seem more lively compared to Rock Band's characters, but then again they look like something out of a bad cartoon so I guess you have to consider what is the lesser of two evils.

As far as the set list goes, yes World Tour has good bands, but it seems like they throw more good bands than good songs in. I like Tool, really I do, but I would rather have Schism in Rock Band and the other songs as downloads than have more of their songs in the game at the word go. I know it sounds weird but if you think about it it makes sense.

All together World Tour has some things going for it, but it drops the ball it seems in a few key areas. In the end Rock Band will be my music game of choice. But if Harmonix can look into a few of the features (particularly the bass bit) in World Tour and consider them it might improve it.
Rent it. Seriously, for one the animation (which runs on Havok engine mind you) is ass, because it's small upgrade from GH3 and...Well, what hasn't been said about this game? Rent it or try it at a friend's or demo or whatever, but trust me...Knowing is Half the Battle.

[mchodge13]

Haven't played GHWT yet and am still debating whether or not I should buy it.

I've read many of the reviews on this thread and am still torn. There are some posts leading me to believe the game is complete garbage and its the worst thing ever. I'm sure these are exaggerated greatly as I know there are a bunch of Activision haters on this thread. And Im sure the game isn't as good as some of the GH fans might make it out to be. Its probably somewhere in the middle.

I don't expect it to be as good of a game overall as Rockband. So the only thing making me lean towards actually buying it is the setlist. As long as the game isnt complete trash it will be nice to have another disc of songs to play even though there are some that overlap. There are gonna be some big bands that choose GH over RB and vice versa. I can't pass up a game that has Hendrix, The Doors, and Ozzy Osbourne.

EDIT:So I just looked at the DLC being released this week on GHWT and I think I will actually buy it. New Metallica album, 3-pack of new Oasis songs, REM 3-pack, Boston, Blind Melon, Foreigner, and Rick Springfield. Not that I love all those bands(I actually hate Metallica) but it just looks like GH is going to continue to get big names. Its unfortunate because I think HMX is the much better company and I willing to bet RB is superior to GH's first band game. But if GH is going to start releasing good DLC frequently I can get over the small details that might make the game inferior to RB.

[karmalord]

I can tell you the vocals for my wife are more of a challenge in GHWT. The drums seem to be about the same save for the over drive/star power,which I have yet to master in GHWT. The Drum kits and guitar customizations as well as the character customization is far superior in GHWT. The set list is more appealing in GHWT. RB2 has online advantages in BWT and the DLC, so both will serve me well.

[ghostofjarjar]

My closing thoughts on Guitar Hero: World Tour...

Guitar Hero is like that hot crush you've had since back in the day. On the PS2 shared a few good times and maybe gotten a kiss or something. By the time Guitar Hero III comes out, she becomes a total whore and blows your best friend (let's not even bother with GH: Aerosmith). Guitar Hero: World Tour looks like things maybe okay and can be good friends again, but instead get STD's on 1st base and you wonder why you didn't heed the warnings.
This all sounds like you're drawing from experience :D

I like the game overall but my only complaints are the cartoony blinding color graphics and the angle of the fretboard. Combined, they strain the eyes too much. I play on Hard and Expert in RB, so something is wrong when I'm 3 starring some songs on MEDIUM

[macbarbicuss]

BEFORE YOU READ THIS I'M NO WAY BIASED BETWEEN GUITAR HERO AND ROCKBAND. Everything I'm writing comes play between the 2 games.

Sorry about not editing for grammar.

I bought The game today after reading all the review, but after buying it I'm going to probably return it tom and ask for a refund since the toms on the drums you have to almost obliterate ( you will get blisters from how hard you have to hit it) it for it to recognize a note. Not to mention my orange cymbal already doesn't seem to want to recognize notes unless I hit it a certain way. That and the base holding the drumset up is the most poorly constructed stand ever (it will wiggle all over the place and is very unstable) The kick pedal was the only redeeming quality of the drumset although its not medal it has a really nice feel to it and has a stopper on the pedal so you only have to push down a very slim distance for it to recognize a hit. The lack of a support base for the pedal will however, cause it to move around and you will have to put a mat under it or set some weights behind it to keep it in place. article summing up issues with drum set will most likely go through the same thing harmonix did with rb 1 where it will lose a couple million in a lawsuit over not covering shipping cost on replacements.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6200114.html?tag=latestheadlines;t
I also seemed to have a problem with the new guitar and being unable to use a pick because it would register double hits whenever I used the pick.

Now getting into the game after a hour of play you will notice its vastly inferior to BOTH rockbands' yes 1 is a more sold game overall. first of all you will notice your hit streak is on the bottom right instead of under your scrolling note bar which is a real pain to see sometimes. Whenever you miss a note you have almost no way of telling when in a band because it doesn't give you that mess up noise or its very small. This becomes a very big problem when your band meter gets to red (when one person fails the entire band fails in this one). and you have almost no way of telling that you are in red. The only visble signs you get are a red meter on the top left which you will surely fail if you look over there during hard parts, and your notes will flash signaling that your failing out. However these flashing notes are very dim and are very hard to tell if you are failing out and since the noise effects for messing up are really soft you usually just wind up failing before you even realize what happened. On the topic of bad mix of colors I want to mention the kick pedal line / new bass pedal line and how stupid it is for being purple. The purple makes it very hard to see at times and any lighter color would have helped.

This brings me to starpower. There is no separate starpower for everybody like in RB but instead your band has a starpower meter that can build up to a huge amount. You will get multipliers for using star power at the same time but it's very hard to do at parts where with the drumset you have to hit both cymbals at the same time (very hard to find the right moment to do almost no breaks although if you activate it when supposed to play other notes it keeps the streak alive) and with the mic you have to tap the back of it (takes away from guitar / bass players singing at the same time since they cant activate starpower on the mic.) You don't realize how good the fills are in Rockband until you actually play world tour where you wish you could just freestyle at certain points instead of playing the same repetitive beat over and over (it gets boring very quickly suprisingly and takes away a lot of the fun).

some other in game issues that make the game vastly inferior to rockband is the lack of story play with all thats available is playing gigs in solo career or band mode and the 2 are seperate modes so your progress will not transfer between the 2 modes. There is however quickplay where you can come up with as many as a 6 song setlist and are able to skip songs you don't like. Issues with the band leader that RB 1 had but RB 2 fixed. Im not even going to get into the recording aspect of it based on how worthless and time consuming it is, you can check out ign's review for further details on why it sucks but yes it's all true.

I honestly thought the game was going to be alright and at least learn from Rockband's mistakes and problems but it is major step behind Rockband and not even in the same realm as in RB 2. After playing the game about 10 hours I'm going to say ign's review is actually pretty leanient and not very harsh. Although there's a lot of redeeming and fun aspects it was poorly built and failed to build on or recognize any mistakes from past games in the series and competitors. It will likely see a lot of disappointed customers like me that were hoping for something better out of the game in the upcoming weeks. If you have to ask me for advice I would say go for RB 2 and if are still very interested rent the game but don't buy it without actually playing it or you will wind up very disappointed at spending $190 for a game that is poorly setup and built and feels like the developers spent more time and money on the amazing setlist then on the instruments and design.

[macbarbicuss]

This all sounds like you're drawing from experience :D

I like the game overall but my only complaints are the cartoony blinding color graphics and the angle of the fretboard. Combined, they strain the eyes too much. I play on Hard and Expert in RB, so something is wrong when I'm 3 starring some songs on MEDIUM

I agree 100% notice a lot of the same problems

[jcunning_1974]

My biggest problem with GHWT at the moment is that XBOX and PS3 users can only have one band on their account. I think that Wii users can have three bands. This is a huge failure in my opinion, in the history of Guitar Hero and Rock Band games I've always had at least 3 bands/profiles. In RB2, I have 3 bands, one to play in with my band mates, one for my guitarist to solo, one for my bassist to solo, but I can't do this in GHWT, money I earn and songs opened with a band or solo career are available for anybody else playing the game, nothing is separated. In my opinion this is a HUGE failure and severely hurts replay value of the game. The response from the GHWT staff to this problem is to create more XBOX or PSN accounts, which of course makes no sense. I guess we're supposed to buy download content for each account too? What a waste.

If this one problem were fixed than GHWT would be a good game, not as good as RB2, but it has some nice touches and is definitely fun. Plus I like the setlist, I love the Tool songs and venue, and get a kick out of the musicians that pop up during the game like Ted Nugent riding onto the stage on a buffalo. Being able to customize the characters and instruments at such high detail is also fun, but can be time-consuming so is not everyone.

In all, it's a fun game, I really enjoy it, but RB2 is going to get the majority of my playing time and I'll be playing RB2 long after I've grown tired of GHWT.

[bood-boy]

i played it last night, just a handful of songs. i used the new guitar for a couple songs and i wasnt impressed with it.
the gameplay itself is just fine, i think its a big improvement from GH3, as i was actually able to play songs on expert in this one, it didnt seem very overcharted to me.
but after playing the game, ive decided that i will not be buying the game, and i wont be buying theguitar that songs with it.

RB2 is the dominant force.

[ESCOBEN]

i watched some vids and thought "am i really gonna buy another gh game?" and i also thought "am i really gonna buy cymbals for the rb drums? they dont even change the charts" i think not. i spend way to much money as of late. its getting ridiculous how much im spending on video games.

[bood-boy]

i watched some vids and thought "am i really gonna buy another gh game?" and i also thought "am i really gonna buy cymbals for the rb drums? they dont even change the charts" i think not. i spend way to much money as of late. its getting ridiculous how much im spending on video games.

cymbals will be awesome in freestyle trainer. and plus its easy to decopher when youll want to play the cymbals or do drum rolls when playoing the songs w/ cymabls attached.

[metallica0688]

I picked up GHWT for the purpose of being able to get another Metallica song on Disc and to be able to play the Death Magnetic album .

[ESCOBEN]

cymbals will be awesome in freestyle trainer. and plus its easy to decopher when youll want to play the cymbals or do drum rolls when playoing the songs w/ cymabls attached.

so the question is should i buy the 2 pack or 3 pack?

[sdursch]

First, the praise:

GHWT is a good game. its soundtrack contains numerous classics (plus the option to download Death Magnetic). being a full band game is nice for getting 4 people together to play, plus i love having more songs to play drums on. as for the drums, i love the feel of the pads and the set-up (with the cymbals) is more realistic. having the dedicated cymbal pads is nice.

that being said:

-i still feel it is inferior to RB2. the note charts don't seem to be laid out as well as they are in RB. there's more "filler" type stuff that doesn't seem to belong on guitar, which takes away from the realism aspect.

-with the downloads available at launch, i have 100 songs, but that pales in the shadow of my 300+ songs in RB2 (which contains a much higher percentage of songs that i love). while the soundtrack contains great songs like Crazy Train, it also has some off-the-wall foreign songs that noone (in the US at least) has ever heard of or (for the most part) would really care to hear of (especially anyone trying to sing).

-while the set-up of the drums is great, i am having issues with my orange cymbal pad. it only reacts part of the time, and as of right now, trying to use the warranty to get the pad replaced has put me in an endless loop between Activision and RedOctane. hopefully this Customer (no)Service issue will be taken care of soon, at which point the drums will be the best virtual drums (that don't cost $300).

-finally, while playing as a band, Star Power and failing-out become an annoyance. when a band member fails, the whole band fails. there is no possibility of saving them. this wouldn't be a big problem, except for the fact that it isn't always apparent that you are doing poorly until it's too late (especially when you are playing on a faulty drum-set that doesn't register every beat). the star power is communal, rather than individual like in RB. each person still launches seperately, but each time you launch SP, it only uses one "bulb" of energy, which lasts for a very short amount of time on most songs.

overall, it's a good game with a good soundtrack, but, to be honest, i wouldn't have bought the game if it wasn't for the drumset. if i could have bought the drums seperately, i would have.

[Runa216]

Truthfully, the main thing that originally drew me to Rock Band as opposed to Guitar Hero was that Guitar Hero was a competitive game, whereas Rock Band is the CoOperative game. I'm a cooperative player, not a competitive player, so it just naturally fit.

Guitar Hero remains that way. yeah, it's got the full band thing, but they put a lot of emphasis on the 4 vs 4 battles, and they still overcharted it so when you beat it, your e-peen is inflated...so to speak.

I prefer fun, cooperative, realistic games as opposed to difficult, competitive arcade-style games.

Doesn't mean the competitive, difficult, arcade-style games are bad, but it's a general feel that I don't prefer.

[MF-PO'd]

I want to add something very minor. I like how in Rock Band it shows you how many stars you've earned as you progress through the song. I don't like how in GHWT I don't really know how my performance was until the end. Just a minor point.

As I play more GHWT, I am increasingly frustrated at the number of songs they have that are already in RB2. It seems like there's at least one in every set. That's not really a knock against GHWT specifically, but just a frustration from my end.

[TrunkMonkey]

I just picked it up yesterday have not had a chance to really get into playing it yet. BUT one thing is for certain. The new GHWT guitar is AWESOME, it makes the Rock Band Strat feel like garbage.

[JMcQ77]

DISCLAIMER: I owned the original GH. Did not buy GH2, GH3, etc. I own both RB1 and RB2. I play Expert drums and bought GHWT solely for the drums.

First, I sympathize with those having problems with the drums. The cymbals on my first set did not work well (registering about 1 out of every 5 hits). Returned it to Bestbuy. Now, the kit works perfectly.

Personally, I like the GHWT kit. Although the positioning of the drums is somewhat counterintuitive, the pads have great bounce. The raised cymbals add more realism to the game. And the kick pedal is easy to use. If you play on carpet, however, there is a tendency for the pedal to slide around because there is no anchoring system. I have not tried the pedal on hardwoods but on a bass heavy song, this can get annoying.

I also like that GHWT charts 6 pads. Although the crash and ride cymbal are shared by the orange cymbal (along with the occasional splash), I feel that I am playing a more realistic version of the song. True, you can buy the Ion or the Mad Catz cymbals but that doesn't change the fact that there is one less pad charted. In other words, I could be playing the Ion and when a blue note is presented, play either the blue tom or the blue ride cymbal. That makes the RB version easier and less realistic.

From a game perspective, GHWT is, as most posters have pointed out, more "cartoony." Still, some of the over-the-top cartoony effects are fun. The arenas are rendered well and creative. Also, playing with famous rockers is a blast, albeit an obvious gimmick. Seeing Ted Nugent ride in on a buffalo and getting to drum to "Stranglehold," or playing along with Jimi and trying to master Mitch Mitchell's frenetic style adds another level to the game. Seeing your idols rendered in a video game makes that game much more enjoyable (just like playing "Tiger Woods" as opposed to "Hot Shots Golf" or even "Tecmo Bowl" opposed to Nintendo Football).

That being said, RB's look is cleaner and better looking. It is much easier, and intuitive, to activate Star Power in RB. The double cymbal activation in GHWT is dumb, and breaks your combo too often. Also, RB seems more focused on the actual music, from facts about the artists to the World Tour mode. I could do without the Endless Setlists. Also, the inability to switch between difficulty levels in setlist sucks. If I can't pass "Visions" on Expert, I shouldn't have to play the other 5 songs on Hard solely because "Visions" is in the setlist. That drives me crazy.

Overall, RB looks better and plays better. Yet, I will still play GHWT because of the additional pad.

[TrunkMonkey]

Ah one more thing the setlist in GHWT is actually better than RB2, Harmonix keeps us with great DLC, I know there are quite a few songs that are in both games but the ones that are not are better in GHWT. Plus you dont have to deal with stupid songs like VISIONS. Talk about over charted just for difficulty HARMONIX takes the cake with that one. GHWT this time around is not overcharted. It does not have all the extra added notes like GH3 did just for difficulty. GHWT for me was a pleasant surprise. I was hoping that HARMONIX would step up the quality of the guitar for RB2.

[strtfghtr]

A review of Guitar Hero World tour after extensive play for a night.

Before we get into it I wanted to make sure everyone knows that I did not buy the whole package but just the one bundled with the guitar. I used my RB2 drumset for the drums.

Lets start with the guitar first, the new guitar is a very similar shape to the RB Stratocaster but feels sturdier. The frets are spaced similarly to the Strat but are raised. They also have a softer feel to them similar to the GH3 LP. The strum bar has a noticeable “click” so if you prefer the “mush” RB 1 guitar you will be disappointed. (Myself I prefer a click). The strum also has a nice flange built on it similar to the strat and a star power button right next to it. The normal star power activation works well but for me it’s a little too sensitive…I tend to move around when I rock out (especially with a wireless guitar) and sometimes my movement sets off the star power when I don’t want it. The biggest new feature of the guitar is the slider bar on the neck, similar to the lower frets on a strat during certain sections of songs special colored notes will come up that you can “slide” to pick up. You can also tap the normal frets as you would on a strat, no strumming required for these special notes. The slide pad can also add a “wawa” effect to held notes similar to the strum bar, I love this and find myself using it more and more. The thirds use of the touch pad is it can act as a strum, so you hold a normal fret with one hand and tap the touchpad and it will be as if you are strumming, cool but tough to do on faster songs.
GH:WT 9/10
RB2 strat: 7.5/10

It’s hard not to compare WT with RB or RB2 so I wont even try to.

Guitar play:
The note charts for GH games keep getting better since 3. They were improved in GH:A and they are better in GH:WT. They are still more forgiving than RB2 but if a person only played GH3 I suspect they will be tough as the timing window has been reduced and some of the HO-PO timing has been turned back to what it is in Rockband. (I.E. if you played GH3 and remember My Name is Jonas, you could hold a fret a month before the note came up and the HO would pick it up…not so in WT anymore you must actually time it) There are a lot more triple notes in WT than in RB but if you ask me RB underuses triple notes and GH overuses them…there must be a nice middle ground. It seems a few times WT has an extra note thrown in just to screw up the player. The biggest example that comes to mind is Everlong, I have a nice streak going keeping my timing and they throw in an extra green to totally screw up my timing. I can’t hear the note in the song and it isn’t present in RB2…I didn’t like that; I suspect there were more that I didn’t notice. The new slider sections seem to take similar route that RB has with its solo sections. However, as an expert plastic guitarist the slider sections are now incredibly easy if you tap using the normal frets. I smoked the intro to Hot For Teacher with only missing a couple notes. Oddly enough now the RB2 expert guitar is actually HARDER than GHWT’s Expert guitar! This is not because of charting but merely the gameplay.
GH:WT 8/10
RB2 9/10

Drum play:
Let me be honest, the design of the WT drum chat is a real downgrade. It’s not that I have a problem with round notes vs rectangles, the problem I have is the drum notes are so bland even compared to the WT guitar notes. It feels stale and thrown in quickly. The purple base line has been mentioned before but yeah, it is distracting especially because the background is purple…what genius thought of that? As I only played with the RB2 set (I tried to use the GHWT set at a best buy and Toys R Us but the cymbals on both were broken…) I only got the 4 note chart and though I am no actual drummer I know enough that the crash should probably be to my far right, but I wont hold that against WT…at least my RB drums work. After playing through a few songs on Expert and Hard in quickplay I could already tell the drums in this game are a big 2nd banana to the guitar. The song selection just doesn’t cater to drummers as much as RB2 (or RB1) does.
GH:WT 7/10
RB2 9/10


Song Selection:
This is completely subjective to tastes so take what you want. I did enjoy a large section of WT’s track selection. This time around they chose not to pick the most famous songs of all the bands which I enjoyed. Taking Stranglehold for Ted Nugent over some thing more famous like Great White Buffalo or Wango Tango (god I hate wango tango) is a big plus for me. Picking Trapped Under Ice for Metallica was a home run in my book as that is one of my fav Metallica songs of all time yet doesn’t get nearly enough credit for how awesome it is. My only gripe is including SO many songs that were already in RB DLC or RB2. Heck, the full RB2 setlist was available back in June…that should have given GHWT plenty of time to not include so many of the same songs. I think it would have been easy enough to turn the ones they already programmed for into GH WT DLC instead of on disc. Overall though I loved the set list and had a blast playing it. If I had to choose between just the RB2 list and the GHWT list it would be a tough choice, both have songs I love and both have songs I hate, but with the ability to transfer the RB1 tracks in, there is no comparison…add in the 20 free DLC from RB next week the gap becomes wider. The year long head start on DLC available blows GHWT out of the water…NVSFT has some serious work ahead of them if they want to compete in terms of music.
GH:WT 8/10
RB2 8/10
RB2 (with RB1 +20 songs and DLC) 25/10

Music Creator:
I didn’t use it and don’t think I will…not really interested in making my own music.

Custom tunes and NVSFT tunes:
NVSFT threw in a few extra tracks on the disc they made themselves on the music creator, and I downloaded a couple user made tracks. They suck…plain and simple…sounds like I’m playing Guitar Hero with a cell phone midi file. Hopefully people will get better at this but it is not looking good if you ask me…don’t expect any sweet renditions of popular songs either, because they wont sound like them. But then again any custom tracks are better than no custom tracks.
GH:WT 3/10
RB2 0/10

Game Interface:
This hurt WT a ton. Just navigating the menus is a pain with the guitar and almost impossible with the drums. You cannot use the drum pads to scroll…you have to use the D pad. The whole setup of navigation is odd and will take some getting used to, not very intuitive. The venues are awesome. Every single one is a stand out and a blast to watch. The character animations are improved from GH3 but not up to par with RB1 or 2 yet. The drummer looks so robotic it is not funny. Thankfully the lip sincing is done very well, right up with RB’s. GH has its own graphical style more cartoony while RB’s is more realistic, this isn’t a detriment just different strokes for different folks. Overall though the tough menu navigation, robotic movements, and poor drum chart design really hurt the game.
GH:WT 6/10
RB2 8/10

Character Creator:
The GHWT character creator is a mixed bag. The face design is incredible. I swear I made an exact double of my GF’s face. I was really impressed and couldn’t wait to make the rest of her. The body selection did not even match RB’s which is pretty poor if you ask me. With such a robust face design I figured it would have a decent body design, but it is horrible. The clothes selection is crappy as well, no wheres near the number of outfits RB has to offer. They do have a great Attitude selection and you can choose your own opening and exit movements, but I almost like RB’s random opening and exit’s better. I found the RB character design to be lacking on face and body choices but tons of cloths and accessories and WT to be the opposite…again we need a good middle ground.
GH:WT 7/10
RB2 6/10

Multiplayer:
I haven’t done it yet on WT so no comment, but after an insane RB party on Saturday it has a challenge ahead of it to beat. I’ve heard bad things about WT though.
GH:WT N/A
RB2 9/10

Overall:
After some heavy play on guitar and some light play on drums, my impression is that GH:WT is a super-fun game with great music. If RB had never existed this game would be revolutionary and nothing could touch it. Unfortunetly, not only did RB come first but it fixed a bunch of it’s mistakes and had RB2 come out a month before GHWT…and allowed for the import of all (almost) of the RB1 tracks and DLC. The bottom Line: Rock Band did it first, and did it better…and Rock Ban 2 is even better than that, that leaves GH:WT in 3rd place for band music games IMO…hey at least it beat out Rock Revolution

GH:WT 7/10
RB2 9/10

[Ravaana]

So far, the game is Ok.

My roommate bought it, and I was checking it out last night. She bought the entire kit.

I don't really like the tiny guitar, I prefer the larger RB controllers; though I do like the fact that the strumbar is sturdier. I found myself not able to figure out where my fingers were, far too often. Even overshot the frets fairly badly.

The drums, I guess they will take time to get used to, but I don't like the fact that I can't see the bass pedal. I guess activision doesn't want people that have issues distinguishing colors playing drums on the game. I may be able to change the background on the fret board, but haven't found that yet.


Vocals: ok... I like the cart, it looks rather cool, and I do like the way they threw in the free style sections. But, seriously, why do I have to hold the controller? Why? When I do vocals, I like both hands being free. I like to play with the mic stand and heckle my band mates. Made me feel kind of restricted.

Haven't played much with the music creator, but the samples I did, are bad quality. I'm talkin old midi formats. So, it didn't sound all that great. Haven't tried Vox on the creator yet though.
We shall see what it holds for me. so far I prefer RB2 over GHWT.

[karmalord]

Ok all fanboyism aside,If your a vocalist(Im a drummer/wife is vocals who was ranked in top 3 on RB for several months until she stopped playing disc in favor of DLC)you will find that GHWT is more of a challenge,you can activate star power with controller,no broken talkies,no broken Leader boards. Just watched her do "Our Truth" by Lacuna Coil. It rewards your talent when filling in non vocal sections.I always thought it was a bit of a cheat to be rewarded on your ability to "squeeze" out more points than to actually reward you for being more musical.
I don't see her throwing this game out anytime soon. In fact, she has yet to put RB2 back in since we got GHWT. Let me repeat-No broken talkies(yet)and no broken Leaderboards(yet)=big /HUGE reason this game is worthy regarding vox. All other pros and cons I am putting in seperate posts instead of one giant one.

[Wrathchild67]

I will throw my opinion out there as well. This is based on one full day of play in both band and solo play. I purchased the guitar kit, and we played with both the new GH ax and the RB1 Strat, as well as the RB1 drums.

So I get home and the kids are all excited wanting to play. So we boot up the game, everyone logs into their own profiles, I set up my band, and assume the leader roll. Each kid then is prompted to create their own band.... so after 15 minutes of everyone setting up their own profile band we finally get into the set list.

Now my 7yr old likes to play but doesn't really focus enough to be any good, so we put him at the beginner mode, everyone else grabs the levels they have been playing on RB and we are off. We are into the second song on the opening set list and all of a sudden we fail out. We all look at each other and try to figure out what happened, as has been said, there is no good indicator on who is failing or who failed. We restart the song and get through the song this time and are still trying to figure out where star power is, we see the bulbs on the left side and finally figure out it is band based and how we should use them. However as we played more and more, we keep forgetting to use it since there is no LOCAL indicator for the individual players to see that they have it and should probably deploy it now and again. This is an issue especially playing on the higher tiers as my oldest daughter and I are playing on expert guitar/bass and we are too busy focusing on the charts to pay attention to the star power icon in the upper left corner of the screen.

I personally don't mind the set up for the song lists, it is very similar to the previous GH games and I like the smaller sets rather than each individual song then an encore. I like that it opens up all the other venues as you go with bigger set lists and the guest players that show up are a nice addition. I was disappointed that I had to play the entire set over in solo play, I spent the $8k for the Tool gig in the band session, why do I have to do it again solo?

I do really like the added note for bass, and it took me a few songs to get used to but it does add a new element to bass that I appreciate. My kids were off playing with their custom character creation and having a good time. They also enjoyed this in RB so I was not surprised by this at all. And the custom instrument creation is fun, even with the cartoony feel to it.

When it comes to evaluating these types of games it comes down to one thing for me. Is it fun too play. After playing a bit over 60% of the set list I have to say GH:WT is FUN. It will be interesting to see how my kids are going to do with this, as I am a bit of a completionist so I know I will play through the game multiple times on all the instruments, but the question to me is when I have the Rock Game party in a few weeks what game we play the most. My gut tells me that we will end up playing more of the RB2 due to the much larger set list and more songs that a ton of people want to play.

I won't go into the set lists again as they have been beaten to death in this thread already and it always comes down to personal preference.

Bottom line, 80+ more tracks to play, more available DLC, and a reasonable good time playing equals a win for us as a rhythm game player.

[Camdog916]

I got GHWT yesterday from Gamefly cause I wanted to check it out. After popping the game in I could see there is MAJOR difference from RB. I played six songs and most were on the RB song list. Eye of the Tiger, livin on a prayer, Everlong, Go your own way, Rebel Yell, and Dammit. All were great songs but they were allot different then RB2 and not in a good way. Besides them being allot easier then RB2 they just weren't that good. I was playing on the RB2 drums and there was no overdrive unless you hit the two middle drum pads which is hard when your in the middle of a song. Plus when I did the overdrive was not that long at all. The characters were awful. They did not look like a real band should look. The first venue I played was Times Square and the fireworks and other pyro that was going off looked cool. The audience/crowd sucked cause there weren't very many people there even in other venues. Why does this bother me? Cause you want to play like your in a Rock Band and if there isn't big crowd then your not really playing. I know it's stupid but I notice that kind of stuff.

I also played the guitar. The one thing that is good about GHWT is playing guitar which is a good thing cause since it made from it's name Guitar Hero. I was playing with the GH3 guitar which I have always found better then the RB guitar. It has always seemed allot better at getting every strum that I hit without missing a beat. I know that the GHWT has a fret bar where you can slide your finger up and down to get a cool sound but it's not worth getting a new guitar just for that. The other thing was when I was playing guitar and I went into overdrive/star power it lasted about 10 secs and ended but if I held or tilted my guitar up the overdrive would keep going. I did not understand this. In old guitar hero series it would last on long time if your overdrive meter was full.

Some of the songs were way to long. Example I was playing spiderwebs by No Doubt and the song lasted way to long which mad it unrealistic. My friend and I were both saying this is stupid. The other thing that I didn't like was there were so many songs that are already in RB. I know that has nothing to do with both companies but couldn't they get some different songs that already in RB?

Overall my three hours that I had with GHWT was not as fun as RB1 or 2. I think GH/Red Octane tried to ride on the coat tails of an awesome game made by HMX and didn't do that well. They just need to stick what they are best at and that is making a game just for the guitar. I mean they are called Guitar Hero for a reason, guitars. Rock Band is good at making a Rock Band.

[guitalex2007]

While I agree with the overall message of your review, I have to say I did notice one contradiction... you list, in your cons, that the game is overcharted... but also too easy.You CAN have a song that is overcharted AND too easy. Think of this example.

Imagine this note sequence:
x----
--x--
x-x--

As you can see, you hit red, then yellow, then both. Now imagine if it were overcharted to this.
x-x--
x-x--
x-x--

You have chords (hitting two or more buttons) when the song by itself featured the guitarist playing single notes. It's FAR easier if it's a fast song, and it is also overcharted.

[the_evil_monk]

For everyone complaining about the purple bar (for drums, bass open strings, etc), you realize that you can change your "highway" = fretboard and get a color that works much better for you. Honestly, I didn't have a problem with the purple at all, but when I switched to the "Death Metal" highway it really jumps out.

What is hilarious to me is bouncing between this board and the GHWT forums and listening to them all ***** about their instruments the way we all did back in RB1. Also, the fact that there are MULTIPLE fixes out for the drums/cymbal sensitivity - just as my RB1 Strat has the "masking tape" fix for the strum bar. It's an ORIGINAL issue RB1...and still my fav guitar.

UPDATE overall on game play. Played multiplayer with the kids last night for the first time. After they each took 30 minutes to complete their character (yes...there are THAT many options!), I realized that all of MY hard earned money from solo was spent by my son on a cool ninja outfit for his character. Totally sucks that it doesn't keep separate bankrolls. I do like that it pays each player in the band based on their difficulty as well as performance - I'd like to see RB pick that up. If I'm playin Expert bass, why should my son who is playing Easy drums get the same cut? We knocked out about 10 songs in band quickplay, the kids absolutely loved the game (but they love RB2 as well), and I had a great time playing with them. Again, the goal of this is all FUN...I'm sorry for the hardcore folks here, but playing bass in RB is NOT like playing a real bass...these are both games...not simulations...not even with the drums...it's a game...and a fun one at that. Also sang for the first time last night, did three songs on vocals, and found that it is harder to hit higher percentages in GHWT than RB. RB1/2 rate each phrase towards your aggregate percentage. GHWT is a note by note arrangement...so songs I can upper 90s on RB1/2, I was only 80s on GHWT. Not a problem, if anything, it makes me work on being more precise. Oh yeah, and the shared star power in band play DOES suck, as does the one fail, you all fail...

Again, for our household, we have room for both games, and I'm still having a blast unlocking more songs nightly...more fun this week than last slogging through the RB2 unlocks...can't put my finger on exactly why, but it is...

[andrewyamo]

Overcharted? I think not.

[slimshaidie]

Well...here's my $.02. I love the game, first & foremost I like a lot of the songs in this that are not in Rock Band 2. I like the character customization...MUCH deeper than Rock Band. I have noticed a lot of overcharting, which for the most part hasn't really bothered me much YET. I'm sure as I move farther into the game it will become more annoying however. I have to agree with the OP in that the tiers don't really make a lot of sense. This is not to say the song is overly difficult for me but my friend is just starting to play and has some trouble at times...we had no problems at all on any songs in the rest of the set, but all of a sudden we had the Dinosaur Jr. song. It took my friend awhile to get the speed changes down and we ended up failing out of it at least 3 times. I also found out last night that (at least playing with a band) you can stop in the middle of a set and pick back up where you left off later. We were sort of leary of stopping but had to leave the house for a bit...when we came back & restarted the game it gave us the option to continue on the next song instead of starting over.

As for the new equipment, I (still) can't stand the guitar. Yes, it is bigger now, but it is still way too light and just feels like a cheap piece of plastic when compared to the Rock Band Fender. Whenever I hold it I always feel like it might snap in half with just a bit too much pressure. The mic...eh...what can you say? It's a microphone. The drums on the other hand...WOW. (I have only used the RB1 & GHWT drums) I know people have been having problems with them, I haven't experienced any problems. They seem SO much sturdier than the Rock Band kit. After playing the RB drums for almost a year it is a bit daunting to switch over to this kit with an extra pad and different layout, but it just seems so much better. Like I said, I haven't played the RB2 kit but the GH drums are so much quieter it amazes me. It doesn't break my concentration with loud popping when playing guitar/bass.

Anyway, all in all the game is really good I think. I still prefer RB2's pressentation, World Tour mode, and overall integration better than GH...but I'm sure I'll be switching out between the 2 games fairly often.

I say if you can afford it, and you like the RB series...go for it!

[nicko68]

But, seriously, why do I have to hold the controller? Why? When I do vocals, I like both hands being free. I like to play with the mic stand and heckle my band mates. Made me feel kind of restricted.

You don't need to hold the controller. You can activate star power by tapping the top of the mic, I believe.

[LibertineStripes]

Jimi Hendrix 3 pack and The Raconteurs 3 pack makes this a must buy now.



That is two of my top 10 DLC bands right there.

[LJ-17]

I just want to know. And forgive me if this has already been answered. But I believe the GHWT guitar is compatible with RB2. Has anyone tried the touch pad for RB2 solos. Does that work?

[AGENTofOBL1V10N]

Why did you have to get me started? Here it goes.
GHWT is awful! I was so looking forward to the cymbals that I wasted 200$ on the bundle, when I should have just rented the game. The drum set misses notes(not as bad as the original rock band set)but bad enough that I would have a 300 note streak going and it would miss a random high hat note. Also you have to bang the pads to hard to get them to register. This in turn shakes the whole set and causes the highhat cymbal to engage occasionally.
The bass pedal is crap. You can barely tell your pushing anything, which personally makes me miss notes. The overall base of the set is flimsy and wobbles.
Anyhow, if anyone wants to buy the drums, let me know. The guitar is actually o.k.... I can't wait till Nov. 16 so i can get the cymbals for the rockband drums.
Also, the graphics are terrible. I still can't get online multiplayer. It sais some crap like my instruments aren't set up for it or something. That will teach me to waste 200$ on three TOOL songs. The worst part is they will probably be DLC for rockband soon...(I hope).
Anyway, my suggestion if your into the drums aspect of these games is to save your money for rockband cymbals and DLC.

[AGENTofOBL1V10N]

No, the touch pad doesn't work for rockband.

[AGENTofOBL1V10N]

Sorry, i thought of something else. LOL...GHWT sounds terrible. there is nothing in the options menu for dolby digital. My rockband2 sounds 10x better than GHWT.

[ESCOBEN]

im pretty much waiting for the drums to be sold on there own. look at my rb drums the set is running like a champ and only the pedal broke. my rb 2 set crapped out now im waiting for my new set.

[Marius]

Pros:
Bigger hit window for notes makes solos far more fun
Drums are awesome, 6 inputs
Open strum note for base
TOOL songs


Cons:
Some graphics are great, others (like the devil hands after every song) are rough.
Not as many songs as Rock Band

[kingtonyx]

Raconteurs DLC.... without Steady, As She Goes?

[cynical84]

I am a fence sitter where GH WT is concerned. I want to play about 15 songs but I am disappointed in the what is it 16-18 songs that have been doubled up between Rb 2 and GH WT. I own Rb 1 & 2, enjoy them quite a bit, like most of the downloadable content, which btw Harmonix, you f'n rock at the downloads, puts GH to shame and they have what 5 games under their belt up to this one. All these reviews about the game and I can't find the one simple thing to make or break me buying it, are the instruments fully compatible between RB and GH, if they are not then I don't need another drum kit, I already have 2 (thought the face off would be fun, wife kicked my butt on drums). If I don't buy it I hope the songs I want to play become downloadable content soon and does anyone know what happened to the Death Magnetic DLC?

[the_evil_monk]

If I don't buy it I hope the songs I want to play become downloadable content soon and does anyone know what happened to the Death Magnetic DLC?


Not sure what you mean by "what happened" to Death Magnetic, it was available the day the album came out, you could download it and jam it on GH3 (which I did) and it was forward compatible with GHWT. It rocks there too. I had the pure joy of seeing Metallica live in concert last Satuday night, then buying GHWT the next day and playing the entire album.

Remember when RB1 started, the DLC was spotty at best, seemed like there were more off weeks than on...I'm sure GHWT DLC will pick up. They have already announced some cool DLC, with more on the way I'm sure!

[strtfghtr]

I am a fence sitter where GH WT is concerned. I want to play about 15 songs but I am disappointed in the what is it 16-18 songs that have been doubled up between Rb 2 and GH WT. I own Rb 1 & 2, enjoy them quite a bit, like most of the downloadable content, which btw Harmonix, you f'n rock at the downloads, puts GH to shame and they have what 5 games under their belt up to this one. All these reviews about the game and I can't find the one simple thing to make or break me buying it, are the instruments fully compatible between RB and GH, if they are not then I don't need another drum kit, I already have 2 (thought the face off would be fun, wife kicked my butt on drums). If I don't buy it I hope the songs I want to play become downloadable content soon and does anyone know what happened to the Death Magnetic DLC?
Harmonix made Guitar Hero 1, 2, and 80s so...

Neversoft only has 3 GH games under its belt: 3, Aerosmith, and World Tour

[ESCOBEN]

activison was also a part of the gh2 (at least on 360) if i remember right.

[85ftw]

link to the posted guitar hero forums wanna read the responses

[cynical84]

Sorry about not being clear about the Death Magnetic Download Content, I meant in an arcticle (a link is posted in annoncements) they mentioned a few up coming albums they were going to release (Stevie Ray Vaughn, Megadeth, Red Hot Chili Peppers to name a few) but they also mentioned that 2 days after the release of Death Magnetic on GH 3 and GH WT they would also release on RB2. I was just wondering if this was true or if maybe there is some kind of a contractual issue with GH and exclusive rights for x amount of time before rb2 gets the album. Also thanks for the record setting about the previous post of how many games of GH were put out by which gaming studio.

[karmalord]

If you guys were expecting RB3 then don't buy it. If however, your looking for a breath of fresh air aside from RB2,this is it.

[karmalord]

GHWT songs just simply rock in a kick ass way. So what if they arent exactly mixed to perfection,they are all master tracks with no cover music. Among other distractions you wont get:
1. No broken talkies
2. No broken Leaderboards
3. Vocalist get a practice(section by section)mode unlike RB2.
4.You can check leaderboards and how your performance stacked up after each song without quitting the set list your on.
5.GHWT breaks down your performance letting you know where you did good and where you sucked in a particular song via percentage per section.
6. no lame ass squeezing to get you higher scores,instead you need to be more musical. What a concept. And guess what? they released PS3 and 360 at the same time. Imagine that. Keep rocking on RB2,but dont ignore GHWT!

[metalfenix]

Right now, I was browsing the GH forums and seeing reviews of World tour like gametrailers or gamestop...and this isn't looking well. Prior to this week, I was planning to get GH:WT for my 360 along with a vantage mic (or maybe just buy it for PS3 since I already have Rock Band 1 for it, but I wanted to test my Live gold membership card with a game that I wanted to play online).

I'm starting to feel that I should stay with my Rock Band 1 (and my RB 2 game disc on the way) but as far as I've seen, the vids of the game didn't look so bad. I'm mostly a vocalist, so I have concerns about the vocals on GH:WT (maybe I'll retry med guitar sometime in the future too): How is the pitch/tone detection on GH: WT? does anyone tested it? also I don't understand either how they get the perfect phrases on the songs, since I don't see a graphic indicator like rock band.

Maybe I should wait until GH: metallica comes out or if they release DLC that I like (so far, the setlist of World Tour hasn't impressed me either).

[macbarbicuss]

sense of relive to GHWT owners

http://community.guitarhero.com/forums/6/forum_topics/131843

also dlc schedule for first month of GHWT.

http://community.guitarhero.com/forums/6/forum_topics/131812

(more Hendrix on the way!

[patrykkbg]

I said this one somewhere else already, but for anyone who likes singing, stay far far away from GHWT -- you can literally imitate a car alarm and score five stars - i did for six songs before I quit and sold the game.

[metalfenix]

I said this one somewhere else already, but for anyone who likes singing, stay far far away from GHWT -- you can literally imitate a car alarm and score five stars - i did for six songs before I quit and sold the game.

Whoa, it is so easy? even in the expert difficulty? Maybe I'll hold on then and rent it (or exchange for another game) before buying.

[guitarguy6]

So I just finished the game on drums and am left with mixed feelings. Even though my red/blue pads are iffy, for the first 2 days of owning GH:WT drums I was soooo happy. I loved the way the sticks rebounded off the new pads and really liked playing on the "cymbols". I prefer the kick pedal from GH:WT to that of RB because you don't have to push down as far to hit the note. However on some of the fast songs the pedal would start wobbling and almost tipping over. I will try to find some way to mod the pedal so this won't happen.



After the second day of drumming I noticed a couple of things:

1. my back near my shoulders was killing me, I believe this was caused by the placement of the "hi-hat" pad

2. no matter how I sat I couldn't find a way to feel %100 comfotable. Doing a roll from red pad to green feels extremely awkward no matter how I sit

3. Some of the songs in the later setlists are extremely boring and repetitive for drummers (especially the CANADA venue) There were songs with at best 10 tom hits in them

4. with the new drums playing songs that have hi-hat rolls followed by snare (ex. everlong) is EXTREMELY awkward to do on the new kit.

5. some venues where there are sound effects before the songs start (like lightning, crowd chants etc.) are waaay to loud



Other than those gripes I enjoyed the game a great deal. I liked a good portion of the setlist and having "Death Magnetic" available for download makes it even better. I also feel lthat the menus could be presented better. When choosing a song in quickplay the song names are all squished together and it hurts my brain :P



Also, in order to make sure that it wasn't me sucking I plugged in my RB drums and played 3 songs in order to compare my score difference between GH:WT and RB drums. Here are the results:

Are you gonna go my way:

GH:WT 179, 027 -------> RB1 279,326



What I've done:

GH:WT 197,284 ----------> RB1 261,297



livin' on a prayer:

GH:WT 172,843 ----------> RB1 338,289 (%100 FC)


All in all I like the game but I'm faced with a dilemma. Do I keep the bundle and hope that they fic the drums with their "drum tuning kit", or do I return it for the GH:WT game + guitar and grab RB2 drumset. How much better is the RB2 drums compared to RB1?

[ESCOBEN]

lol man everything is going to **** for this game i just read on there forums its 6 pages of fail.all the one instrument i want the drums. i guess then the guy who made the comment about the drums for rockband now its "sure buy the band set, and when out drums fail out of the box...your screwed"

[karmalord]

Right now, I was browsing the GH forums and seeing reviews of World tour like gametrailers or gamestop...and this isn't looking well. Prior to this week, I was planning to get GH:WT for my 360 along with a vantage mic (or maybe just buy it for PS3 since I already have Rock Band 1 for it, but I wanted to test my Live gold membership card with a game that I wanted to play online).

I'm starting to feel that I should stay with my Rock Band 1 (and my RB 2 game disc on the way) but as far as I've seen, the vids of the game didn't look so bad. I'm mostly a vocalist, so I have concerns about the vocals on GH:WT (maybe I'll retry med guitar sometime in the future too): How is the pitch/tone detection on GH: WT? does anyone tested it? also I don't understand either how they get the perfect phrases on the songs, since I don't see a graphic indicator like rock band.

Maybe I should wait until GH: metallica comes out or if they release DLC that I like (so far, the setlist of World Tour hasn't impressed me either).
Dude,my wife is ranked #1 on Guitar Hero for Vocals PS3 last I checked(nothing lasts forever). She was damned near the same for RB1(top 3). They are two different animals in the way you score . You have to be more creative in the non(swirly sections)singing parts. She hasnt stopped playing it,so it must be especially good for vocals. her name is Onezenchic on the boards. No broken talkies etc. makes this a good choice for vocals. You need to do the tutorial though to understand how it works because it is different than RB.

[ghostofjarjar]

Ok now I just saw a giant billboard advertising the latest Indiana Jones movie on blu ray and DVD while performing La Bamba lol Wow.

[ESCOBEN]

lmfao dude i just won the guitar and game combo from kfc. well too bad i didnt win the whole thing. once again chicken has made my life awesome.

[RockBandRocker]

I don't know what to say about this game.

It isn't the pile of s**t I expected, but it isn't mind-blowing either.


To be honest, if this game had come out last year instead of GH3, I might still enjoy the GH series.


The real thing this game has against it is that it is too much like Rock Band (1). As a Rock Band player for 11 months, it is hard to enjoy GH:WT.

I'm just glad that I rented it for free.

[Nourez]

7.5/10

Pros:

-Studio mode if fun
-Fast loading times
-Setlist is pretty good (RB2's is better)

Cons:

-Characters look terrible
-It's impossible to make a male custom character look good
=The art style is meh
-the in game guitars are HUGE
-no stand ins.
-It seems to be impossible to unlock Hendrix.
-Brain Bright, need I say more?

It feels a lot like RB1. Same little things, seperate careers for each instrument, no stand ins, so you never feel like you're a part of a band, and so on...

[Dartagnan64]

OK I've had a reasonable amount of time on this game and here's my review:

Pros:
New guitar is improved over Les Paul (still like RB2 strat better)
Neversoft has improved their charting since GH3
Character creation has nice customization options
Wider variety in songs than GH3

Cons:
Charts too Ho/Po driven with strings up to a minute long
Drum charts in many songs are boring as hell
The sound mixes at times are terrible
Band interplay not up to RB standards (communal star power, no saving failing band members, one fails, we all fail)
Too cartoony still

At this point the game feels like RB2's poor cousin. Similar in most places but the innovations Neversoft has made just don't make up for the failures in sound quality and chart making. So while i think this is a step up from GH3 as far as party friendly gameplay is concerned, it's not in the same league as RB2. I'll likely keep it for the few songs I like that aren't in RB2, but I'll be investing in DLC for RB2 only and not this game.

I give it an 8.2/10 (I'd give RB2 9.3/10)

[Runa216]

you know, if nothing else, setlist and venues and singleplayer/multiplayer aside...Rock Band seems to be the better game based strictly on polish, something GH seems to lack.

The setlists are even (some like rock band, some like Guitar Hero)

The singleplayer is balanced (some like linearity, some like nonlinear)

the multiplayer is in Rock Band's favour, no question really.

the peripherals would be tilted in GH's favour, but there seems to be more faulty drums and guitars then there were RB faulty instruments.

the DLC currently gives Rock Band a clear advantage, but we'll wait and see where GH goes with it.

No, in spite of all that, Rock Band has something Guitar HEro doesn't: Polish. The charts are more accurate, everything looks crisper and cleaner, everything is aesthetically pleasing. Rock Band is like the Band simulation, where Guitar Hero is an arcade game.

Again, one is a work of passion, the other is just a game. Can you guess which is which?

[Jixzer]

Again, one is a work of passion, the other is just a game. Can you guess which is which?

That may just become my new sig. Well said.

[Hanrahan89]

I have played both games and I think Rock Band 2 is the better game. Mainly because of online play the online play in GH:WT sucks the battle of the bands in GH is basically just playing a song and at the end they tell you which group scored more. The star power system makes no sense at all you can never tell when you have any because it goes in a group pile instead of in your own pile. The career mode is not that great either it’s a just some setlists a couple of battles than its over it’s no way near as good as tour mode in Rock Band. I did like the sections in songs when you can just hammer-on and pull-off with no strumming needed if you miss and I thought the music studio was fun but overall Rock Band 2 is definitely the better game.

[Battlestar]

They still have the boss battles??? Argh I was thinking of getting it but not now.... worse thing they ever did was put that in.

[OttosKids66]

I have not played on Guitar Hero drums. But I'd like to point something out. Having Three toms and 2 cymbals seems to me to be subtraction by addition. I'm most interested in how the drum peripheral would most accurately imitate playing a real drum set and it seems 4 pads is superior to 3 pads and 2 cymbals. This is my reasoning: A basic drum kit has the following - Snare, two toms, floor tom, hihat, ride cymbal, crash cymbal, bass drum. The 4 pads can imitate this better. Snare-red, tom 1-yellow, tom 2-blue, floor tom-Green, hihat-yellow, ride-blue, crash-green. Obviously pads are being doubled up to accomadate a tom and a cymbal, but it still approximates the traditional positioning of a real drum kit. How can this be replicated with 3 pads and two cymbals. Having only played Guitar Hero with the Rockband drum peripheral I can only guess, but I'd assume that they have to double the crash and ride cymbals on the same cymbal, and double up tom1 and tom 2 as well. This seems inferior to me to doubling up pads to be toms and cymbals, but still retaining tom and cymbal independence.

To someone who is strictly a gamer, maybe this doesn't effect their enjoyment of the game. But I approach the game as a musician as well, and want it to best replicate the experience of playing a real drum kit. Add to that the fact that the Rockband kit can expand with the addition of cymbals (and already has with the ion kit) and I think Rockband does a much better job at maintaining the integrity of a real drum kit.

That being said, I do think that Guitar Hero World Tour is a great game, has a much better song selection than, if not Rock Band, certainly Rock Band 2, which has terrible, terrible songs and was a huge dissapointment. Plust the career game play of Rock Band 2 is confusing, anti-intuitive, and just plain bad. I like Guitar Hero as much as Rock Band and certainly more than rb2, but I just think they changed the drums for the sake of changing them and actually made them worse. Of course, I'm saying this without having played on them.

[Runa216]

One thing I'd like to mention about Difficulty:

I honestly think both are about even now, but there are some slight differences as to why.

guitar hero is known for it's difficult charts, and any youtube search will show songs like Satch Boogie and Hot for Teacher. yeah, they look really confusing and difficult, becuase of overcharting (not as bad, but it's still a factor), and the round notes. I don't care what anyone says, the circular notes make the note board look VERY muddled and confusing. I know many will say "well I guess you're just blind becuase you can't tell the difference" but there were times I went to hit something, and it wasn't what I thought. Plus, when you look at the charts, try telling me that it doesn't look really crowded.

On the flipside, it also has a really sloppy timing window, which means that it's considerably easier to hit notes. I found myself playing through some wicked looking solo, getting confused and just mashing on the buttons....and I still managed to not break my streak. It was like "wow, I KNOW I screwed that up, yet here I am with a 4x multiplier...."

Rock Band is considerably different in that respect.

When I play Rock Band, I never get confused or overwhelmed by the rectangular notes on the chart. it all looks clean and easy to dechiper, making it easier to play. there are also a lot more single notes than Guitar Hero (which seems to use WAY too many chords), making it less complicated. The songs are difficult, yes, but not disgustingly hard. However, it's considerably more picky with the note timing, so if you mash the buttons during a particularly tricky solo, there's a far better chance you'll be in the red.

So yeah, it goes both ways, I feel both games are equally difficult, but for different reasons. Because I'm used to playing Rock Band, where the timing is tighter, I found Guitar Hero to be rather simple, as I was able to just mash buttons and get the desired result, even though the charts LOOK harder.

also, guitar Hero will just fail you if you upset it. There were many times I was playing the metallica songs, and thought I was hitting a good majority of the notes, and then outta nowhere, BAM! failed. Played again, only to see that I wasn't hitting the notes, and was instead falling into red...and correcting yourself or using starpower really doesn't help because you die too quickly.

[MF-PO'd]

They still have the boss battles??? Argh I was thinking of getting it but not now.... worse thing they ever did was put that in.

Yes, but there are only 2, and they are different. None of those various types of attacks from GH3 are in the game. You pretty much just have to play the notes and try to outperform him. There isn't even star power. It's not too bad and certainly not impossible. It wouldn't consider it a dealbreaker if you're considering the game.

[strtfghtr]

Yes, but there are only 2, and they are different. None of those various types of attacks from GH3 are in the game. You pretty much just have to play the notes and try to outperform him. There isn't even star power. It's not too bad and certainly not impossible. It wouldn't consider it a dealbreaker if you're considering the game.

I liked the boss battles more in this game, better songs for them too IMO

[MF-PO'd]

I agree with that... especially about the songs. They are pretty enjoyable.

[senator_FuenteZ]

I have not played on Guitar Hero drums. But I'd like to point something out. Having Three toms and 2 cymbals seems to me to be subtraction by addition. I'm most interested in how the drum peripheral would most accurately imitate playing a real drum set and it seems 4 pads is superior to 3 pads and 2 cymbals. This is my reasoning: A basic drum kit has the following - Snare, two toms, floor tom, hihat, ride cymbal, crash cymbal, bass drum. The 4 pads can imitate this better. Snare-red, tom 1-yellow, tom 2-blue, floor tom-Green, hihat-yellow, ride-blue, crash-green. Obviously pads are being doubled up to accomadate a tom and a cymbal, but it still approximates the traditional positioning of a real drum kit. How can this be replicated with 3 pads and two cymbals. Having only played Guitar Hero with the Rockband drum peripheral I can only guess, but I'd assume that they have to double the crash and ride cymbals on the same cymbal, and double up tom1 and tom 2 as well. This seems inferior to me to doubling up pads to be toms and cymbals, but still retaining tom and cymbal independence.

To someone who is strictly a gamer, maybe this doesn't effect their enjoyment of the game. But I approach the game as a musician as well, and want it to best replicate the experience of playing a real drum kit. Add to that the fact that the Rockband kit can expand with the addition of cymbals (and already has with the ion kit) and I think Rockband does a much better job at maintaining the integrity of a real drum kit.

That being said, I do think that Guitar Hero World Tour is a great game, has a much better song selection than, if not Rock Band, certainly Rock Band 2, which has terrible, terrible songs and was a huge dissapointment. Plust the career game play of Rock Band 2 is confusing, anti-intuitive, and just plain bad. I like Guitar Hero as much as Rock Band and certainly more than rb2, but I just think they changed the drums for the sake of changing them and actually made them worse. Of course, I'm saying this without having played on them.


I couldn't agree with you more. You put it waaaaay more eloquently than I ever could. I have sat down and played GH:WT finally and played the drums for some time. It never felt right. I even played it on the RB1 kit with the 4 pads and it still didn't feel right because they move crash to yellow or blue depending on the song and floor tom is always green. I too approach the game as a gamer and musician and it just never felt right.

RB is winner in my book, but there are still plenty of fun songs to play in GH and will not dog on it too bad. I will play both.

[Bosco32]

I'm not going to parrot what others have said, so I'll just sum up my overall thoughts by sharing an experience.

I've been playing GHWT guitar and drum careers since Sunday night. There are a lot of fun songs, and a few absolute rythym game essentials. But for me, those fun songs haven't made it a fun experience. In fact, today I put in RB2 for the first time since I started on GH, selected a 4-song mystery set, and honestly had more fun playing those 4 random songs (that I've played a million times before) than I've had in 3 days of GHWT.

It's an intangible that I found lacking in GH3 as well. It's just the overall feel...the experience. It's not immersive. I can't even put my finger on it. Obviously, it will differ from person to person. But when I'm playing a great song like Hotel California (from one of my favorite albums of all time), I don't think "OMG, this is awesome." I think "OMG, what I wouldn't pay to be playing this song in RB instead." It's a fine game to be sure, but compared to RB, it's just not nearly on that level of fun.

[David2380]

How does Gh incorporate its DLC into the game? I mean, is it like RB where you can play it in career or tour mode in setlists or can you just play it on quickplay???

[mchodge13]

Dammit I just saw all the DLC coming out for GHWT in the next month and I don't think I can pass this game up. Three more Hendrix tracks and a Raconteurs pack! Not to mention a song by Blind Melon, Rick Springfield, Foreigner, and Boston(although we already have that song on RB) a REM pack, and the new Oasis and Metallica albums. I know im not gonna like the gameplay as much as Rockband but GH seems to be getting better music or at least bigger bands in their game. Which sucks considering HMX basically made the name Guitar Hero what it is today.

EDIT: I don't think there is anything wrong with owning or liking both games. Some people on here make it seem like you have to choose one or the other. And if you like GH you must hate RB which definitely isn't true. I'm just pissed cause I'm a poor college student and have to manage my money so I can afford to buy food and beer. How am I ever gonna support RB and GH and all their great DLC?

[Runa216]

I find it ironic that Activision is likely spending more time and money promoting Guitar Hero than they did making it a quality game...all the money has been in trying to get the big bands and advertising so that it sounds better than it is.

[the_evil_monk]

How does Gh incorporate its DLC into the game? I mean, is it like RB where you can play it in career or tour mode in setlists or can you just play it on quickplay???

For the DLC, it allows you at any time to make a "Custom Set" of up to six songs (yep...a lot less than RB2) from either songs you have unlocked or from any of your DLC. I like that I can do this at any time during my career when I feel like earning some money by playing songs I'm in the mood for.

Oh, and mchodge, I could NOT agree with you more...just cuz you like one game doesn't mean you don't like the other...I love em both. As far as I'm concerned...the more music...the better! You just might have to get another job to pay for all the DLC! :)

[trench762]

K, I've had a few days to play around with WT and my opinions have changed a little bit, but not completely. I originally said I loved it, that was before playing drums. I'm using the RB1 set and they work fine, it's just the star power activation that is a major problem, not if your a great drummer, but if your like me and can barely pass the harder songs on expert in RB you'll notice you fail out alot quicker on tuff parts. The mars volta song was insanely fun to play on drums though. I still stand by the statement that GH has a much better setlist than RB2, but thats a music taste preference, but I think the songs on GH that I don't like are still more fun than the RB songs I don't like. If your mainly a guitarist and play alone, or with one friend you should love WT, drummers not as much, but it's still a music game with drum parts included, so it's not like they are so bad they shoulda left them out. Vocals, I'm not having much problems with it, looks different but very similar to rock band. Open bass notes are fun, and the clear notes (taps, sweeps, slides, ho/po's) are pretty cool, I'm guessing similiar to the solo buttons on the RB guitar, only a little more forgiving. And the sustained single note while playing other notes is cool. They have more hendrix coming so I will be content with the game. I'm sticking with the opinion that it's not as good of a full band game, but a much better guitar/bass game. My one complaint is that the last song (Satch Boogie) wasn't nearly difficult enough, was the only song I failed multiple times, but within 2 hours I had it beat. Much better song than visions imo, but not near TTFAF difficulty, still fun to play. I'd like ttfaf with the new slide/tap system. Also I said before the music studio was a letdown, I gave it another shot and while the sound quality isn't awesome it is still fun to play around with. Downloading free songs when you want can't hurt the game, even if some of them are awful, there are some good ones out there.

[mchodge13]

Ignore my above post...it seems Rockband just got the Beatles, to hell with GH!

[kiggidykev]

So to sum up the past couple days: bought the guitar bundle for 360, guitar's strum bar stopped working the next day. Emailed Activision, they told me to bring it back to the retailer.

So I did today, and since they didn't have any other guitar bundles, they gave me store credit. I used it to pick up the disc-only game, and pay off Rock Band ACDC.

I am very happy with how this has turned out, as I didn't want another of that poorly-made guitar :)

[kaplan360]

GHWT songs just simply rock in a kick ass way. So what if they arent exactly mixed to perfection,they are all master tracks with no cover music. Among other distractions you wont get:
1. No broken talkies
2. No broken Leaderboards
3. Vocalist get a practice(section by section)mode unlike RB2.
4.You can check leaderboards and how your performance stacked up after each song without quitting the set list your on.
5.GHWT breaks down your performance letting you know where you did good and where you sucked in a particular song via percentage per section.
6. no lame ass squeezing to get you higher scores,instead you need to be more musical. What a concept. And guess what? they released PS3 and 360 at the same time. Imagine that. Keep rocking on RB2,but dont ignore GHWT!

What you will also get:
A loud obnoxious clunk every time you miss a note.
Star power that looks like you are farting lightning.
Some semblance of story that is so un-rock and roll.
A giant noisy "YOU ROCK" everytime you finish a song.
and last but not least, you will feel like you just got done playing a videogame instead of feeling like you just got off tour.

Seriously, I wanted to like this, but I think Rock Band has pretty much ruined my chance of liking any other music game.
Damn you Harmonix!!

[Lolkthx]

yes, i spent the money on the game, but i only rented it from blockbuster and i am so glad i didnt waste my money.

i play the drums cuz thats all i was interested in, and all the charts are pretty much bullcrap, only like 5 songs were actually fun and the hard ones you can completely bs your way through. (on hot for teacher it has that crazy looking drum part, but i just did one speed of the drum roll and i got all of it.)

overall, rockband is a much more solid game although i do have to give GH credit on their song list. i almost cried when i heard they had hendrix and ozzy lol.
plus as they proved with GH3, they are going to fall behind on DL content.

i am just glad i only rented it and i can take it back when i am done.

also the music creation studio is ****ing awesome, that pretty much saves the game and is the only thing i play with my friends because it is insanely fun with other people.

[HyeJinx1984]

Beatles just killed Guitar Hero.

[karmalord]

What you will also get:
A loud obnoxious clunk every time you miss a note.
Star power that looks like you are farting lightning.
Some semblance of story that is so un-rock and roll.
A giant noisy "YOU ROCK" everytime you finish a song.
and last but not least, you will feel like you just got done playing a videogame instead of feeling like you just got off tour.

Seriously, I wanted to like this, but I think Rock Band has pretty much ruined my chance of liking any other music game.
Damn you Harmonix!!

I was hoping you would at least say something worth not getting it in the above statement. a loud clunk when you miss a note? actually no worse than in RB. The Star powers are different but WTF it is its own game(yes RB is just a video game as well).The "You Rock" thing at the end of a song does annoy me,but not enough to put the game down.

[Eddie_Banks]

I have gotten Guitar Hero: World Tour on Tuesday and have gotten to about halfway through it on Vocals. It has quite a few interesting aspects, especially coming from a Rock Band fanboy.

1. The ability to activate starpower whenever you want is really awesome and helps even out the odds when it comes to making the leaderboards. The only problem with the starpower in this particular game in regards to Vocals is that you have to press the "Y" button to activate it or tap, no, slam the microphone hard against your palm.

The microphones that are included with these particular games are rather cheap, and while I do like the convinience of activating my starpower with my hands (albeit by slamming it against my palm), it might decrease the life of the microphone. I already have one faulty microphone, and my spare one is slowly dying on me. Pressing the "Y" button on the controller is a great alternative, however, I don't like to be holding the controller and the mic at the same time. It feels a bit awkward... Regardless, the starpower aspect is useful and neat!

2. This next particular aspect of Vocals can be considered both good and bad depending on how you feel about difficulty. Apparently, unless it is a "full-talky" song, you really can't FC vocals. You can keep a combo going if get either a yellow "Great" or green "Awesome" flash at the end of each phrase, but that doesn't necessarily mean you sang the verse perfectly. Singing in Guitar Hero: World Tour is vastly more difficult than singing in Rock Band on Expert.

It's excessively precise and there is no pie to fill, you just have to trace over the pitches and your score will be determined with how precisely you traced over the pitches. The good aspect of it's increased difficulty is that vocals is now more difficult and competitive. We won't be seeing BillTVShow on the top of every song anymore. It can be any singer's spot now as long as you cleverly utilize starpower and maintain a combo throughout. The bad thing about the difficulty of vocals is that there will hardly be any FCing from any vocalist who plays GH:WT. It's going to take a bit more than just humming to pass your way through expert vocals, and leaderboard fanatics may become extremely disappointed with the exclusion of "optimal overdrive" paths.

3. Character creator is very limited and extremely disappointing when compared to Rock Band. However, as limited as the store is, the merchandise it sells is pretty nice. I like the variety of clothes and the variety of attitudes available in this game such as Pop, Glam, Black Metal, Classic, Goth, Rock, Punk, and Metal. The clothes sold are, of course, limited, but what they do have is stylish and most of it can actually be worn in real life, like how my character has the low-rider pants, which is how most guys wear their pants now, baggy and low, as opposed to extremely tight and affeminate.

It is also quite interesting how detailed creating your face and your body physique is. Unlike Rock Band, you can customize the shape of your head manually, while this isn't something extraordinary or new, it's something. You also have the option of being skinny, average, muscular, or fat, as opposed to automatically be toned and have the ripped musculature of Vin Diesel for men, or the hourglass figure of Beyonce or Mariah Carey for the women.

Of course, Rock Band dominates character creation.

4. Hayley Williams is an unlockable character. Her whimsical attitude on-stage is true to her character. As a vocalist, you get to sing beside her. =]

5. A lot of the songs in this game are quite boring ... I actually enjoy singing most of the songs that were also featured in Rock Band 2 rather than the ones exclusively for GH. I was pleased that they had songs such as Misery Business by Paramore, What I've Done by Linkin Park, B.Y.O.B by System of a Down, Hotel California by The Eagles, Dammit by Blink-182, Everlong by Foo Fighters, Monsoon by Tokio Hotel, and of course, Beat It by Michael Jackson!!!

6. Custom songs are a great bonus. I'm mostly a vocalist however, and all custom songs are instrumentals only, so it doesn't affect me too much. But from what I've seen, downloadable custom songs seems very promising. Not sure about the Song Creator though. Haven't visited it.

7. You can now download more than one DLC at a time. They will appear under your Active Downloads tab until they are done. =]


SUMMARY: The new features of Guitar Hero: World Tour may not be revolutionary but are pretty nice. It's a challenging game for all vocalists. If you are a singer looking a challenge, Guitar Hero: World Tour is pretty ideal. If you like to gold star all of your songs as a vocalist, avoid this game and stick with Rock Band.

[Entolin]

This helped me alot...i really didnt want to get the whole pack.

I love RB2...but they dont have eddie knox so i might get it.

[PCTraitor]

I bought it. I really like the GH WT guitar. It's my new main axe. It feels great and I am getting better scores than normal on it. But sadly that is the only good thing I can say about the newest guitar hero.

I just cannot get past the art style. Who cares if you can make your own character if they all look terrible. They look like some kind of weird marionettes especially the guest star characters. That character of Billy Corgan looked terrible! Yeah I know it's a rhythm game and it's not about the graphics, but I can't get past this. Especially since a better looking game already exists. Flourescent colors does not equal better graphics.

The game itself plays weird. The whole thing with the venues in their particular order is really annoying. The difficulty goes from insanely easy to insanely difficult over the span of 3 songs then becomes insanely easy again.

I can't get used to the circles anymore. They are just too large. They tend to clump up and you can't see how many there are or exactly when to hit them.

And the song creator. I only messed with it for an hour but apparently it requires additional midi equipment and/or some technical know how that I currently do not possess. You can use your plastic guitar to play within selected scales. It can record them and you can play them back. There really needs to be a way to place notes by hand instead of requiring you to play it. Some type of drag and drop on a fretboard and then you can cut and paste it. Why do you have to play it and record it? Is there a way to edit? I only looked at it an hour, but it did not feel accessible and was unnecessarly complicated. 99% of the audience will not be able to turn out anything of quality using this.

Waste of money. I'm keeping the guitar and selling back the game.

[Phane7]

I haven't had much of a chance to play with it but I was expecting either a good Rock Band clone or for a refreshing change of pace in the genre. Instead, it feels like I got a cheap Rock Band clone where they tried to copy it but settled for what they could get within time constraints and then they didn't bother to polish it.

The art/logo creator is a blatant ripoff although they made a set of original tools to modify the existing art that is a great deal less intuitive and capable than the ones within RB.

The UI is filled with rather major flaws like not being able to navigate using the drum pads, only being able to choose difficulty in multiplayer before you start searching for people and pick songs. Not being able to manually continue searching or stop searching for more members if you're happy/not happy with what you got. I was watching my guitarist butcher a solo and sitting there with no clue as to how close he was to failing out because there's no meter for him on my screen. Character creation and band naming is a pain in the #$*& when it won't even let you use the dashboard's keyboard function or a USB keybaord to enter it. You instead have to manually cycle through all the letters in the alphabet and pick each individual letter ghetto arcade style.

Hell, the loading screen even looks like a badly pixelated MPEG on a loop. That's a lot of flaws to find in just an hour of messing around.

[ESCOBEN]

here is the question since i won the game and guitar from kfc and it will take 6-8 weeks to get it should i...

A: buy just the game only to hold me over.

or

B: wait for it lol

[kingtonyx]

I rented it against my best judgement

I don't like the way they handle vocals at all and the character creation SUCKS compared to Rock Band, even compared to Rock Band 1

also you have pay in-game money to unlock the Tool tracks?

I have enjoyed giving a few of the tracks a go though, but why couldn't they be on Rock Band instead? :(

[ESCOBEN]

so this is a stumble drunkly into blockbuster and rent and then yell at the tv when playing it "WHY DO YOU SUCK???????????? I WANT MY 8 BUCKS BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"?

[kingtonyx]

so this is a stumble drunkly into blockbuster and rent and then yell at the tv when playing it "WHY DO YOU SUCK???????????? I WANT MY 8 BUCKS BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"?

haha well I guess it was worth the rental

[the_evil_monk]

'Nother update...last night was a good test, as I had my little bro over and we spent a couple of hours on a band career. Good test, as he and I have killed MANY MANY hours in RB1 and RB2. He plays Expert and Hard guitar, and I play Hard drums...so I was interested to see what he thought of the game.

He loved the character creation, he was able to make a completely mutant looking guy and outfit him in pretty creepy threads. He jammed a couple on guitar while I was getting my kids to bed, then we sat down to knock out a couple hours in career mode. Impressions from my bro: GHWT has a better track list - more songs that are very familiar, fun songs to play. Touch pad solos suck a$$...use the frets instead. Timing window is so much more forgiving than RB, so you can fake your way through some parts and still keep your multiplier. Graphics are brighter than RB, not better or worse (since the facial animation in RB is nonexistant), just different.

Overall, we had a blast playing through several tiers of music. I found that I really HATE that songs I unlock in my Guitar solo career aren't unlocked in my solo Drum career OR in Band career mode...

Final major test is tomorrow night, as we host a bunch of friends for Halloween...these are our Rock Band friends who ALWAYS jam at our house...so it will be very interesting to see which game ends up in the PS3 for the majority of the night...GHWT or RB2? I'll let y'all know on Saturday...

[ESCOBEN]

haha well I guess it was worth the rental

i was gonna call blockbuster today and see if they have it. i doubt they will

[holo7]

Played it through expert guitar for a few good days, guitar only as I'm a lazy drummer and don't bother singing. So with that in mind, it's a 1/2 review at best w/o the full band.

For my own personal tastes, the track list sucks other than a handful. That killed most of the game for me - if you're not playing music you enjoy, you're obviously not going to enjoy the game much. So there is that bias here.

The character creation was plenty fine - though the generic made up rockers for the rest of your band still look much more cartoony gh goofy unlike rock band. That being said, I was impressed with billy corrigan, sting and ozzy - good likenesses.

The music creator seems a hugely powerful tool. I downloaded several classic themes and played them through on expert - mario, zelda, etc. That's a great feature for those that have the patience to create for it - freebies for the masses is always good.

The career mode was easy enough on expert, comparable to rock band's. Again, a full band experience would be a better review. My rb crew isn't getting together for another week or so though and I'm too cheap to pay another rental fee considering I don't care for the track list.

If you like the track list, I don't see any reason why not to pick up both if you have the cash. The music creator is worth it's weight in gold, especially when you pull up gtunes(their version) and recognize some songs you like. RB still seems the overall winner with DLC for the time being. GHWT has copied their music store though - so perhaps they'll be upping the ante this time around.

[mprachar]

Well, I am also coming down on the side of RB2 over GH:WT.

I also bought the game for the songs that just never seem to be available on RB. In all honesty, I "picked" RB1 last year so that my wife could play drums, and after seeing the promotional vide for GH:WT at Best Buy I figured it would be the best of both worlds.

Without going into the painstaking detail many of the reviewers here have, I can boil it down to a few things:

1. Timing windows. WOW - no wonder those GH kids on tv look so good! While the argument could be made that it's more fun to play more interesting parts without failing out, it feels sort of cheap to me-like a cheat.

2. Sound quality. I play through a decent amp and speakers off of the uncompressed digital stream coming from the HDMI port on my PS3, and the GH:WT audio has weird compression artifiacts; even between sets. On top of the sound quality itself, many of the mixes are just plain wrong. IMO the game version should be a faithful reproduction of the original song (otherwise lets just play covers) and that is NOT the case here. In several songs the vocals are buried in the mix and in others the guitar part is just plain too loud. An exception is the Death Metallic album; the original of that is SOOOOO bad that any moron could have done a better job (and did.)

3. Overcharting. I had never heard this term until this thread, but it makes perfect sense after playing the game. It is goofy and weird to be playing all over the fretboard simply for the sake of pressing buttons.

4. Controllers. I can't get into the GH guitar. The frets are just enough farther apart then on the the RB strat that I am always in the wrong place. I think this is just my preference as an RB player.

5. All Fail/Who failed? Just plain stupid.

Overall, GH:WT is more of a "game" where RB 1&2 seem to be trying harder to make ALL band members feel like they are playing instruments, and superior performance is rewarded. In RB if you nail a song you feel GOOD about it because you really did nail it. In GH, you can get by with sloppy performances that make you feel guilty.

So, I returned the band kit and bought the game-only version. (Amazon rocks! they refunded they package because I didnt like it :) ) I figured for $60, there are still songs you cant get in RB and there will likely be more. Also, the next time I have a few people over that want to play, GH will allow us to get far drunker thatn RB will and still be able to play ;)

[kingtonyx]

one more thing my cousin brought up

the animations... the characters look like "Disney rides" (the animatronics)

in Rock Band the animation is much more realistic

[Hahame95]

@kingtony
Im getting WT but from the demo the characters look really realistic

[jblaisuri]

Just bought WT last night (game only)... initial comments so far:

Good things:
- character creator is worlds better than RB
- a lot of good songs
- like having all the stats at the end of the song (broken down by section, avg multiplier, etc)
- vocals is actually a challenge this time


Bad things:
- huge timing window. i play drums, and sometimes i KNEW i missed a double bass hit and got credit for it.
- star power is confusingly implemented... not as much of cooperative edge for the whole band to use their starpower together.
- having to hit 2 pads in random (usually off beat) spots to deploy star power is ******ed
- graphics and animations, in general, suck.
- charting is horrible (for drums).... who rolls from right to left??
- no real world tour
- all my created characters seem to have a severe underbite, no matter how i tweak the mouth

If RB could just have a quality character creator and the stats at the end of songs, it'd be sick.

RB wins.

[kingtonyx]

@kingtony
Im getting WT but from the demo the characters look really realistic

the character MODELS are really realistic

the motions are NOT, also the guy singer uses the FEMALE movements sometimes

also there are a insanely limited amount of clothing/hair/etc options, I'm talking maybe 10-15 pairs of pants and 20-30 shirts

ALSO, you can make bulkier people but EVERYONE has the stupid skinny legs and there's no way to change it

there's also no dark skinned black skin color from what I can tell

Rock Band's character creator blows GH's away... I don't see how people don't realize this

[jblaisuri]

i'd argue that RB's clothing/tatoos/etc blow away GH's...but in terms of just the character, WT's is awesome. My guy looks almost completely like me!!! rather than just picking one of 8 faces

[kingtonyx]

the faces might be a bit better, but there is a problem there too

you can't change the height of your head as far as I can tell :/

[ESCOBEN]

my characters face looks like me in rb :o
i'd argue that RB's clothing/tatoos/etc blow away GH's...but in terms of just the character, WT's is awesome. My guy looks almost completely like me!!! rather than just picking one of 8 faces

[Cubecubed]

GHWT is god but not as good as rock band.

that said when i found out No Rain was DLC, i squealed like a 7 year old girl.

[Dartagnan64]

'Nother update...last night was a good test, as I had my little bro over and we spent a couple of hours on a band career. Good test, as he and I have killed MANY MANY hours in RB1 and RB2. He plays Expert and Hard guitar, and I play Hard drums...so I was interested to see what he thought of the game.

He loved the character creation, he was able to make a completely mutant looking guy and outfit him in pretty creepy threads. He jammed a couple on guitar while I was getting my kids to bed, then we sat down to knock out a couple hours in career mode. Impressions from my bro: GHWT has a better track list - more songs that are very familiar, fun songs to play. Touch pad solos suck a$$...use the frets instead. Timing window is so much more forgiving than RB, so you can fake your way through some parts and still keep your multiplier. Graphics are brighter than RB, not better or worse (since the facial animation in RB is nonexistant), just different.

Overall, we had a blast playing through several tiers of music. I found that I really HATE that songs I unlock in my Guitar solo career aren't unlocked in my solo Drum career OR in Band career mode...

Final major test is tomorrow night, as we host a bunch of friends for Halloween...these are our Rock Band friends who ALWAYS jam at our house...so it will be very interesting to see which game ends up in the PS3 for the majority of the night...GHWT or RB2? I'll let y'all know on Saturday...

I'm surprised neither you nor your brother noted the musical quality issues in GHWT. Everyone I've had over has noted some problems in the mixes. Guitar too quiet or too loud. vocals too quiet or too loud. Never hearing the bass guitar. That's the thing that keeps GH out of my 360. The sound engineering in RB2 is just so superior, it really helps immerse you in the song.

[ESCOBEN]

well i broke down and rented it. and honestly i dont like it. my character in rockband looks way more like me face wise then this one ever will. the drums im using the rb set and its ok but the songs are either over charted or under charted. heartbreaker felt like i was playing almost easy on the drums lol. the warning that your failing comes waaaaay to late for some reason i was having a ***** of a time on misery business at 66% i would fail. the create a guitar was cool for one reason the guitar looks like my real one. i have a epiphone les paul studio in white and black so minus the guitar hero fret board its dead on. it just doesnt have the fun that RB has to me. the characters have NO emotion its like wooden puppets up there. ill give a better review when im not playing it lol

[kingtonyx]

also one thing about their setlist...

WAY TOO MANY LIVE VERSIONS!

[ESCOBEN]

dude so far the songs are boring because A: they suck (wings band on the run...really?) or B: ive played them in RB.

songs ive fc'd in rb ive gotten like 97% in GH on drums

[LordMoon]

So I was ready to say GH:WT was a good contender in the realm of music games. After putting in some time with it over the week I was warming up to it. GHIII kind of turned me off the series since it concentrated more on making it a game and less on what made Guitar Hero I and II so great, fulfilling your inner rock star.

It hit me after the first duel I had with Zakk Wylde. When that popped up I thought, "Oh great here we go again, 'broken strings,' 'double notes,' 'lefty flip,' etc. The then duel began....and I was surprised it was just about playing as well as possible, no silly power-up attacks, just play. It reminded me slightly of the Headcutting Duel from "Crossroads."

I had felt somebody over at Neversoft "got it" and I was glad they did. The thing I loved about GH I & II and Rock Band 1 & 2 is that it really taps into the music and connects you with it, like I said, releasing your inner rock star. You know, the one that would grab a tennis racket and "play guitar" or grab a comb and "sing into the mic."

I have more than enough games to tap into my competitive side, GH and RB entertain me.

Well I was happy with GH:WT......until the final setlist.

Now I know I'm just a decent medium guitarist, but something isn't right here. My average on songs is around 95%, roughly. I'll have to go back and look, but I think I'm in the 90s on "Stranglehold" even. Then I hit the final setlist and it all goes to *bleep*. Now I understand that there should be a certain amount of challenge, and that final set list is a challenge, but then I hit "Hot for Teacher." I tried and tried and tried, and in the end I had to drop to easy just to finish. This has got to be the sharpest learning curve ever in the series, like 90 degree angle sharp. I felt like I got all that way only to be kicked in the head and told "you're not good enough."

With the exception of B.Y.O.B. that final setlist is a killer for me. This puts a serious kink in my plans of working up to hard.

Overall the game isn't bad, but that final setlist difficulty ramp-up leaves a bad taste.

[ESCOBEN]

honestly thats how i felt on the drums in rock band but i got pissed sat down one night and i raped the crap out of the songs on expert now i play on expert guitar/bass/drums. vocals i suck at that isnt my skill level its just i dont have the singing voice.

[ESCOBEN]

ok this tool set is ridiculous the hell i wanna look at that eye the whole time im playing? i know thats there thing or whatever but its boring.

[MF-PO'd]

ok this tool set is ridiculous the hell i wanna look at that eye the whole time im playing? i know thats there thing or whatever but its boring.

Yes, it's a bit odd. Fortunately, you'll only have to play it once if don't want to look at that again. After you unlock the songs, you can create a custom setlist and choose any set you want for them.

[ESCOBEN]

i wont even pick the songs. i almost fell asleep on the second one. im not even kidding i was nodding off and almost failed at the end.

[MF-PO'd]

i wont even pick the songs. i almost fell asleep on the second one. im not even kidding i was nodding off and almost failed at the end.

I think I had the same reaction with On the Road Again.

[ESCOBEN]

glad i rented this only songs i like playing are la bamba and the jimi hendrix songs. any reason why they picked the longest songs they can find to fill this game? or does it just feel long and dragged out? GH franchise has dissipointed me again :(

[DarthAthema]

I rented it from Gamefly, and I'm playing with my existing peripherals. I've played mostly on guitar so far, and it's still pretty fun as a guitar game. I like some of the little changes they've thrown in to make it more interesting. And the setlist is pretty strong. It just reminded me once again that we need more R.E.M. in RB. But I digress... It still feels like a fun game. RB is fun, but the overall ambiance is more serious than GH. GH has all the lightning during star power, venues going nuts during an encore, etc. Those things are fun, but they are a bit gimmicky. Plus, they're really only fun to watch once. The avatars of real rock stars are kinda cool, but once again a bit gimmicky.

There is an overall lack of polish I think. I guess that's to be expected from a first full-band game outing. The vocals don't seem to be as accurate as RB, and they don't give you anything to do during sections of no vocals. I never thought I'd miss the tambourine/cowbell/handclap sections, but I do. I was sad to see the return of the "band leader," which is part of an overall non-user-friendly interface. Also, I know this is not all GH's fault, but there are WAY too many songs in common with RB. After playing RB excessively since it came out, I feel like I'm rehashing in GH too often. Some of the DLC so far is pretty good. I'm really trying to avoid buying too much of it because I've invested so much in RB already, and I'm not sure I even want to keep GHWT. The R.E.M. is great, and Hot Blooded is welcome. However, they are focusing too much on new releases so far. The Raconteurs pack coming out is all from the new album. I'd much rather have some from their first album. Death Magnetic is not the Metallica I would have chosen. The Jimi Hendrix pack should be cool.

Finally, I MISS THE GRIM RIPPER! What the hell? They took out the best character in the game. Why are the cutting back on the corny stuff? That's the stuff that makes GH distinct. There's the Rockubot, but he's no Ripper.

[Rock_Starman]

Fantastic setlist. 3x as good as RB 2. Also all their songs are actually songs instead of one being a mess of breaking furniture and throwing up that doesn't even qualify as music by defintion. Highs are higher and there's more of them. Lows aren't as low and there's less of them. A lot less songs with empty spaces too. Also props to them for actually going out and getting some of the most requested songs instead of B-sides,deep album cuts,second-fifth rate songs and unpopular songs that aren't any fun over the massive hits. Also a better variety. The last 2 tiers in RB 2 are almost fully made up of crappy metal songs and have to play them all 40 times over. I like metal to a point but that's rediculous.

Character creator could be better. I ended up just editing Judy and Johnny instead of making one. They all turned out looking like they were aliens or on crack or both. Can't edit exsisting charcters fully so that wasn't cool,I wanted to change Judy's hair.

I only have to play songs I don't like once wich is a big plus over RB 2.

The guitar creator is pretty cool.

Don't like that you can't pick your band. I hate Napoelan Dynamite guy. (Not sure what else to call him)

LOVE the slides. They even have them on bass.

Bass is so much better in this with slides,open notes,seperate scores and it seems there's more variety in the songs on bass instead of just a bunch of chugging,though there is some of that.

Vocals aren't up to RB or KR. I've been reduced to medium (can do Tangled up in Blue on expert with 4 stars and BoRap on hard in KRAI) so there's something bad going on here.

Guitar is much improved over GH 3. Less over charting and like I said I love the slides. I know it's similar to the solos in RB but my hands are too big to use the solo buttons because they're so squished together. (I'm 6'5 so yah big hands) Using the normal frets for them is great. I don't have the new guitar so can't use the bar.

I have it on PS3 so no comment on drums.
Overall much better than GH 3 and better than GH Aerosmith too. Also better than RB 2 from a one on one stand point because the song list is so much better. (That means not including RB 1 import or DLC)

[icmac3]

*cough copycats cough*

[Rockin_it_all_nite_long]

Who even stickied this? All this thread is is a medium for rock band fans to add fuel to their already explosive hate for guitar hero.

If you REALLY want a review of something, you don't go to its competitor's website...

This whole thread is pointless and I really don't see the need for this to be stickied.

[Aragha]

Who even stickied this? All this thread is is a medium for rock band fans to add fuel to their already explosive hate for guitar hero.

If you REALLY want a review of something, you don't go to its competitor's website...

This whole thread is pointless and I really don't see the need for this to be stickied.

Would you rather have a ton of GHWT threads clogging up the general forums...?

[ESCOBEN]

Who even stickied this? All this thread is is a medium for rock band fans to add fuel to their already explosive hate for guitar hero.

If you REALLY want a review of something, you don't go to its competitor's website...

This whole thread is pointless and I really don't see the need for this to be stickied.

thats the f-ed up thing i sooooo wanted GH to be awesome. its what started me its what started all of us on this playing on toy instruments. they picked extremely long songs and there band play is horrible if one of your friends fail. hell you dont even know your failing till its too late. trying to activate star power takes perfect timing so you dont loose your FC on drums. theres just so much not right on this game i really wish they fix it on the next one. the tool set did me in the fact i had to PAY to play songs i dont even like pissed me off. it was like the last straw. now i have to play it again on the drums what the hell?

you should read there site its even worse. anyone mentions GH's faulty instruments and they go into a Rock Band bash fest.

[karmalord]

dude so far the songs are boring because A: they suck (wings band on the run...really?) or B: ive played them in RB.

songs ive fc'd in rb ive gotten like 97% in GH on drums

Let me tell you something about Band on the Run. Back when I was in Drum Corps, we were traveling to our next show on bus one night.
I was playing my boom box trying to find a local station on that dark bus going down the highway to wherever. That song came on and by the time the chorus came up,the whole bus was singing "Band on the Run"in tune. It was an awsesome moment I'll
never forget it. So yeah,Band on the Run!

[instantdeath999]

Is anyone having trouble with the vocals? I play on expert in Rock Band actually singing, but I find in GH I have to sing like a robot if I want to get a good score.

[kingtonyx]

Is anyone having trouble with the vocals? I play on expert in Rock Band actually singing, but I find in GH I have to sing like a robot if I want to get a good score.

I don't even bother with good score anymore

especially when I can get an 85% "full combo" :confused:

[instantdeath999]

I don't even bother with good score anymore

especially when I can get an 85% "full combo" :confused:

By good score, I meant pass the song :)

Vicarious by Tool gave me a lot of trouble, and I can probably sing that song backwards.

[Runa216]

Man, I love it when people go on about how bad the Rock Band 2 setlist is, claiming it to have nothing but incomprehensible shreiks and sounds like someone threw a couch at a guitar...

the ignorance is just astounding!

[karmalord]

Ok,lets get something straight about vocals on GHWT. Here are some improvements over RB that can't be ignored. Yeah we can pick apart the cartoony graphics etc. but really its the gameplay that matters most right?

1. No broken talkies,leaderboards or superglitches that will catapult a player straight to #1 with a single srtroke of luck. (aka Glitchkrieg Bop)The Leaderboards are not broken on GHWT and they get updated almost instantly. Unlike RB1 or 2

Winner:GHWT

2. Practice mode for vocals section by section. Never been present in RB1 or 2(even after several requests)this is just as important for vocalists as drummers and guitarists right?

Winner: GHWT

3. You can see the results of your performance section by section when your done singing a song. You know then which section you did good on and which section you didnt. Another one requested from dozens but ignored in RB2

Winner: GHWT

4. GHWT could have added a one word critique after each section so the player could have the option of continuing or restarting/stopping after seeing a Bad or Ok instead of Awesome!

Winner:RB

The way the vocals are layed out are completely different and need to be understood better in training mode before playing in tour mode. You likely wont gold star a song(trust me if you got 85% you didnt FC it)so accept the fact that if you get a 95% on a song that is awesome.
My wife is ranked #1 on vocals (PS3)and the highest she has done on a song so far is 95%. So don't expect it to be the same as RB. Guitar Hero has its flaws,but got it right where RB has failed in some vital areas. Before flaming this post and saying stuff like:It farts stars,or the screen shakes when I miss a note,ask yourself if those things are as important as the ones I stated above in comparison.

[lmsublimedragon]

All I can say is, I wish I'd rented it first before buying...

GHWT is actually worse than GHIII, and I'm not saying that cuz I'm a RB fanboi, but simply because RB is the superior game...

now I've only been playing the bass and guitar so far, and i'm normally a vocalist (i do intend to try that part of GHWT), and i must say that it was all quite boring, and the fact that you can strum just before or just after the note and STILL hit it is not an accurate representation of how well you're doing...

some of the things i didn't like right off the bat... I hate how you can't change your difficulty level without having to restart the tour (granted you can do this in quickplay, but that defeats the purpose of the game)

Over all the game was really boring to play, my wife and I played for about 4 hours and cleared the first 10 venues with little or no trouble at all, I found myself saying before half of the sets, "we have the first two songs on RB already, yawn"

I couldn't stand our meters being way up in the corner, very distracting having to glance away from your highway all the time, and what's with the uber-short star power??

the studio thing, while a cool concept, is just way too complicated for the regular joe to have any fun with, I don't intend on wasting any time whatsoever on this feature.

some of the things i did like:

I liked most of the setlist, but again it was boring as i have 1/4 of the songs on RB already.

I love the 3,2,1 countdown after coming back from the pause menu, very cool.

The new open notes for bass is neat, but I'm still on the fence about it...

Death Magnetic

[kingtonyx]

I consider the fact that I never lost my 4x/8x streak to be a "full combo" since that's what it would be in RB

I feel like my posts are not giving GHWT a fair shake, there are a few things I did enjoy with it

I'll post pros/cons in a bit :)

[Dargone]

Went out and bought GH yesterday. The gf and I fired it up, made some characters and started our band. She played hard vocals and I played hard guitar/bass. She is expert vocals on RB and I'm hard/expert guitar/bass FYI. I was using my trusty Les Paul.

Pluses-

Character Creator-We both loved the character creation. Very detailed and blows RB's creator out of the window. RB3 needs to step up to the plate. Creating a guitar is really awesome. Very good stuff.

Setlist-Obviously this is subjective and everyone has different tastes but when we played Hotel California for the first time it was a blast. Definitely some good tunes on here.

Animations-I actually like the animations and the venues look cool. The House of Blues was awesome. I love the encores. The animations that you set your character to do when there is a victory/defeat are awesome. I know it's fluff but it's cool in my opinion.

Gameplay-Love the countdown after a pause. RB needs to implement this ASAP. I liked the open bass notes, adds a new dimension for those that like bass. I also liked the "tap" notes for guitar and I imagine that playing with the new GH guitar would be awesome. Since I own two wireless guitars I can't justify the purchase, however maybe down the road.

Minuses-

Career play-Very underwhelming to us. RB has so many things to do, world tour, battle of the bands and challenges. World tour in RB being awesome with a ton of venues and cities etc. Not a big fan of career play in Guitar Hero. Just seems kind of bland. The encores are cool as noted above, however. Really just a notch above a linear campaign in our opinions.

Gameplay-We definitely don't like the interface layout in Guitar Hero and she was getting very frustrated as a vocalist. It's hard for her to know how good she is doing other than watching the score multiplier and no way to tell mid-phrase how she is doing. She would end some songs and think she did very well to only get an 85%, for example. The one thing she did like was the ability to use star power whenever she wanted, although we both don't like sharing a pool of star power. That could just be that we're so used to RB.

As far as the interface, having everything in the top left is a pain. It took us a while to figure out where everything was and what it meant. RB's layout is so much cleaner. To be fair it could be that, again, we're used RB, but I think objectively RB's interface is better.

Quickplay menu-Very ugly. It's just a bloated hard to navigate list. RB's quickplay menu is near perfect with a ton of sorting options.


Final word-

I think Guitar Hero WT is a fun game and we definitely had a good time even with some frustrations. As a party game, I think it's a step behind RB but a good first effort. I think we'll play it a bit but most of our time will be spent in RB. I own every DLC song for RB and have the first game's setlist imported so we have a lot invested in the RB platform to be fair. I did buy all the released DLC for GH last night but will probably only pick up a few songs in the future while I will continue to purchase everything for RB. I really like having a ton of different songs available. I certainly see no reason why the both games can't coexist in any household. Thanks for reading :)

[kingtonyx]

how can people be satisfied with a character creation mode that has about 1/16th of the clothing options? if you count in the fact that you can add art to many of the shirts, that number goes down even further

[Dargone]

how can people be satisfied with a character creation mode that has about 1/16th of the clothing options? if you count in the fact that you can add art to many of the shirts, that number goes down even further

To be fair I didn't spend any real time buying a wardrobe and if there isn't a lot of options then that is disappointing. However, I stand by my statement that making your actual character is a blast and way more in depth than RB.

[instantdeath999]

People think the solo buttons are hard to use... the touch pad is incredibly unreliable. I can do equally as well on the solo buttons, but I have still not gotten used to the touch pad. I want to use it, but am having a lot of trouble.

[HeyRiles]

Alright, I rented it today, game only, so only RB instruments, and played it about 40 minutes today with my brothers.

~It's near impossible to know how you're doing in a band song. The only time I can tell if someone was in the red was when I checked up at the top, which usually caused a streak break (I think). I think because:
~I could never, ever tell if I was holding a streak or not. There's no noticeable way to tell me that I missed a note or something. I thought I heard an overstrum noise like in GH3 once, but that was about it.
~Couldn't ever really tell if I had star power either. Those thin blue lines as border are way too small
~Also, in band mode, why does it not use your star power fully? It releases it in increments.
~The touch pad sections are interesting, though. My only problem is the bending purple lines that really kinda bug me. But otherwise it's a fun feature, especially when using the small frets on the Strat.
~Nothing TOO overly-charted yet. Eye of the Tiger is, and I've seen way too many three chords so far, but some are pretty spot-on. The hardest song I've played so far is Scream Aim Fire, and that was pretty perfectly charted. It was hard, and well-charted, so kudos for putting that song in the game.
~Still don't see a reason why there are three Tool songs in the game. It's stupid.
~Really hard to activate star power as a drummer, but that's expected when using RB2 drums I guess. But does anyone know of any way to activate star power as the vocalist without pressing A?
~GHTunes is flooded with crap, as expected, but going to top songs ever, it shows that some people are just amazing with this thing. Also, looking into recent uploads (to see if any licensed songs were hidden in there), I found a remix-ish version of Seven Nation Army, which was a nice little surprise.
~Making the guitar simulate multi-strings makes me very happy. Incredibly nice surprise.

Overall, not bad, certainly much better than GH3 and better than I expected, but I'll go ahead and stick with Rock Band

[ESCOBEN]

ok ozzy osborne doing the vocals for la bamba is just disturbing to ozzy and la bamba


La Bamba ftw tho thats awesome, i actually wanna sing this song lol

[Xaris3514]

OK, I got my hands on the game, so I will post my thoughts here.

Character creator: Maybe I'm lazy or maybe I don't want to create a mutant due to the overly detailed face editor, but I haven't even bothered to modify my character's face. Still, I managed to make a pretty good looking character from what little options I have. Of course, here's where we have the problem: Too few options. For jackets, you have the choices of a couple denim jackets and three types of leather jackets, one of which is on the list of choices three or four times for recolors. Really, aside from the face editor, the character creator is pretty limited.

Axe Smith/instrument creator: The first thing I noticed when creating my guitar and bass is that many of the parts are nameless versions of real guitars. My bass is a recreation of a red Fender Jazz and my guitar is a recreation of a Dean V, though I could have easily have recreated the Warwick Vampyre bass, BC Rich Warlock guitar, BC Rich Bich guitar, BC Rich Virgo guitar, Gibson Les Paul guitar, Gibson SG guitar, Gibson Explorer guitar, Gibson ES-175 guitar, Gibson Flying V guitar, Dean ML guitar and Dean Z guitar.

Unfortunately, the body shapes that aren't novelty designs or off-brand real life designs are ugly as sin. This isn't too big a deal since I kinda like being able to rock out like Geddy Lee with my Jazz recreation or like Marco Hietala with my Vampyre recreation. Also unfortunately, though, the drum and mic creators are a lot less detailed as the Axe Smith. The drum editor lets you pick a kit type (when you start up the game, you can only choose the single bass kit, however, as I only have the Les Paul controller, I assume you unlock more as you go) and change the design on the shell with annoyingly limited customization choices and change the skin design with, again, annoying limited customization choices.

Song List: Too much pop punk and emo. I don't want to play Paramore, Blink 182, 30 Seconds to Mars, Tokio Hotel or any other band in those genres. The first time I played "The Kill" by 30 Seconds to Mars, I literally felt sick. Also, the country songs aren't appreciated either. Also, multiple songs from single artists is pretty annoying, so I'm glad that I liked all of the repeated artists. Also, also, if you're going to get a band simply because the competition's game has that band, don't make it blatantly obvious by choosing that band's only hit (for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, "Pull Me Under" is not only Dream Theater's only hit, its also one of their worst songs.) If it wasn't for songs like "Demolition Man" by Sting, "Stillborn" by Black Label Society, "The Wind Cries Mary" and "Purple Haze" by Jimi Hendrix, "Hotel California" by the Eagles, "Crazy Train" by Ozzy, and "Vicarious" by Tool, I probably have returned the game to Wal-Mart for a refund.

Gameplay: I honestly was surprised at how much fun I was having. Granted there are some down right bad songs ("The Kill" and "No Sleep Til Brooklyn" in particular), but there's enough good stuff to keep me entertained. The difficulty spiking/overcharting is a lot better than it was in Guitar Hero III, but there is still some cases of it, though, again, not gamebreaking like it was in GHIII (There are only three songs in the last two set lists I can consistently pass.) Despite the fun songs, there isn't much to the game other than playing through the songs as they're presented to you. In other words, the game is shallow.

Other: Ozzy Osborne singing "La Bamba" is VERY funny. As is Zack Wylde dancing to "Beat It."

[chillzatl]

THis game isn't worthy of a deep review. I brought it out at a Halloween party and after about 7-8 songs, 4 of which we failed out of (2 of those in the first 20 seconds). After that the party goers made me take it out. They didn't want to play it again as it just wasn't fun. Whoever felt that one person killing the entire band was a good idea needs to be fired.

I can't see how any honest person could have ever played rb and then play this and feel they were playing a better game. Everything about it screams rushed hack job. I really feel sorry for the developers because I know they put their hearts into it, but they made flat out disjointed mess of a game. The sad part is that I wonder how much of these problems were the result of corporate mandate that it HAS to be that way or if they really felt some of the decisions they made were good and valid things.

This game MIGHT sell a few million copies. Though I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't. Because it's simply an inferior game in nearly every respect.

[ESCOBEN]

i just wish the songs were not so damn long. The songs are either so easy there boring or just over complicated.

[kingtonyx]

To be fair I didn't spend any real time buying a wardrobe and if there isn't a lot of options then that is disappointing. However, I stand by my statement that making your actual character is a blast and way more in depth than RB.

I do like the face editor

although I do think my RB character looks more like me face-wise, maybe I just got lucky to have one of the 9 available faces lol

[rearview]

I just put back in Rock Band 2 after a week straight of GHWT..

The things i noticed immediately.. I play Guitar btw.

1) The sound quality is much better in GHWT
2) Rock Band is much more fluid.. I'm betting because its calibrated properly, whereas GHWT's calibration feature does not work at all!
3) GHWT's songs that are in Rock Band are charted poorly.. Rock Band did a great job at charting the songs. It seems like GHWT was just trying not to copy the charts and in doing so, they screwed up!
4) I play mostly on Hard (Guitar) and the scroll is faster in GHWT.

Things i like about GHWT

1) I like the celebrity musicians popping up.
2) I like the battle mode.
3) MUCH better sound quality
4) Tool , Jimi Hendrix, The Doors

Rock Band is clearly better in my eyes..

It would be nice to be able to take the features you like from both games and combine them.

[kingtonyx]

okay, here we go....

I'm not going to count the setlist at all in the pros/cons

PROS:
Activate vocal overdrive at any time
Crowd psych up sections for vocals
Song studio is fun to mess around with
Rock legends appearing to do their own songs
The slide notes for guitar/bass
The open strum notes for bass
Detailed face creator

CONS:
Vocals are judged too strictly
Vocal freestyle sections are fun for the first couple times then get annoying
No tour mode, band tour is the exact same as solo tour
No DLC integration into career mode
Larger timing window to hit notes
Mischarting
Poor integration of the RB drums
The song studio is actually not as easy to make a decent song as people said it would be... no chords for lead guitar or bass? no HOPOs for rhythm guitar?
Character creation beyond the face creator is EXTREMELY limited. I was not able to get my correct hair, facial hair, or clothing style at all.
Clunky menus
One solo career for each instrument and one band career?
The sound quality is not up to par with RB2
Rock legends up doing other people's songs

Taking out all of the songs that are available for Rock Band 2, I'm left with 35 songs I would listen to. Doing the same for Rock Band 2 (not counting DLC or RB1 songs) gives me 53 songs I would listen to while not playing.

[thabiggjibb]

I made a huge mistake when i bought GHWT....this game blows chunks. Both my flatmates have played GH 1-3, and they enjoyed it, I have always thought it was a pretty lame franchise.(OOOOHHH, LOOKIT, IT'S A CONTROLLER SHAPED LIKE A GUITAR!!!!) PaRappa the rapper is a better rhythm game, but i digress...

Took me a while to warm up to RB, but having 2 flatmates who were into helps. RB is a great game, delivers a more realistic experience(yes, you play some songs over and over, just like if you were doing a real tour), is presented better(your characters can actually keep time with the music, the GHWT drummer has never hit the skins properly, the guitarist can keep up with the shredding, and WTF is the singer doing, pantomiming eating a sandwich?), better access to the setlist, and, really whats the sense of unlocking a venue with a setlist that I have TO SPEND FAKE MONEY TO PLAY? $8,000 dollars to play Tool? Can someone explain the reasoning to me behind this kind of thinking?

The singer interface is just horrible.... "just tap the mic to activate Star Power, or some other quick noise will do..." Bullcrap. Pound the ever-lovin poop out of the mic and it "might" activate, or it could just randomly go off while singing. I can tap the mic with no more pressure than i tap my keyboard for typing and i can turn on Overdrive or hit the tambourine-hand clap-cowbell parts in RB perfect. Hell, once i did "Limelight" off my skull. Same mic for both games.

I think it's especially awesome how, when you go into star power, the whole interface changes from a color-based identifier to a positional-based one(hey, lets make it more difficult for no good reason, people will love it). When singing, its almost impossible to tell if you are hitting the notes or not, everything is BLUE, and the indicator letting you know if you hit the note shows up after the note has passed, hidden by the stupid "comet-tail" of the cursor. In RB, the cursor itself lets you know if you hit it or not.

Not even the inclusion of Tool songs will get me to keep this game, taking it back today.

[a21schizoidman]

I played a demo at Wal-Mart this morning, on Guitar (Expert), let me just say this, (played Love Me Two Times) the charting, sucks, may not be overcharted, but some parts just dont seem right, also, the instrument sucks, hard, its still too small, the buttons stick and dont push very well, plus the way they are raised feels different than my SG controller, the strummer just sucks too, it is damn near impossible to use during a fast passage in the song, also, the star power button is god awful, how am I supposed to use it while playing without stopping my play? and the start button took me 5 minutes to find

overall grade: C-


Rock Band 2 guitar (since I still use my RB1 strat) the only flaws, (since its a demo I give one to that) the auto-calibration is bad, very bad, but the other is the strummer feels extremely weak, (played Rock N Me) and I couldn't play a fast passage cuz it felt flimsy.

[kiggidykev]

I finished the Career mode yesterday by myself.

Watching Ozzy sing La Bamba really cinched this game for me as a worthwhile purchase :rolleyes: