4cr Hands-On: Guitar Hero World Tour
So I got a chance to meet the guys from Vicarious Visions and Neversoft last week and we chatted about their upcoming game, Guitar Hero World Tour.
First off, new to the series includes the drum and microphone. Having played Rock Band a few times, I can say I was really impressed with the quality of the drum in GHWT. It felt better, made less noise when you hit it and the sticks bounced back after a hit, like on real drums. The guitar is different also. No more clicking noise with every strum, there’s a touch sensitive neck slider and a dedicated Star Power button. I didn’t try the microphone, because I can’t sing, but it worked pretty well from what I could see (or, more precisely, hear) from the others singing in the room.
Everyone knows the Guitar Hero/Rock Band gameplay formula, so I’ll just explain what’s new. There are two new kinds of notes that I noticed in the game for the guitar player. One is just a horizontal line, which means you simply strum without pressing any buttons. The second ones are notes linked by purple lines, which mean you need to use the neck slider without strumming. Also new to World Tour are the Music Studio and GH MIX.
Music Studio is where you can get together with friends and just jam out. Play what you want by choosing one of five instruments: lead guitar, bass and drums, which are the three parts you can replay after. Then you have Keyboard and another guitar that you can add, too. While playing in the Music Studio, you can record yourself and export your parts in the GH MIX.
The GH MIX is where things really get interesting — you can copy/cut/paste part of your song, add effects and move notes around. Think of it as a professional music editor ported to a console. Anyone remotely interested in creating their own music will love these two modes, as they work together in helping you create the song you want. Guitar players are probably saying “Well there’s six chords on a Guitar and only five buttons on the GH guitar.” In the Music Studio, you can set which button, or combo of buttons, plays what note, so you can get your full scale by using button combos. This gives you the ability to play pretty much any song you want now. You can change the scale (Major, Minor, etc) you play on, and even the way your instrument sounds.
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