Mike Bantick
Monday, 01 December 2008 06:46
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 2
You guitar heroes, you think it’s all about you. Well now here comes Guitar Hero: World Tour, where a whole band of rhythmically challenged, living room inhabitants can get together and dream a little.
The Guitar Hero franchise to now has pretty much been a solo affair, sure there were bass playing buddies, and it was pretty easy to throw the ax to another player to try to beat your score, but predominately this is all about living out your own rock star fantasies, with a game controller and TV in the stead of tennis racquet and mirror.
Guitar Hero: World Tour
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Developer
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Red Octane
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Publisher
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Activision
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Rating
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PG
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PS2, Wii, Xbox 360, reviewed on PS3
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But now, with Guitar Hero: World Tour, and the full band set, families have a chance to gather round the Tele for a little Partridge Family action – or at least, rock out together.
The full band set includes all new peripherals in the form of guitar with added slide-bar, wired microphone and drum kit. Add an extra guitar for the bass lines, and you have the complete living room band kit.
GH: WT is a pretty loaded package on the software front alone. Featuring 86 songs, career paths for both band and single rockers, there are options to create customised rockers, Boss challenges, online band battles and more.
The song list is eclectic and varies in suitability for a game such as this, but they fact that each song is a master recording helps to give an overall authentic experience. From ‘Go Your Own Way’ by Fleetwood Mac and Wing’s ‘Band on the run’, to more recent rock-outs that I am less familiar with. The fact this version includes tracks from Dinosaur Jr, Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins and even the chance for a little nostalgic ‘Hotel California’, mean there is plenty shake your hair at.
The usual Guitar Hero mechanics are here, hit the right combination of notes as they fall down the screen, in the case of the drums, this means beating the nicely rubberised drum kit. In the case of the microphone, pitch is measured in an attempt to match the on screen lyrics, a similar mechanism to the PlayStation franchise SingStar.
There have been issues with the drums, which Activision have acknowledged and provide support infrastructure to purchases whose cymbals go a little nuts, My PS3 kit, has indeed been temperamental, requiring a flourishing technique of pounding the notes into its rubberised hides.
