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Video Game Review: Guitar Hero: World Tour

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By DOUG BUEL

TBO Extra correspondent

Published: December 9, 2008

System: Microsoft Xbox 360

Also available for: Sony PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, Nintendo Wii

Publisher: Activision

Reviewer's rating: ****

ESRB rating: Teen

Game type: Rhythm action

Kind of like: "Rock Band"

Best feature: Making your own characters is completely awesome.

Worst feature: It's going to cost you a bundle to get controllers for four people.

The bottom line: The makers of "Guitar Hero" couldn't let "Rock Band" have all the fun.

The "Guitar Hero" franchise has added drums and a microphone to the mix, so now up to four people can thunder out tunes together. This is terrific because "Guitar Hero" controllers have always been a little better than the controllers for "Rock Band."

You will have to pay extra for the drums and microphone controllers if you want to play with all the instruments. (You'll also need plenty of space in your living room.) But if you don't, your old "Guitar Hero III" controller will work fine with the new game.

Another change for the franchise is the ability to make your own character -- something we've also seen before in "Rock Band." You can control what the character looks like and what he or she wears. You can even make yourself. We've had fun making look-alikes of known guitarists.

The most innovative -- and complicated -- new addition for "Guitar Hero" is the ability to create your own songs. The game has a song editor. Making your own songs is going to require a lot of hard work, but any songs you create can be shared with others if you take your console online -- this is true for the Wii, the PS3 and the Xbox 360.

There's already a flood of downloadable songs for the game. Even if you don't want to download, though, you'll find the 86-song playlist included with the game to be pretty impressive, including tracks from Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Modest Mouse, Van Halen, Silversun Pickups, Coldplay, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and more. Also, this time around all the songs are master tracks of the original artists instead of covers.

Games are rated on a scale of 0-4 stars.

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