Guitar Hero World Tour

Product/Game Information

Platform: Playstation 2

ESRB Rating: Teen

Media: Video Game

Product Features

Battle of the Bands mode lets up to eight players get their groove on
Comes with exciting extras that enhance your experience
Use the innovative Music Studio to compose, record, edit and share music
Features a humungous selection of master recordings
Offers more localized downloadable music than ever before

Product Details

Product Weight: 2.00 pounds

Model: Game 4

Manufacturer: Activision Inc.

Release Date: 2008-10-26

Sales Rank: 446

Accessories

Gene Simmons Axe Guitar

Price: $71.99

Customer Reviews

Does NOT Work!,
by Steffany E., 2009-01-02

NOTE: If you do not have a newer PS2 (less than 1 year, this game will not work)

Son received for Christmas, and it wouldn't launch (stuck at loading screen), took it back and exchanged for a new one . . .guess what, it STILL didn't work. Googled game and found out that hundreds are experiencing the same problem (over the past 5 days).

PS . . . all other PS2 games work great, including the other Gutiar Hero games with the exception of this one.

Good game overall.......,
by Mom of 4, 2008-12-30

This is a fun game overall, but there is one major problem. The text. The text is in a weird font, too small, and is very hard to read. Examples:

1) When naming a song, band or something else you name, it is very hard to read what letter you are typing.
2) When singing a song, the lyrics are hard to read.

This is a fun game overall, and I like the create a song feature.

Disappointing,
by Nate Cheshier, 2008-12-25

For some background...

I have all of the previous Guitar Hero games so I was very excited to see this coming out (even though I'm not getting the other instruments or a new guitar). I've played Rock Band several times, though.

My purpose in the GH games is to enjoy the challenge and go for the highest score/number of stars that I can, the ultimate goal getting 5 stars on every song in the game (guitar only). If that's how you play the game, here are some observations before you buy. First, the bad:

- They totally changed their format and unsuccessfully tried to copy the setup of Rock Band. I liked the format before that included the vertical list, unlocking songs, etc. in a natural progression that was easy to see on screen and follow; you always knew what you'd accomplished. That is no longer the case.

- Fonts: I have a large TV, but all the on-screen fonts and texts are WAY too small and very hard to read! I have to squint to read songs lists and stars acquired. They could have trippled the font sizes and still had room for the bad graphics.

- Load times/Navigation: Loading the game takes forever, transition screens take forever, and there are extra confirmation screens that do nothing but add time to the eternity it already takes to get somewhere. This was a growing issue between GH2 and GH3 and I was shocked to see it got much worse.

- Song Groupings: The songs have virtually nothing to do with each other. In the other games they had basic themes (e.g., 'British' bands, 'Easy' bands, 'Punk' bands, 'Heavy' bands, etc.) and the difficulty was well done in a steady progression. They also, more or less, chose good songs. World Tour is the opposite on all counts, and there was one instance where one of the easiest songs of the game was paired next to one of the hardest. It's ridiculous.

- Difficulty: As a whole, these songs are MUCH easier than the previous GH games, but this is probably because they had to dumb it down for the other instruments for mass appeal. Regardless, for those of us that helped make the guitar-centric game so popular it's WAY too easy when compared with the older games. (And in my opinion, the songs that ARE hard aren't good songs so the motivation to play them over and over again isn't there...)

- Song selection: While I know it's totally subjective, I need to vent a bit. I think GH3 had the best soundtrack, period. There may be a lot of songs in this game but compared to the previous GH releases I think there are a lot of BAD songs. Check the playlist carefully and really consider it before buying. I kept waiting for a song to give me some crunch and there was only one or two in the whole game.

- Stars and progress: GHWT uses archaic, miniscule skull graphics, tiny stars, and small numbers to hint at which difficulty you played the song and how you did. Gone are the days of achieving higher progressions and knowing where you're at by selecting a difficulty level. My way of playing is obviously not the same as everyone, but my goal is to get 5 stars on every song for every difficulty. This new format makes it virtually impossible to easily track that on the main song menu when compared with all the previous games.

- Tool: I liked the concept of the Tool-only gig and the graphics in the background were a nice change, but the three songs they picked were almost identical. That band has some very different stuff so even though they were fun to play I was pretty disappointed as there wasn't enough variation to keep it interesting, especially since those songs are so long.

- New Guitar: Playing the notes on the neck is a pretty cheap gimmick to try and compete with the Rock Band guitar (which has buttons in the solo position on the neck). If I had the new guitar I wouldn't use them anyway as the placement of those special notes in the songs isn't very conducive.

And now, the good:

- They changed up the star power so that you can accumulate it when it's already triggered. This is a great improvement.

- Pausing: You can now pause the game in mid note and there's a countdown and you can resume in mid-note without a hitch. This is fantastic.

- Bass: They added a whole bass section, which is sortof a fun twist to play.

All in all, if I were to choose a band-centric game I'd choose Rock Band or Rock Band 2 hands down. They've got a better soundtrack, the graphics are better, it's crisper. For those of us who are achievement-driven and guitar-centric, this game is going to gain some serious dust on the shelf. Let's hope they redeem themselves with the Metallica release in the Spring...

Mediocre,
by John B. Goode, 2008-12-21

I have GH1, GH2, GH3, GHWT and RB1 and RB2.

You can read about complaints of faulty GHWT instruments on other reviews and their own forum so I won't repeat them here.

My review is basically a comparison between GHWT and RB1 and RB2. There is no comparison, RB1 and RB2 are head and shoulders better than GHWT.

I like the RB visual much better, for some reason, they are just more fun and better looking and crisper than GHWT. I have a large screen TV so reading small words is not a problem with either game.

Gameplay. I thought the RB programming was much better, the chords were more fun and better to play in RB.

Game mechanics. The rocker creation and menus just sucked (can I use that word here?) They were not intuitive and basically were boring and took time away from actually playing the game.

Music. Loud in the wrong places and soft in the wrong places. I won't comment about the song selection as that's subjective but if a song is in both games, it sounds much better in RB.

I've had GHWT for about 1 month, but we've only played it when we absolutely had to because it was such a chore. The moment we got RB2 we tried to finish the whole game in one night. No, I don't work for Harmonix. Like some other reviewers have said, if you want to get this game, try and get it on sale, otherwise it's not worth it.

Kids love it!!!,
by Joseph M. Fucci, 2008-12-16