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.

I received a couple questions from readers and friends about the game, and so I asked them to the devs while I was there. Here’s what they had to say -

Will we get some DLC in the first week of release?
Yes, and they’ll be released on a weekly basis.

Aren’t you afraid of alienating the millions of casual gamers who bought the other Guitar Hero games because it was simple and fun? But now you’ve added all sorts of extra features sure to scare some off.
This simplicity is still there, you can still play only the guitar if you want. We even added an easier difficulty, Beginner. For the Wii version, we’ve added the Mii Freestyle mode.

What kind of online modes can we expect?
Band vs Band (4vs4)
There’s also 1vs1, 2vs2, 3vs3.
You can also play four players on four different Wiis in band play.

How will we save our songs we downloaded?
You can either save it in the system’s memory or an SD card.
When you go in the Downloaded songs area, you’ll see both those from your internal memory and SD Card.

How many user-created songs will we be able to create and download?
You’ll be able to create and download over 50(for both) songs and save them locally. From the songs you’ve created, you’ll be able to upload five of them online at once.

Only 5?
You’ll be able to unlock up to 10 upload slots by participating in the community(rating songs, uploading songs, etc).
You can get up to 15 if your song is showcased (Highest Rating/votes).

How big can the user created songs be?
1200 notes per instruments and/or three minutes long

The level of customization in Guitar Hero World Tour is probably what surprised me the most, from the character customization to the different sounds you want your instruments to make in the Music Studio and GH Mix, there’s sure to be something to keep everyone hooked on the game for a long time. Be sure to keep an eye out for the game at the end of October.