Premiere Review - Guitar Hero: World Tour
I wish that I had a better review for the first item out of the gate, but this one has been bugging me, and I need to get it out of my head.
On Wednesday nights, Steven and I have been getting together to play Rock Band. Over the past few weeks, our little jam sessions have grown in popularity to include Jared Blair, as well as a couple of guys from Steven's ward - A.J. and Tyler.
This past Wednesday, Jared brought over Guitar Hero: World Tour for us to try. I had been looking forward to this solely because there are three songs by Tool on the disc - Vicarious, off of the 10,000 Days album; and Schism and Parabola off of Lateralus.
Well, Tool was the only highlight. The gameplay is very loose. I did vocals the entire night and the lyrical charts are crap. They don't seem to follow the actual pitch of the song. Practical example? Ozzy Osbourne's Crazy Train: At the beginning of the song Ozzy yells, "All Aboard, Ha ha ha ha!!" You would think the pitch meter would be at the top of the chart. Nope, it was dead center. I yelled it out and completely missed the note. And this happened on a variety of songs. It was odd to think that they couldn't take a winning formula like Rock Band and emulate, or at least try to improve upon, it.
Guitar note charts are incredibly loose - so if you miss the note by a fraction of a second, it will probably count as a hit. Great for those who struggle with guitar - but just not acceptable for the fourth iteration of a GUITAR game.
Now for percussion. Steven can attest that drumming has become near and dear to my heart. I dream about it, I love playing so much. Seriously, it is my release, and I love to play the drums, and I especially love to play the game when Steven is acting as the human metronome behind the kit. I can safely say that drumming in Guitar Hero: World Tour leaves this reviewing drummer cold. The kick drum marker is hard to see, the angle of the note chart is odd and it just doesn't feel like you are really playing the instrument. However, they did manage to solve a problem Steven and I have with drum rolls in that the roll is not a series of notes you have to hit, but rather a single note followed by a solid line - so you don't have to be exact, you just have to roll as much as you can in the space of the solid line. Plus, there is plenty of area for free-style drumming in songs, so that's cool.
Overall, the game disappoints. We may want to rent it for BroTime (or borrow Jared's copy) so Jacob can have the joy of singing 3 very awesome Tool songs, but as for adding it to the collection - I have to say no thanks. I give this game an overall score of 7.4 out of 10.
