Take a World Tour with the New Guitar Hero

Published December 10, 2008

Activision's iconic Guitar Hero franchise has evolved from its traditional one-instrument approach to embrace vocals and drums to go along with lead, bass, and rhythm guitar in Guitar Hero® World Tour. With a vast suite of legendary songs, new game modes, outstanding new instruments, and user-created music, World Tour hits the stage rocking with its latest Xbox 360® outing.

Get the look just right.

Legendary Roster
In many ways a music game is only as good as its set list, and publishers Activision and Red Octane have spared no expense in putting together a massively popular suite of songs available right on the disc, to say nothing of the hefty set of downloadable offerings, which already includes track packs for Jimi Hendrix, R.E.M., and Oasis.

Right out of the package you'll find songs long clamored for by the Guitar Hero faithful, including "Hotel California," "Sweet Home Alabama," Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze" and "The Wind Cries Mary," "Beat It" by Michael Jackson, Sublime's "Santeria" and oodles more by bands such as Van Halen, No Doubt, NOFX, Ozzy Osbourne, Billy Idol, Tool, etc., etc.

Having nearly mastered the genre it helped create, the game is now innovating beyond what many people thought possible.

New Tools
With new instruments being added to the series come the physical instruments themselves, courtesy once again of acclaimed manufacturer Red Octane. The guitar and drums are both thankfully wireless, a major plus when you're working with a full band in your living room. The wired microphone connects directly to the console and can then be paired up to a wireless controller for menu navigation.

Your Axe
The new wood-grain-styled Les Paul guitar is simply better weighted and more substantial than its predecessors. Where it really stands out though is with its new fret slider and Back button placement.

Every musician playing is a beautiful thing.

The five-button slider is completely touch sensitive and sits below the standard fret buttons. It's designed for use when you see a series of notes connected by flowing strings, typically during a song's most difficult solo sections. Whether you slide from note to note with a single finger or tap your way through, the touch-sensitive strip allows you to move from note to note effortlessly without having to squeeze down on a button or even pluck the strum bar.

Meanwhile, the Back button now rests as a long strip right under where your palm naturally rests when strumming. This way, you can activate Star Power by exerting pressure rather than tilting the guitar vertically, though of course, you can still do that as well.

Sticks and Pads
The new World Tour drum set consists of foot-pedal, three pads and two cymbals, a setup which helps to foster an extremely natural percussion flow as you fly from hi-hat to snare, toms, and crash cymbal, moving your hands high and low just as a drummer would.

Perhaps most importantly, the drum kit is incredibly sturdy, capable of taking a thorough thrashing from even the most dedicated drummer for endless sessions as both cymbals and pads soak up the damage with little to no wear and tear. What's more, the pads themselves are soft enough and sport enough give that even thunderous drumstick strikes end in a muted "thump," so you can hear your rhythm in-game rather than the rat-a-tat-tat of the pads themselves.

Stylin'.

It's worth noting that the pads recognize and interpret the speed at which you hit them. If you come crashing down on a cymbal note, it will resound all the more based on your force. You'll even see "emphasized" notes in songs which grant you bonus points for hitting them with authority.

Mic It Up
Meanwhile, the microphone excels precisely where it should, recognizing the subtleties of your tone with enough sensitivity and versatility that you can move and sing to the music naturally without worrying about having to sing down into the mic at extremely close range.

Career
Whether by your lonesome or as part of a band, Career mode spans all manner of gorgeous, highly stylized venues, including AT&T Park, Ozzfest, House of Blues, and even a superstar gig high above Times Square on New Year's Eve.

Real-life venues aren't the only licensed stars though, far from it. World Tour sports guest star appearances by Sting, Travis Barker, Zakk Wylde, Billy Corgan, Ozzy Osbourne, Ted Nugent, and more. Perhaps their biggest coup though is the immortal rock guitar god Jimi Hendrix in fully realized virtual form. Each of these characters can be unlocked and purchased so you can play not just with them, but AS them.

In World Tour, you'll play entire sets complete with encores rather than the more traditional single song approach. Some of the more spectacular gigs must be earned not just by unlocking access to them, but with cold, hard cash. For example, you'll need to pony up eight grand for Tool's three song set.

Add to your composition on the fly.

Music Studio
Guitar Hero World Tour is the first music game to introduce its very own Music Studio, a music creation tool that allows you to build songs from scratch with an incredibly detailed toolset. Whether you want to create a simple ditty with auto-generated bass lines and drum beats, or you want to craft your own opus from the ground up, you'll find all the options and features required in GHMix.

For those that really want to dive into the minutiae, flipping among instruments, finding snaps, cutting and pasting riffs and melodies, laying down notes on the track, hand-selecting the note-type and all of that is available and easily accessible.

The Music Studio isn't static either. Activision and developer Neversoft have already released an update adding features to the Music Studio. For example, the new Mixer was added in an update, and this allows you to set the levels for each instrument manually.

GHTunes
Of course, you can also profit from other people's talent by heading to GHTunes to download user-created music directly from Xbox LIVE®. Best of all, GHTunes breaks down the available tracks into categories so you can easily search for the all-time best rated songs, the newest tracks, songs from rising stars, and more.

Even an expanded preview can't highlight everything at which Guitar Hero World Tour excels. We haven't touched on creating your own set lists, playing two-on-two, three-on-three, and four-on-four matches over Xbox LIVE, the addition of open bass notes, enjoying handicapped multiplayer games (e.g. you play on Medium, your crazy good buddy plays Expert), the excellent Create-a-Rocker mode, or all the nuances of the Music Studio, to name just a few items.

That's all to the game's credit. It doesn't do just a few things right, but rather, having nearly mastered the genre it helped create, the game is now innovating beyond what many people thought possible. Enjoy the music, create some of your own, and rock on!

Article by Ryan Treit