anakinnnn
10-27-2008, 11:18 AM
Okay, here's my review of the whole game and the instruments:
GUITAR HERO: WORLD TOUR
THE BAD:
GAME: The game feels like an 8-year old guitar game that has the drums and vocals shoe-horned in to it....and they did a poor job of that.......... the graphics and feel of the game are extremely childish in comparison to Rock Band. The idea of not being able to work the menu for the game unless you use the actual d-pad and controller buttons was just an awful idea and shows again how they used an ancient game engine to try to update their franchise. The track list has some misses, but then again, don't all music games. I hate the idea of not being able to tell EASILY when I miss a note and how quickly I recovered. The absence of the drum and guitar solo/breakdowns is unforgiveable at this point of the evolution of music games. The music creator seems like a tacked-on gimmick, though I have limited opinion of it because I didn't try it other than looking at the screens to see how it works. I still have no idea how to do star power on the drums or the vocals. Also, the ability to change your mic volume and vocal options on the fly is suspiciously missing, and again, nearly unforgiveable.
The note-charting is particularly bad on almost all of the songs and all of the instruments. The drums on three different songs on medium are all the same notes and never deviate from their rhytm, even when breakdowns in the REAL song occur! It's hard to believe that they didn't automate the notes inside a computer program instead of having a person chart it out to make it interesting to play. I nearly fell asleep playing drums because of the pathetic charting.....that would never happen on RB. One other note of mention is the way the vocals are evaluated. The game is VERY unforgiving when it comes to the vocals...even on medium. I have no problem getting 100% or very high 90s on most songs in RB and RB2 on vocals on medium and hard. GH:WT songs left me at 88% at the absolute BEST performance I could give. Some songs rated me in the 60s and 70s on MEDIUM. The comparison of your real tone and pitch to the song tone and pitch is buggy at best.
INSTRUMENTS: The drums are just plain bad. The hits seem to miss about every 3rd to fifth hit on the cymbals. The regular pads also seem inconsistent for some reason. I tried to hit them harder, softer, more accuately in the middle, and then ended up just pounding them ridiculously hard. No change. The bass pedal has to be the biggest instrument joke in rhythm games ever. It feels like your foot is compressing a sponge, or maybe a pillow. It will most likely break within a week of use. The entire bass pedal is plastic, including the spring! I tried to use one of the other bass pedals since they connect the same, but the GH set didn't recognize the RB pedal. The guitar feels cheap and I am not sure how good the connection is between the neck and body and how long the buttons will work long term. The mic seems fine and happens to literally be the same mic manufacturer that Rock Band uses. I never even bothered to open it since I have like 3 other mics already.
THE GOOD:
GAME: Decent character creation, but not great. About on par with Rock Band. Would like to see a little more creativity with the character creation. Good track list for the game's music overall. The songs seemed to be a hit with everyone checking the game out. When it comes to playing the game, once you get past the cheesy art style, the game is like any other rhythm game and it does the job fine. It seems to run really well, but that is an effect of the age of the game engine. Lag on the vocals is nearly non-existent and is MUCH improved over Rock Band, though the lag is still there. Calibration for the whole game was virtually painless. Tracklist is the highlight and pretty much the main reason why anyone would buy the game instead of Rock Band......and there are some great songs on there I would love to see on Rock Band. The music creator seems like an interesting idea and only time will tell on whether it will be a hit with the GH community.
INSTRUMENTS: There's nothing good about the drums except for the physical design. I got a lot of pleasure out of hitting the cymbals when I knew a cymbal was coming up in a song. It did add some fun to playing the drums. But then that fun would be ruined because of the lack of accuracy in registering hits. But the physical design is great and feels even more like drums when it comes to pad placement and layout. Too bad they don't work. The drums also didn't slide on the floor which was a nice change. They had an extremely good rubber stopper on the bottom of the struts. Although sadly the drum pedal has nothing to stick to and isn't part of the drums so it slides around the floor instead, making the drums nearly unplayable on hard and expert since the pedal ends up somewhere else in the room from where you started. Double-Sided Velcro might solve this problem. The guitar works well and the solo slide buttons are a nice addition. It seems to register well and felt like a solid peripheral, though still comes across as a cheaper version of the Rock Band peripherals because of the molded plastic texture.
CONCLUSION: I can't recommend buying Guitar Hero: World Tour at this point unless you are making a new investment to rhythm games and want to hold loyalty to the guitar hero franchise. The game might be a nice addition to current Rock Band owners to use with their existing instruments. Rock Band is a better game with better instruments all the way around, despite it's own flaws.
OVERALL SCORE: 5/10
GUITAR HERO: WORLD TOUR
THE BAD:
GAME: The game feels like an 8-year old guitar game that has the drums and vocals shoe-horned in to it....and they did a poor job of that.......... the graphics and feel of the game are extremely childish in comparison to Rock Band. The idea of not being able to work the menu for the game unless you use the actual d-pad and controller buttons was just an awful idea and shows again how they used an ancient game engine to try to update their franchise. The track list has some misses, but then again, don't all music games. I hate the idea of not being able to tell EASILY when I miss a note and how quickly I recovered. The absence of the drum and guitar solo/breakdowns is unforgiveable at this point of the evolution of music games. The music creator seems like a tacked-on gimmick, though I have limited opinion of it because I didn't try it other than looking at the screens to see how it works. I still have no idea how to do star power on the drums or the vocals. Also, the ability to change your mic volume and vocal options on the fly is suspiciously missing, and again, nearly unforgiveable.
The note-charting is particularly bad on almost all of the songs and all of the instruments. The drums on three different songs on medium are all the same notes and never deviate from their rhytm, even when breakdowns in the REAL song occur! It's hard to believe that they didn't automate the notes inside a computer program instead of having a person chart it out to make it interesting to play. I nearly fell asleep playing drums because of the pathetic charting.....that would never happen on RB. One other note of mention is the way the vocals are evaluated. The game is VERY unforgiving when it comes to the vocals...even on medium. I have no problem getting 100% or very high 90s on most songs in RB and RB2 on vocals on medium and hard. GH:WT songs left me at 88% at the absolute BEST performance I could give. Some songs rated me in the 60s and 70s on MEDIUM. The comparison of your real tone and pitch to the song tone and pitch is buggy at best.
INSTRUMENTS: The drums are just plain bad. The hits seem to miss about every 3rd to fifth hit on the cymbals. The regular pads also seem inconsistent for some reason. I tried to hit them harder, softer, more accuately in the middle, and then ended up just pounding them ridiculously hard. No change. The bass pedal has to be the biggest instrument joke in rhythm games ever. It feels like your foot is compressing a sponge, or maybe a pillow. It will most likely break within a week of use. The entire bass pedal is plastic, including the spring! I tried to use one of the other bass pedals since they connect the same, but the GH set didn't recognize the RB pedal. The guitar feels cheap and I am not sure how good the connection is between the neck and body and how long the buttons will work long term. The mic seems fine and happens to literally be the same mic manufacturer that Rock Band uses. I never even bothered to open it since I have like 3 other mics already.
THE GOOD:
GAME: Decent character creation, but not great. About on par with Rock Band. Would like to see a little more creativity with the character creation. Good track list for the game's music overall. The songs seemed to be a hit with everyone checking the game out. When it comes to playing the game, once you get past the cheesy art style, the game is like any other rhythm game and it does the job fine. It seems to run really well, but that is an effect of the age of the game engine. Lag on the vocals is nearly non-existent and is MUCH improved over Rock Band, though the lag is still there. Calibration for the whole game was virtually painless. Tracklist is the highlight and pretty much the main reason why anyone would buy the game instead of Rock Band......and there are some great songs on there I would love to see on Rock Band. The music creator seems like an interesting idea and only time will tell on whether it will be a hit with the GH community.
INSTRUMENTS: There's nothing good about the drums except for the physical design. I got a lot of pleasure out of hitting the cymbals when I knew a cymbal was coming up in a song. It did add some fun to playing the drums. But then that fun would be ruined because of the lack of accuracy in registering hits. But the physical design is great and feels even more like drums when it comes to pad placement and layout. Too bad they don't work. The drums also didn't slide on the floor which was a nice change. They had an extremely good rubber stopper on the bottom of the struts. Although sadly the drum pedal has nothing to stick to and isn't part of the drums so it slides around the floor instead, making the drums nearly unplayable on hard and expert since the pedal ends up somewhere else in the room from where you started. Double-Sided Velcro might solve this problem. The guitar works well and the solo slide buttons are a nice addition. It seems to register well and felt like a solid peripheral, though still comes across as a cheaper version of the Rock Band peripherals because of the molded plastic texture.
CONCLUSION: I can't recommend buying Guitar Hero: World Tour at this point unless you are making a new investment to rhythm games and want to hold loyalty to the guitar hero franchise. The game might be a nice addition to current Rock Band owners to use with their existing instruments. Rock Band is a better game with better instruments all the way around, despite it's own flaws.
OVERALL SCORE: 5/10
