Guitar Hero: World Tour

Guitar Hero has always been about rocking out with your plastic guitar, but that’s about to change. Publishers Activision and developers Neversoft have recently revealed Guitar Hero: World Tour, the fourth in the Guitar Hero series and the first to feature multiple instruments. Guitar Hero: World Tour will have more of a group or, dare I say it, ‘band’ focus this time around as players get to pick from playing drums or warbling on the mic in addition to the lead & bass guitars present in previous titles. In addition to providing new instruments, GH:WT will also allow for deeper character customisation and the ability for players to record their very own tracks.

Key to any music game is instrument design and Guitar Hero is no exception. Luckily for the gaming public, Neversoft and Activision have been hard at work in making the drum peripheral and redesigning the classic Guitar controller... just not so much with the microphone. Three silicon pads, two cymbals and a bass pedal make up the foldable drum kit. The silicon pads are able to track how hard they’re being hit to allow for louder notes on harder hits and vice versa. To activate star power with the drums all you’ll need to do is hit both cymbals at once.

Gone is the Gibson design for the guitar controller in favour of a more neutrally styled heavy metal guitar. In addition to a new look the guitar will come with a touch strip allowing for alteration of notes in a similar way to how the whammy bar works. All guitar features from previous games are present and have been redesigned to fit the theme of a real guitar (D-pad now looks like a knob and the start / select buttons resemble the bridge). Rounding off the instruments is the microphone which sadly looks to be a fairly standard, button-less wired Logitech mic.

Also key to any music game is, of course, music and so far over 85 master recordings have been promised for World Tour. Keep in mind it’s still early days so there’s not much information on specific artists or groups but if previous titles are anything to go by you can expect a wide array of genres and styles. However, as mentioned in the intro, you won’t just be restricted to playing other people's songs - you’ll be able to create and record your own. The song creator will have two modes, with the standard mode allowing for deep customisation, while the song creation wizard is more user friendly and allows for easy song creation without having to worry about the set up specifics. After you’re satisfied with your track you’ll be able to upload it to the “GH Tunes” online song sharing service where you’ll be able to download and rate other people’s songs as well as have your work rated. Sadly, the music recorder is without the ability to record vocals due to legal reasons.

Guitars from previous games will be compatible with GH:WT but, lacking the slide bar, they'll be feature incomplete. Wii gamers will also be pleased to hear the Wii version of GH:WT will include the same features as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions – that’s right Wii fans, downloadable content! No AU / NZ release dates have been hinted at yet (hopefully the wait won’t be similar to that of Rock Band's) but we’ll have those up as soon as they become available, just make sure to stay tuned to NZgamer.com for any Guitar Hero: World Tour updates.