Guitar Hero World Tour

 Xbox 360
User Score
6.3

Mixed or average reviews- based on 182 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 74 out of 182
  2. Mixed: 61 out of 182
  3. Negative: 47 out of 182
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  1. StevenH
    Jan 2, 2009
    10
    Very excellent game, Only reason I see low votes is because of people who say it has the same songs as Rock Band 2, but in my opinion, the better songs are on Guitar Hero, then on Rock Band, plus... new intro to play styles for each instrument was nice, gives a variety, the drums are excellent, the songs are not impossibly hard, Unlike Rock Band 2s starting boring songs, Guitar Hero startsVery excellent game, Only reason I see low votes is because of people who say it has the same songs as Rock Band 2, but in my opinion, the better songs are on Guitar Hero, then on Rock Band, plus... new intro to play styles for each instrument was nice, gives a variety, the drums are excellent, the songs are not impossibly hard, Unlike Rock Band 2s starting boring songs, Guitar Hero starts it off with a bang, and ends it with a bang. Character Customization is excellent, compared to RB2, and you can custom your own music instruments! Even make your own song, its very nice. Loved the music, gameplay, even the 4 seconds you get when you pause, to be back on track, they thought of everything you need to surpass RB2. Few more metal songs would of been nice, but still you can always add downloads on xbox market. Love the calibrate thing, keeps people from complaining, I see no flaws, no lagg, just a big competition for RB2. Guitar Hero makers, keep it up, you just need to release your next game before RockBand does! lol...… Expand
  2. ThomasB.
    Oct 9, 2008
    10
    I just got a chance to play a demoed version and I am very impressed by the instruments. They are all high quality and made me wish I had never purchased Rock Band. The song selection is excellent. This game is a must buy!!!!
  3. APerson
    Nov 5, 2008
    9
    World Tour is a huge improvement over GH3 and a lot of fun to play. Though nothing fantastic, the visuals have been improved and the physics aren't as robotic and strange as they were in GH3. The difficulty has been knocked down, but there's still a lot of crazy songs for hardcore GH players (Hot For Teacher!). Unfortunately the drums (at least my set) are pretty weak when it World Tour is a huge improvement over GH3 and a lot of fun to play. Though nothing fantastic, the visuals have been improved and the physics aren't as robotic and strange as they were in GH3. The difficulty has been knocked down, but there's still a lot of crazy songs for hardcore GH players (Hot For Teacher!). Unfortunately the drums (at least my set) are pretty weak when it comes to sensitivity and I prefer the RB drums instead. Playing as the vocalist in World Tour is pretty much identical to Rock Band, so there's not much to say there. The biggest addition to GH is the Music Studio and GHTunes. The Music Studio was a brilliant move by the developers and, when used correctly, is a fantastic tool that can make some wonderful music. It can be a little complicated at first, but once you get the hang of it you'll find it may be the best part of the game.… Expand
  4. EdH
    Oct 29, 2008
    9
    So far so good. Drums are considerably better for me than in Rock Band 2. The elevation of the cymbals above the drums give a better, more realistic feel. I remember that IGN got on the drums case when they would accidentally hit the bottom of a cymbal going up from a drum. That's just silly. Real drums are even harder than this and you are complaining about that? I have had some So far so good. Drums are considerably better for me than in Rock Band 2. The elevation of the cymbals above the drums give a better, more realistic feel. I remember that IGN got on the drums case when they would accidentally hit the bottom of a cymbal going up from a drum. That's just silly. Real drums are even harder than this and you are complaining about that? I have had some sensitivity issues mentioned in some hardware reviews, but I adjusted my playing slightly and it went away. I don't know if I will need to look into it, but I haven't had to yet. Additionally the kick pedal is considerably better than the one in Rock Band 2. I had to force my foot up at an angle, which made it so that I had to sit back from the drum set some distance. The spring provides a greater resistance in GH and I could just rest my foot on the pedal without activating it. Prevented me from cramping up after a minute or two like RB2. Additionally the game senses if you are hitting the drums harder and will give you extra ponits in the song if the song plays that way. (the accent hits in Hotel California come to mind) It all boils down to a more realistic experience playing the drums. Don't get me wrong. RB2 is great fun, I just like this better. The Guitar controller feels pretty good and solid. No real complaints there. The game itself has a pretty good selection of songs, with an emphasis on some old favorites. Being that I am somewhat older the song selection struck me as enjoyable overall. But then again I also like the selections for the most part in RB2. Interface is easier to deal with in RB2, but not to say that I found GHWT to have an interface that I couldn't work with. Presentation wise, I'm staring at the highway most of the time anyway with each song, so do I really care if the look is slightly different??… Expand
  5. JimboHutch
    Dec 21, 2008
    8
    I've had this since release day and have waited to really give it a good chance before reviewing. Overall, its a pretty solid game. It has a lot of innovations to keep you learning new things on the guitar, such as (realistically) holds that include strums at the same time, and the tap sections to provide a new but optional challenge. Arguably, the drum kit is very good onceI've had this since release day and have waited to really give it a good chance before reviewing. Overall, its a pretty solid game. It has a lot of innovations to keep you learning new things on the guitar, such as (realistically) holds that include strums at the same time, and the tap sections to provide a new but optional challenge. Arguably, the drum kit is very good once you've ordered the USB-MIDI adapter so you can fix the sensitivity (its free). Couple issues with the drums themselves - the legs seem near impossible to take apart and the kick pedal's velcro won't stick to some people's carpet. When it does stick, its great, but on the one in my home it doesn't and it just moves around too much if you play heel-up. Couple gripes: they take each drum literally, so you spend a lot of time on the left-hand side of the drum kit while barely using the right. Even if in real life a drummer may have two snare drums, here its always grouped into the red drum on the kit. Next, the drum audio, while more reactive than Rock Band's (the original at least), still isn't as reactive as I would like, and if you mess up mid-way through a fill, the audio for the drums clearly keep going even though you stopped hitting the drums. Speaking of audio, I dont know why they used a live recording for one of Hendrix's songs, because you can hear the other instruments come through other channels. So when you mess up it just gets quieter but you still hear the audio. I ended up swapping out my original guitar that came with the band kit, which lost its downstrum functionality after a few days, with a new one, only to have the new one have a squeaky strum bar. Fortunately, I was able to resolve that issue easily with WD-40, a q-tip, a paper towel, and 7 minutes. The mic works ok, on normal its fairly easy to get right if you try, on hard you start seeing issues on certain songs. For example, some songs seem to have a small amount of lag for when the comet moves (up to half a second), and also the mic simply cannot detect low sounds. If you use a deeper octave and try to hit the lower notes, it just freezes in place. If you switch to a higher octave, it works fine. The real issue is that several songs have the singer use that lower octave, so it ends up being a frustrating experience. Its not like I'm talking about Isaac Hayes low here either. Likewise, the note scales for singing seems to change from song to song. So the middle note for one song seems to be different on another. This isn't so bad except that the high/low gets set to some position that results in going slightly lower changing the comet to a high, and going higher changing it to low, when the comet isn't even near the edge of the highway. People who have used guitar tuners will sympathize with this frustration. Finally, "talky" parts are basically just a matter of making some sort of noise during their presence, which means you could stick a fan up to it and get full points. The music studio is not worth buying this for it. Its certainly impressive at times, but has too many limitations that seem entirely unnecessary. An example is that hammer-ons and pull-offs are automatic to the harmony guitar, and the harmony guitar can only do chords. The lead guitar can do hammer-ons/pull-offs at whatever interval it wants, but it can't do chords at all. Likewise, the bass instrument sounds nothing like bass. It sounds exactly like the MIDI "slap bass" instrument. Younger children may enjoy making their own songs but I can't imagine that many adults appreciating it until the music sounds realistic. Switching back to songs in general, the sound channels, while a huge improvement over guitar hero 3, still sometimes picks out the very faint guitar to do the notes for when there is another guitar dominating volume-wise. Finally, the difficulty isn't tuned very well on the easier settings. I was doing hard drums after about 2 hours despite having little experience with rock band beforehand. Then I found those too easy and repetitive, so I switched to expert, of which both the note chart and the crowd's tolerance for errors become significantly harder. Mainly the big issue is that on lower difficulties there is too much repetition. One more thing, when doing band-play, you only get songs that the band leader has unlocked. But the thing is, its a real pain to have the profiles switch instruments, and for every profile you have signed in the game has to keep "checking hard disk" for each person. Ok, so as negative as that sounds, this is still a very decent game. The song list is very strong and has a good variety, although it suffers from "right artist wrong song" at times, or how some songs like stranglehold are just too long for their own good. Unlike Rock Band's psychedelic eye-sore, Guitar Hero still has those easy to read note runways. The drum kit is a blast to use and significantly more realistic. There is plenty of challenge and a decent song difficulty gradient. Most songs work just fine on the mic, and the freestyle sections are a lot better than those stupid "tambourine" sections of Rock Band. The framerate is better than Rock Band 2. The drums, after tuning, require less effort than Rock Band 2. The kick pedal wont snap in half for no good reason. The band play is more challenging than Rock Band. Everything else pretty much works like you'd hope/expect it to. Finally, the DLC is lacking, but the classic rock pack and "No Rain" by blind melon aren't bad additions. There's also metallica's latest album and new additions seemingly every week, but alas it seems they constantly pull out songs that never really made it big even if its from popular artists. I have yet to play an online game. When I tried it took too long to find a game, after multiple tries I gave up. Honestly, considering there are leaderboards, I dont see the point anyways.… Expand
  6. MichaelBrooke
    Dec 29, 2008
    9
    In my opinion, this game has been overly criticized for silly, mostly inconsequential reasons. The game has a great soundtrack and is an extremely fun and satisfying rhythm/music game. The instruments are far superior (except the microphone) to RB 2's instruments in my opinion. It is a huge improvement to G.H. 3 and i highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys this sort of game. Plus,In my opinion, this game has been overly criticized for silly, mostly inconsequential reasons. The game has a great soundtrack and is an extremely fun and satisfying rhythm/music game. The instruments are far superior (except the microphone) to RB 2's instruments in my opinion. It is a huge improvement to G.H. 3 and i highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys this sort of game. Plus, it has it's own music creator which is great once you've got used to it. A must buy.… Expand
  7. Jordan
    Oct 27, 2008
    8
    The drums definitely feel more natural in GH than in RockBand. Reallt the games come down to the music tracks, as that's what keeps people buying these games; and GH:WT gets it half right. They throw in 10 or so must have songs crowded with half assed bands not many have heard or/and care about enough to get excited to play. But really this is a good step peripheral wise, now just The drums definitely feel more natural in GH than in RockBand. Reallt the games come down to the music tracks, as that's what keeps people buying these games; and GH:WT gets it half right. They throw in 10 or so must have songs crowded with half assed bands not many have heard or/and care about enough to get excited to play. But really this is a good step peripheral wise, now just fix the soundtrack.… Expand
  8. IanC
    Dec 7, 2008
    10
    I think this has been given a slightly rough time unfairly by a few as it's pushed itself into the same spotlight as Rockband rather than sticking to it's guitar solo roots. I play both, and I play both with guitar only, so that's where I'm coming from. I think GH World Tour is AWESOME, it's just as good as it ever was on the guitar, great setlist (it really is),I think this has been given a slightly rough time unfairly by a few as it's pushed itself into the same spotlight as Rockband rather than sticking to it's guitar solo roots. I play both, and I play both with guitar only, so that's where I'm coming from. I think GH World Tour is AWESOME, it's just as good as it ever was on the guitar, great setlist (it really is), and worth the money alone for the amazing new guitar with the slide/touch pad on the neck for tapping solos and producing slide effects. If you enjoy pretending to play electric guitar with these games, this is probably the best one out right now (better than RB2 IMO). But then that's just MO.… Expand
  9. NatoVanDookie
    Oct 27, 2008
    9
    I can't speak for the peripherals, but Guitar Hero: World Tour is a solid Guitar Hero game. A lot of people would disagree, but I feel that Guitar Hero 3 was better than 2 and a far better guitar experience than Rock band. GH:WT continues the tradition of great Guitar gameplay. I use Rock Band drums, and they work fine, the drum portions of songs play great too, every bit as good as I can't speak for the peripherals, but Guitar Hero: World Tour is a solid Guitar Hero game. A lot of people would disagree, but I feel that Guitar Hero 3 was better than 2 and a far better guitar experience than Rock band. GH:WT continues the tradition of great Guitar gameplay. I use Rock Band drums, and they work fine, the drum portions of songs play great too, every bit as good as Rock Band, maybe even a little better, because you can use star power whenever. On the negative side, band gameplay could take some advice from Rock Band. In GH:WT if one person fails, so fails the band, no saviors can be found here. Also, the band uses a collective star power meter, meaning one person can hog it all if they feel so inclined. Also, this is minor, but worth noting... typing in a character or band name is a clunky painful process that will result in frustration for most. If you are someone looking for the next great solo Guitar game, than this is your game, it just can't be beat. If you want tons of customization and the ability to make songs, then this is your game. But if solid band gameplay that caters to the casual is your style than stick with Rock Band 2. As some one who enjoys both styles, GH:WT is more my style, but it was always my first love.… Expand
  10. EvanP.
    Oct 30, 2008
    8
    Overall this game is a little underrated. The game should be based on how fun it is to play. The graphics in this game have improved from the last, staying true to the overly dramatized cartoonish characters. This should not be an issue anyways due to the fact that you are watching the scrolling notes the whole time. The music creation system is a brilliant addition that should make this Overall this game is a little underrated. The game should be based on how fun it is to play. The graphics in this game have improved from the last, staying true to the overly dramatized cartoonish characters. This should not be an issue anyways due to the fact that you are watching the scrolling notes the whole time. The music creation system is a brilliant addition that should make this the obvious game of choice. I have but two complaints. One: The drum set is less sensitive than the set from RB2. I would still prefer this set due to the realism with the raised symbols. Two: The set list is a little weak compared to the one from RB2. It still has some strong tracks, but you will go through them pretty fast. Overall, lots of fun.… Expand
  11. KevinG
    Nov 10, 2008
    8
    Despite it's flaws this is still a fun game with a pretty good soundtrack . Worth getting the game disc alone if you already have a good set of Rock Band / Guitar Hero instruments. This won't dethrone Rock Band as king of the music games but it's a worthy and close 2nd - if you can afford it get them both !!
  12. GarrettA.
    Oct 26, 2008
    10
    This is the best band simulation game on the market. The things that make a rhythm game good boil down to two different things. Set list and Peripherals. The songs in this game are worlds better than on Rock Band 2 and the Guitar Hero series really knows how to make peripherals. The new guitar is the best on the market. Very sturdy build, responsive buttons, very accurate and crisp strum This is the best band simulation game on the market. The things that make a rhythm game good boil down to two different things. Set list and Peripherals. The songs in this game are worlds better than on Rock Band 2 and the Guitar Hero series really knows how to make peripherals. The new guitar is the best on the market. Very sturdy build, responsive buttons, very accurate and crisp strum bar, and an amazing touch sensitive bar. Also, there is no stupid band world tour mode where you have to play the same song over and over. The story mode can be played individually or as a group, it allows you to play sets of 2 - 4 songs and skip venues that you dont want to play right now. The graphics are nice, and I cant wait to see what people will come up with when they actually start to use the music creation features.… Expand
  13. IanH
    Feb 22, 2009
    8
    This is actually a return to form for music rhythm games. The Rock Band series should have been ideal given the hybrid of Harmonix, who orignally developed the Guitar Hero serious and EA, who have enough money in the bank to secure some decent tracks. Unfortunately, I found the gameplay and peripherals fundamentally flawed which rendered the game disappointing. Which brings me to GH:WT.This is actually a return to form for music rhythm games. The Rock Band series should have been ideal given the hybrid of Harmonix, who orignally developed the Guitar Hero serious and EA, who have enough money in the bank to secure some decent tracks. Unfortunately, I found the gameplay and peripherals fundamentally flawed which rendered the game disappointing. Which brings me to GH:WT. The basics are all in place. The drum kit is the best yet. Despite people's comments on the manufacturing of it I've had no problems. The addition of cymbals make it physically more believable than that of the RB drums. Also, in relation to Mark's earlier review (scoring the game 0), I have played drums for over 7 years and own a Roland TD-series electronic kit, so I feel right in saying that the Guitar Hero kit does a good job of emulating a real kit given the price of the package. The actual notation for the drum parts seems pretty good compared with their real life counterpart.
    The guitar feels pretty similar to other GH guitars. The fret buttons are a good size and distance apart, making playing crazy solos great fun. Again, I didn't like the Rock Band guitar because the fret buttons, although looking aesthetically pleasing, just weren't practical given how thick they were.
    The song selection isn't going to please everyone but Activision/Neversoft have had a good go at mixing genres so most gamers should find at least a few songs they like.
    Throw into the mix the GH Studio - a recording app which allows people to record their own tunes using the instruments, fine tune them on a mixer and them upload them to Xbox Live for other players to download - and you've got one great music package.    … Expand
  14. Jobadkins
    Jul 1, 2012
    10
    Amazing in every sense.I know it's hard not to compare this to rockband 2 but come on quit complaining and trying to figure out which is better.There both very awesome and brilliant in there own ways.You have to get both games and enjoy.This game will suck hours upon hours out of your life.The replay value is off the charts and something you can pop in your 360 10 years from now just toAmazing in every sense.I know it's hard not to compare this to rockband 2 but come on quit complaining and trying to figure out which is better.There both very awesome and brilliant in there own ways.You have to get both games and enjoy.This game will suck hours upon hours out of your life.The replay value is off the charts and something you can pop in your 360 10 years from now just to try to beat your last score or get a higher rank on the leader boards.Think of this though,What does EA always do?They cut you off and remove online support to force you to buy there next game like they always do,so if your looking for longetivity then go with the Guitar hero franchise to guarantee that you can play 5-10 years online.This game is so freakin' awesome that It's 7-1-2012 and I still play this game here and there.So do you get my point.If there is just one comparison then I would say that the guitar hero games are 100% better if you play alone and The Rock band games are better when you play with friends,but that's it.I give this game a 9.9 because in my opinion GH 5 is perfection.… Expand

Awards & Rankings

18
#18 Best Xbox 360 Game of 2008
34
#34 Most Discussed Xbox 360 Game of 2008

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
85

Generally favorable reviews - based on 67 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 63 out of 67
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 67
  3. Negative: 0 out of 67
  1. IGN
    79
    A fun title, to be sure, but it's also a disappointment in a lot of respects. A number of things it tries to accomplish were already done better in Rock Band, which you might figure would have provided a simple blueprint to be followed and expanded up, but that's not the case.
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  2. 1UP
    91
    Guitar Hero delivers exactly the things I want out of a rhythm game: great peripherals and fun-to-play music. It's not perfect, but I have a great time whenever I turn it on -- and that's what's most important.
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  3. VideoGamer
    90
    Okay, so the main bulk of it is yet another rendition of a game we all know by now, but it's easily the best rendition of that game that we've seen so far. When you factor in the Music Studio and all the creative doors that it opens, it's clear that this is by far and away the best rhythm game available on the market today.
    Read full review
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