“Guitar Hero: World Tour” offers exciting new features
If you have gone to any party recently, it’s hard for you to miss the wave of anticipation for the new installment of the “Guitar Hero” franchise: “Guitar Hero: World Tour.” If you still cannot discern which specific installment of the game series I am referring, it’s the one with the commercial featuring supermodel Heidi Klum lip-synching “Old Time Rock and Roll” inside her house. Kobe Bryant and Michael Phelps are some of the other celebrities endorsing this title in a similar commercial as well. Hopefully by this point you’ll realize that the developers have performed Biblical amount of work to promote “World Tour,” if you now wonder does it live up to the massive hype, then the answer is an assured yes.
Although bugs do surface sporadically as you play (like other “Guitar Hero” games), by far “World Tour” seemed to be the most refined of Hero’s expansions, and in turn, the most complete rock and roll experience not felt since “Guitar Hero I.” Once again, a party simply won’t be memorable without it.
The first significant feature that “World Tour” presents is the models of real world rock legends. Jimi Hendrix, Sting, Ted Nugent, Ozzy Osbourne and Travis Barker are some of the memorable rock gods available to brightening your playing experience, all of them life-like and motion captured.
Along with this cosmetic feature, the single player missions are largely geared toward the career mode, where the player garners virtual money through completing increasingly challenging songs.
There are also multiple new feats you can unlock by performing the song in a peculiar fashion. After completing them, the game will reward you with special customizable items to further empower the player.
When not concerned with collecting all the feats, Wii players can actually choose the “Mii Freestyle” Mode to improvise their take of the song using only the Wii remote and nunchuck. Nothing gets more hilarious than when one of your witty friends suddenly decides to start randomly flailing his guitar in jubulation. These moments are usually guaranteed to be as priceless as the climax of “Napoleon Dynamite.”
For the devoted fans of this series, “World Tour” differs from other “Guitar Hero” games by removing the focus on attack power-ups and instead features a call-and-response mechanic similar to the existing face-off mode. Through these changes, the competitions became more intense and players no longer feel the frustration of being hindered by an overpowered power-up from his rival. Though if you are a drummer, watch out for occasional moments when the drums fail to register your notes; by far the worst part of “World Tour” is this frequent bug.
Amongst all of the new features the game brings to the table, the most welcomed of them all is probably the custom songs feature. For the most dedicated music lover, this playable “garage band” is a dream come true. Virtually anyone with a talent is now able to share his works through the Internet, Xbox Live, and other networks.
“World Tour” sounds like the perfect “Guitar Hero” game; a game that immerses the player with the rock star experience, while giving others the chance to join him and share the experience with their own instruments. This is the core genius of “World Tour.” By maintaining these core elements of the series that ensured previous fans’ commitment, “World Tour” also added the long-desired options and capacities that further rounded the playing experience for new comers. So if you are still rookie to the “Guitar Hero” games, try out “Guitar Hero: World Tour.” It’s the best condensed music game experience you’ll ever live though.