 Works With Rockband Generation One Guitars and Drums |
| Review Date: October 29, 2008 |
| Reviewer: A. Woodley, |
| The other reviewers tell you everything you need to know about the game. It's a lot of fun. I couldn't find a clear answer before buying it to whether or not my rock band guitar and drums would work with it. Thus, the point of this review is to let you know that YES they will work. You don't have to buy a whole new set of equipment. This isn't meant to discourage you from buying them if that's what you want. I'm just letting you know you don't have to if you own the first generation or Rock Band equipment. I, personally, just don't have the space to house two drums sets. I wouldn't have bought the game if the controllers weren't compatible for that reason. My only small complaint is that some of the songs on Rockband 2 and GH WT overlap but there's enough songs that don't (Hotel California and Purple Haze) that it's worth buying both. |
Good, with a caveat
|
| Review Date: October 27, 2008 |
| Reviewer: B. Vaughn, |
I preordered this game from Amazon, but impatience got the better of me, and I bought it from Wal Mart on opening day. My review is based on that band kit, but I will be taking it back today. Why, you ask?
I played this game through two songs (Sweet Home Alabama and The Joker) and realized something wasn't right. I'm normally a 95% player on medium (On Rock Band 2) and a 90% player on hard. Yet I was scoring in the 60's on medium. After checking my calibration settings, I went over into the training mode, and realized that I couldn't even make it through the basic training because the red pad was not registering every time, and was not registering hard hits at all!
I switched over to the song recording mode, and it verified that the red pad was intermittent at best, thus the reason it's going back, and I will hope the one from Amazon is a better copy.
Now, let me say, overall, I give the feel of the drums two very big thumbs up. The pads felt much better, and they were much quieter than I was used to. However they get a thumbs down on quality. And before you think that this is just one bad experience, check around. There is a very big issue, first with the sensitivity of the pads (Apparently a program is coming out to allow you to change the sensitivity using your home PC) and second with the pads working intermittently. This second issue (Which I experienced) seems to be the most concerning, and from other sites, it looks like I am just the tip of the iceberg. I'm reading about people having to go through 2, 3, even 4 drum sets to get a good one. Many of the stores are not sold out, but are returned out. And this apparently stems from the wires to the drum pads simply being held on with silicone which is not holding everything together.
I really really can't wait until they get this set completely fixed, but since Activision is requiring YOU to pay for shipping if it's broken out of the box, might want to delay, at least for now.
Also, since I bought this game based on the promise of cross-compatibility, it should be stated that the drums do NOT work with Rock Band 2 at this point! Hopefully it's just a matter of a patch coming out, but it's a little disconcerting.
*******EDIT 11/10/08*******
As I was still having problems with a cymbal, I did contact the nice support people, who sounded quite exasperated, but immediately sent me out a tuning kit. This kit allows you to modify the sensitivity of each drum pad (Or cymbal, or pedal) to where you want it to be. Too sensitive, it may trigger when you hit another pad. Not sensitive enough, it may not trigger it all.
Now, I previously stated that some sites had talked about loose wires causing problems. In an effort to be thorough, and since my cymbal wasn't working, I did take apart the cymbal to look at the sensor. At least for my cymbal, I noted that the wires were definately SOLDERED. I was relying on information previously supplied by someone else in stating that the wires were not soldered, and I still do not know the condition of the wires on the drum pads themselves. As I said, this was my individual yellow cymbal. Since then I have sent it back through the RMA process, which, yes, did require me to send it (insured and traceable!) at my own expense.
Also, as of this date, the GH:WT drums are still not working with Rock Band 2, which is still a bit frustrating! |
Lost and Forgotten Are the Traditional Guitar Hero Fans
|
| Review Date: November 6, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Kyle Slayzar, Bismarck, ND |
OK, so this is a review of the game-only Guitar Hero: World Tour Playstation II game. If you're here looking to get information and feedback on the bundle version or to hear about online play, you're on the wrong product page.
This review is for those traditional Guitar Hero fans. The fans who...
1: Thought the price of a full set (nearly $200) is a little steep.
2: Play casually.
3: Do not necessarily own a next generation console (Xbox360, PSXIII).
4: Do not play online.
5: Just want to play some good songs.
This was the original targeted audience of Guitar Hero back in the day and has been up until about a year ago when Activision took over and began trying to sway the demographic to the hardcore players. The general audience of gamers who may not even have considered themselves gamers until they picked up a plastic guitar and began jamming to Carry on Wayward Son. To me, this audience has been abandoned in favor of a very specific audience that doesn't mind paying more. Marketing wise it makes some sense but along the way Activision alienated their traditional family and casual audience.
I'm sure the game is uber-fantastic on the next generation consoles with the drums, mic, and internet options but for those of us who just want to play guitar, we've been sold short.
Let us begin.
First is the soundtrack. It boasts some excellent classic songs like Beat It, which is ironic since my review on Guitar Hero 3 called for this song and everyone thought I was insane, believing the franchise should not be "Pop Hero." There are other great songs like Hotel California, Crazy Train, Eye of the Tiger, etc. There are even some decent recent ones by Haley Something and Jimmy Eats World. However, there are several issues with the selection.
For one, it is overwhelmingly songs from the past 15 years. The designers had a huge love for 90s music. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but when you're trying to entice gamers from a wide-range of generations and bring in new ones on the basis of song recognition, you MUST balance your selection. It's as if the designers wanted to focus on young adults ages 13-21 and throw 22+ gamers a bone or two with Ted Nugent and Pat Benetar. This is bad marketing. Rock Band, at least, had the brains to balance their selection nearly perfectly. Very few songs prior to 1975 were used and the designers could've used considerably more.
I have a few minor issues with some of the selection of live versus recorded tracks such as Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze and Sweet Home Alabama. I thought the vocals were considerably better on the recorded tracks.
Lastly, the television advertisements showed players (hilariously portrayed by famous athletes including Michael Phelps) playing Old Time Rock and Roll by Bob Segar. This excited me as I love that song, so I searched and searched all 90+ songs for it... to no avail! I should have looked on the official website for a complete track list as they didn't include it. This is false advertising. Commercials for previous installments used songs actually from the games, this game should not have been an exception. If the song is there and I'm not seeing it, someone please tell me how to get it!
Next, the game is severely glitchy. I can tell Activision dumbed down the graphics and then directly ported it to the PSXII. Many times the characters on stage will do one move then immediately change a pose or position entirely. This happens at the end of every song. I've also had the game freeze a number of times when I'm customizing my character. Fortunately, this does not delete my memory card or data... yet. Lastly, the loading time is atrocious. I thought Guitar Hero 3 was bad, this one is even worse. Just to sign in under co-op, you have to wait ten seconds for the character visuals to load even if you're already set to go. Making changes to your rocker takes several minutes and half of that is loading time.
Again, I can tell they dumbed it down for last generation systems but daaaang. This was more then awful.
My last complaints deal with the format itself. Unlike previous Guitar Hero installments, World Tour requires you to play through an entire play list to advance to the next group of songs IN ONE SITTING. This means you gotta set aside at least ten minutes to play each 'gig.' To make matters worse, the more you advance in the game the LONGER the gigs get. One particular gig took me almost an hour. This WILL alienate casual gamers as the game requires a lot of time just to advance. This is not Oblivion or some extensive RPG that requires a lot of effort, this is Guitar Hero, the game that is supposed to market to the casual gamer! The audience should never be forced to do anything unnecessary and that's exactly what this is.
To a certain degree they did keep the boss battles albeit under different rules. Instead of sending battle thingies back and forth to screw the other up, you just play and play. I still think they could have done without it. Lastly, they now make you pay money to unlock certain gigs. I think this is a big no-no especially since the songs were not even worth it unless you're a Tool fan.
Now, despite my large reservations I do have some praise. The designers did fix two major issues. The first is when you pause. Originally you had to immediately jump in the song but now you have a few seconds to align your hands. The second improvement is that you can now hoard star power in co-op and build star power even when it's deployed. This makes point maximizing that much easier.
Then there's the sound studio. I'm still trying to get it to work but I think you need the full kit. It's a nifty idea but will be lost on those who just bought the game only.
All in all, the game is not bad but the designers forgot many things. It seems as though you have to play it on a next-gen console and with the full set in order to truly appreciate it. This is bad for marketing. I'll stick with Wii Music until the prices on the sets drop like 50%. Get Guitar Hero 2 if you're new to this. It's not glitchy, had great songs, and doesn't require a whole paycheck to own.
|
Terrible Guitar
|
| Review Date: November 21, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Kevin P. Holt, |
I always preferred the Guitar Hero guitar to the Rock Band guitar (play-wise anyway) but the quality of the Guitar Hero guitars is weak. GH3 guitar had problems with the connection between the neck and the body. That has been fixed with GHWT, but the new one lacks in new areas. Mostly the strum bar. Occasionally mine registers extra hits (RedOctane's fix is to "hold" the strum bar and not "strum or flick"). Also, it will occasionally not register strums at all (My solution to that problem is to smack the body of the guitar with my palm, which I shouldn't have to do at all). And, probably the most irritating thing, my strum bar feels like it's rubbing against something on the up-strum, which throws my flow off just enough to miss notes.
I've done some research and I'm not the only one having these problems. GHWT would be an awesome game if the guitar wasn't crap. I highly recommend GHWT if you have a guitar the works properly.
Hopefully they can get it right, because the guitar feels good in my hands, except for these couple problems. |
How do I even begin...
|
| Review Date: October 26, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Jack Treese, Holley, NY |
I picked this up at midnight for the launch at Wal-Mart. I couldn't afford the band kit just yet, so this review is based solely on the Guitar Kit for the Wii.
And about that new guitar controller... it's just nothing short of amazing. The fret buttons are lightly spaced apart more, and we have a touch pad to work with. This pad is very useful for tapping during solos, making it easier to keep your multiplier going when you need it to. There's also a dedicated star power button next to a more sturdy strum bar. Add all of that to the more heavy-duty feel of the controller and you've got what Guitar Hero fans have been wanting since its start in 2005.
Now, the software... once again, it's fantastic. Wii owners like myself were disappointed when Guitar Hero III was released to the system sans downloadable content. The online capability was nice, but no new content left a stale taste after a while. This time around, Activision redeemed themselves by not only adding DLC, but allowing the option to save it to an SD card rather than to the limited memory on the Wii. The premium songs are reasonably priced at around 200 Wii Points (or $2) per song. Also, several online play modes have been added to keep you busy, even if you're limited to only one instrument.
There's a new Music Studio feature that allows you to make your own music and share it online with other players. While a very nice feature indeed, at first it can seem overwhelming with the vast variety of choices for your sound. This mode is best to be explored with a full band however. In the mean-time, there's a very fun (and very Wii-exclusive) feature called "Mii Freestyle," which enables even the most "newbish" players to make some beautiful sounds. One person can play with a guitar controller, while the other joins in with the drum kit or the Wii Remote and Nunchuck.
In addition, Quickplay now allows you to earn in-game cash while you're playing. Also, you're now able to pick up to six songs for your Quickplay session. In-game cash can be used to unlock bonus material, new guitars, new characters, and even new customizations for your own in-game character. Oh by the way, you can create your own rocker now too.
I may have even forgotten a few slight details, but the point is that no matter what route you go down, Guitar Hero World Tour is definitely a worthy title to add to your Wii collection, and is easily the most addicting video game of 2008.
Speaking of addicting... |
Be careful when buying this!
|
| Review Date: February 25, 2009 |
| Reviewer: N. Sooknarine, Trinidad |
Guitar Hero World Tour Guitar Kit for Wii
This is an excellent game....with one major problem....
The mechanism used to make the guitar has one fault...the strum bar has given a lot of ppl including myself a lot of grief. The game itself is a masterpiece and I adored playing it however after about 3 1/2 weeks of playing it it stopped registering my down strokes. This is a common problem (you can search it and see).
On the other hand there are ppl who've purchased it and had no problems so it's a luck and chance thing I guess. Good Luck to those of you who decide to buy it. I hope you have better luck than I did. |
Fixed PS2 read error
|
| Review Date: December 30, 2008 |
| Reviewer: C Man, |
Here's what I did to fix the same problem on my PS2 (Slim model # SCPH-70012). This should work for all models of PS2's. (Slim or Fat). Sony says all models can read a dual layer disc. If the fix doens't work then you need to send in your PS2 for service.
1) Start up the PS2 with no disc in it.
2) Highlight the 'Browser' menu and press the 'green triangle' button.
3) Highlight the 'Console' menu and press the 'green triangle' button.
4) Highlight the 'Diagnostics' menu and press the 'blue X' button and select 'ON'.
5) Press the 'red O' button to back out of this menu.
6) Highlight the 'PlaystationDrive' menu and press the 'green triangle' button.
7) Highlight the 'Disc Speed' menu and press the 'blue X' button and select 'FAST'.
8) Press the 'red O' button to back out of this menu.
9) Turn off your PS2.
10) This step is optional.......I blew into the main unit to loosen any dust out of it and then carefully used my shirt to wipe across the lens at the back of the drive. I'm not sure if this mattered or not. Since I did this in conjuction with the above steps I can't say if this is needed.
11) Insert the disc and turn the PS2 back on. The diagnostics should run and automatically adjust your PS2 to play the game. I was amazed! Mine loaded right up after several previous days of nothing.
12) I checked the settings after the initial load and the Diagnostics and Drive speed reset to normal so it must be a one time run thing. My game has loaded everytime since and I haven't had to re-do the settings at all.
I hope this works for you too!! |
Another Great Guitar Hero Game!!!
|
| Review Date: October 28, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Laura, New York USA |
I give this game 5 stars for innovation, depth, playability, graphics, sound and overall fun, fun, fun! If you like guitar hero in general you will love this version! I did not buy the full kit only because my family seems not to love the drums and vocals parts. We purchased the guitar pack because we were interested in seeing how the new controller features worked. They are so much fun and add a whole new level of fun to this wonderfully original game.
The track list is simply amazing. First, the fact that there are just so many songs, way more than normal in such a game, made the game well worth the price. The range of genres represented is also impressive. It was as much fun for me to play a song by Nirvana as a real classic by the Allman Brothers. It really fed my inner rock monster!
The new controller and other new features (graphics and characters) make this game a blast. It is not your mother's guitar hero! Hmmm maybe not the best analogy, but the game really does have a new look and the controller variations are fund and realistic. I found the game to be a bit too easy on medium (where we usually start), but very challenging on hard! Rock On!!! |
A Mix of Strengths and Weaknesses
|
| Review Date: November 1, 2008 |
| Reviewer: J. Garlen, HUNTSVILLE, AL USA |
Having played Rock Band and RB2 at a friend's house for some time, we were waiting with great anticipation for GHWT as our first rhythm game purchase. I have to say that my feelings about the game are mixed now that I have played it a bit. I like quite a few of the songs, and I like the bass guitar and lead guitar parts fine, although they do raise the difficulty level from previous GH titles.
My chief frustration with the game is its vocal part. It is MUCH more difficult than RB's vocal part, and I think the way that it scores vocal performance leaves very little room for error, even at the "easy" setting. The mix seems off in many songs, making it hard to hear well enough to sing correctly, and the "freestyle" parts can be very annoying when you know perfectly well that there isn't supposed to be any vocal track in that part of the song and you have to make up something just to fill up the empty space (honestly, RB's cowbell/tambourine part makes much more sense).
I'm not "hardcore" by any stretch of the imagination; I play guitar on medium at best and prefer to 100% on easy rather than struggle through a higher level. However, since I know a lot of guys out there buy band games with their families/girlfriends/wives in mind, it seems useful to point out that the women and casual gamers in your life will be MUCH happier singing along with your band in Rock Band than in GHWT. I feel that RB's approach to vocals is easier to follow and to hear, while GHWT's is overly precise even at low difficulty levels and makes for a very frustrated singer. I would sing RB songs until I lose my voice completely and have a blast the whole time, but I get angry with GHWT after just a few songs and switch back to playing bass instead. I think a casual gamer ought to be able to enjoy the game and do well on EASY, and that's just not the case with this title.
In short, the hardcore folks will love it, but those wanting a game for the whole family or for casual groups of friends might find RB2 the better choice. |
Faulty Equipment
|
| Review Date: October 28, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Jack H. Kananian, Cleveland, Ohio |
Let me say that I own Rock Band 2 as well as purchasing this first thing Sunday..I used to be a bigtime Guitar Hero fan.
However, I soon round out, like many others, that the drum kit doesnt work well. Not only that...it does a HORRIBLE job at letting you know how other people are doing, so you may randomly fail while playing through a song and you could be thinking that you were doing awesome. Not so. Dissapointment...now I'm stuck with this broken drum and they are asking that I pay shipping charges. Not going to happen. I'm going back to Rock Band 2 and never picking this up again. |
|
No video reviews found for this product.
Leave a Reply