Guitar Hero World Tour

Posts Tagged ‘guitar hero world tour’

Activision has announced plans to target real musicians by installing full Guitar Hero World Tour set-ups in music shops.

Actually, should that read ‘targeting’ or ‘mildly insulting’? Very much depends on the type of customer that shop attracts, I would imagine. Most of the musical instrument vendors I have ever been into have a hard core of ‘Keep Music Live’ hardliners who I don’t imagine would take kindly to having their PROPER SKILLS being boiled down to a bit of button stabbing on a pretend fretboard.

Activision, of course, see things differently.

“For many years computer games have taken people away from learning a musical instrument,” said Active Music’s Les Worsley, “Here is a game that positively encourages it. This is a real opportunity for stores to embrace the platform and bring new customers into their stores.”

Guitar Hero heading to music stores [Casual Gaming]

Get your copy of Guitar Hero World Tour Now!

What’s the best way to counteract constant accusations that you’re the most greedy, soulless and creatively bankrupt publisher in gaming today? That’s right, you announce a massive charity deal! Activision have today pledged to donate “$100,000 worth” (so, around 1000 copies) of Guitar Hero III to the United Service Organizations, or USO as you’ll more likely know them as. The games are destined for USO lounges at US military installations across the world, and, while Activision’s motives are certainly cynical, the end result is still a good one, as the games should provide a welcome distraction for US troops no doubt engaged in activities nowhere near as fun as playing Guitar Hero.

Activision Supports The USO, Gives Guitar Hero to The Troops [Shacknews]

Let’s face it, you can’t compete against Rock Band with just guitars. You can decide to go your own route and own the Guitar-only rhythm game genre, but that seems like a formula to lose money and no one is in this business to do that. So Guitar Hero IV, aka Guitar Hero World Tour, had to come up with a band of its own. And the developers did it in spades rolling out a six-piece drum kit with two raised cymbals, a snare, and two toms, all of which are velocity-sensitive. Neversoft also made the guitar bigger, more realistic looking and added a fretless slider panel. And the innovation didn’t stop with the instruments; gameplay got a major overhaul too.

Do the masters-only massive setlist, new instruments and gameplay give Guitar Hero World Tour the competitive edge in the band music genre or is the game destined to spend its remaining days treading water in a sea of retarded sexuality and bad poetry?

Loved
The Difficulties All Go To Five: Perhaps sensing an expanding interest in an untapped market, this latest Guitar Hero includes a fifth difficulty level. But instead of using the extra level to make things harder, Neversoft used it to make things easier. If I had a child not already indoctrinated into the cult of band games, I’d be elated.
Quite Exciting, This Computer Magic: Playing Guitar Hero World Tour, I was blown away at times by the animation of character models in the game. From the on-stage moonwalk, to head-banging guitarists, this latest Guitar Hero really amped up the things their characters do during a set.
It’s Such An Interesting Concept: It’s easy, I bet, when riding the tidal wave of success and money generated by a popular gaming franchise to get stuck in a rut, to take the no-risk route of more music but same mechanics. I was happy to see that Neversoft avoided that this time around. Granted they did need to come up with two new instruments for their band game, but they did so with a sense of panache. The drums have cymbals which makes drumming a bit more fun, more immersive. The guitar is chunkier, has a new fret-free slider bar and the microphone, well the microphone is just a mic.
The Sustain, Listen To It: Along with tweaking the existing and new instruments, Neversoft seems to have put a lot of thought in how to pull more out of the game play mechanics as well. The new slider on the guitar, for instance, lets you slide your way through whole sections of songs. You can also use it to tap the neck to hit notes and deliver wah during sustain. Other changes include a bass note that is fret free and sections of vocals designed for talking to the audience mid-song.
We say, “Love your brother.” : Neversoft went well above and beyond in making sure that competitor Rock Band’s instruments work with their game. Not only can you use the microphone, guitar and drum, when you use the RB2 drums in Guitar Hero World Tour it actually changes the way you play. The game reduces the number of “lanes” on the musical highway from Guitar Hero’s five to Rock Band’s four. Pretty impressive and a great service to cross-title gamers.

Hated
I Don’t Hear Anything: You can have the best hardware design on the planet, but when your game ships with faulty controllers it just doesn’t matter. While I love the slider on my guitar, the yellow button doesn’t register at all. Others have reported having trouble with drums not registering hits. This isn’t unique to Guitar Hero World Tour, but that doesn’t make it any less annoying.
It’s Such a Fine Line Between Stupid, and Clever: One of the things I liked about Guitar Hero III was its story line told through animated cut-scenes. Sure it was incredibly light, but it still helped give the game a bit of character, showing it was something more than Karaoke 2.0. This time around the game still features a bit of the same animation storyline, but it’s really only delivered at the very beginning and the very end. The gap is so long I was confused about what I was seeing when the game’s career mode wrapped up.
I’ve Got a Small Bit of Bad News: Guitar Hero World Tour has some tremendous high notes during the career mode, from Jimi Hendrix stepping on stage to jam with you to facing off against Ted Nugent. But none of those high notes come at the end of the career mode. Instead you’re left with an odd mix of famous faces packed into a single band playing the sort of music they would NEVER play if they could ever be convinced to jam together. And the end credits’ song. Really?
Money Talks, and Bullshit Walks: Product placement in absurdly popular video games are quickly becoming an inevitability, so we’re all going to have to get used to it. But I don’t think they should be as noticeable as they were for me in Guitar Hero World Tour. Plugging for musical instruments and venues: Fine. Plugging for KFC and Coke: No Thanks.

Guitar Hero World Tour has made me a believer. I don’t think I could choose one distinct winner between Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero World Tour, mostly because they seem to be taking different routes to the same sort of excellence. But I love, for instance, how the drums feel on Guitar Hero World Tour. Drumming through long sections that require cymbals is just plain out fun. Some of the other changes feel a bit gimmicky, but overall it’s a very solid experience and one that certainly isn’t dwarfed by the competition.

In the long run this genre is anyone’s game. I’d like to think that the two could peacefully co-exist but the pain of not being able to play a particular musician based on which game you have is going to eventually become too painful to bear.

Guitar Hero: World Tour was developed by Neversoft for the Xbox 360 and PS3, published by Activision and released on Oct. 26 for Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Wii and Xbox 360. The Band Kit retails for $189.99 USD. Completed single-player tour using guitar, played many songs using bass, drums and microphone and tested coop offline and on.

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Guitar Hero World Tour 4 PS3 Wireless Bundle

Guitar Hero World Tour (Guitar Hero 4) 2-Player Wireless Bundle PS3 version – $99.99 Shipped!

Use Coupon Code GHWT2P

Guitar Hero World Tour’s coming out in a few days, so check out the Guitar Hero World Tour cheats.

So far over 60 songs have been confirmed for the next installment of Guitar Hero. Check out the Guitar Hero World Tour song list.

The complete Guitar Hero World Tour set list, which contains 86 songs, has been revealed.

Guitar Hero: World Tour

The recently released Guitar Hero: World Tour will have a new song for gamers to download as of November 7, 2008: Another Way to Die, by Jack White and Alicia Keys. The song will be availabe for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 versions of the game.

According to a new press release, “To celebrate the releases of the Quantum of Solace and Guitar Hero® World Tour video games, Bond aficionados and rock stars alike will be able to download and play “Another Way to Die,” the new Quantum of Solace movie theme song performed by Jack White and Alicia Keys, in Guitar Hero World Tour. The track will be available on Xbox LIVE® Marketplace for Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft for 160 Microsoft Points and on the PLAYSTATION®Store for the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system for $1.99 on November 7^th, 2008.”

• Click here to purchase Guitar Hero: World Tour
• Click here to purchase the Quantum of Solace Video Game

To discuss this story and all the latest James Bond news with 007 fans from around the world, please visit the MI6 Debriefing Room

Reading through a press release about the upcoming Best Buy midnight opening launch event for Quantum of Solace, I stumbled upon this interesting tidbit:

Additionally, those in line at 10:00 PM will get the exclusive opportunity to be one of the first to play the Bond song “Another Way to Die” performed by Jack White and Alicia Keys which is soon-to-be-released as downloadable content for Activision’s Guitar Hero® World Tour.

I kinda like the song. It would be great if they released this as a freebie, but there’s not even a hint of that, so I’ll just hold my breath until they make it so. Annnnnd GO…..

Hitthejumpforthefullmidnightlaunchdetails *passes out*

Who: Bond…James Bond (and you!)

What: Best Buy midnight opening launch event for Activision’s Quantum of Solace™ video game.

Where: Best Buy store location in West Hollywood, CA

When: Monday, November 3, 2008 starting at 10:00 PM

Why: Already know who you’re voting for; sick of presidential election coverage; or just can’t wait for the new movie to step into the shoes of James Bond? Then take a break from politics and come celebrate the launch of Activision’s new Quantum of Solace video game at the Best Buy midnight opening event, with fun activities and prizes awarded throughout the evening. Prizes include but are not limited to Best Buy gift cards ranging from $10.00 – $2,500.00, one Sony BRAVIA XBR 52” 1080p Flat-Panel LCD HDTV, three PLAYSTATION 3 computer entertainment systems, and more…

I’m told that some “Bond girls” as well as the Aston Martin DBS agent from the film will be on hand as well.

Additionally, 136 different Best Buy stores nationwide will open their doors at midnight on Nov. 3 for the game’s launch.

Best Buy Store List

Activision and RedOctane has been working furiously to deal with issues Guitar Hero World Tour players have been having with their over and under-sensitive drum kits, and to that end they’ve released a Guitar Hero World Tour Drum Tuning Kit, as promised back on Tuesday. The kit takes the form of a 10MB PC application, which features a simple interface that allows you to assign a sensitivity level from 1-20 for each pad and the pedal.

To interface with your drum kit, however, you will need a midi to USB cable, which you most likely don’t have. RedOctane provides a link in their support center article where you can submit a ticket for information on how to receive said cable. Not quite as good as having all peripherals work out of the box, but at least they’re trying.

Guitar Hero World Tour Drum Tuning Kit [RedOctane - Thanks Nick!]