
	Platform Xbox 360 Genre Music & Rhythm Publisher Activision Developer Neversoft ESRB T (Teen) Released October 26, 2008

- Kid tested, sturdy instruments - Great big song list, with more coming over Xbox Live - Custom track maker for those looking to make their own challenges

- "No fail" mode would have made it a lot more fun in my house

Review: Guitar Hero: On Tour (DS) Review: Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PS3) Review: Rock Band (360)
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Guitar Hero: World Tour

Score: 8.0 / 10

The explosion of plastic instrument games in the last few years has made reviews of such games a matter of opining on the song list and stress testing the instruments. Plus, it's easy as hell to write a review that declares the song list "great!" or "middling!" and write about how the instruments did or didn't break, because the basic mechanics of hitting notes as they cross the strum line (and maintaining pitch on the vocals) should be instantly familiar to anyone that has played any Guitar Hero titles, or Rock Band, for that matter.

Guitar Hero: World Tour is Guitar Hero's answer to Rock Band (which was an answer to Guitar Hero). As such it comes packed with a wireless drum kit, which takes about 5 minutes to assemble, a wired mic, and a wireless guitar (which does

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double-duty as a bass guitar). I didn't encounter any problems getting everything setup and synced.

I did have a problem assembling enough people for a band and even then it was comprised of three kids under the age of 10 so the results were less than stellar -- only a handful of times did we make it all the way through a song on the easiest setting. A "no

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fail" mode for these situations would have been nice. The other complicating factor was always instrument selection. The six-year old wants to sing but can't read fast enough to keep up with the horizontal scroll of the words; the nine-year old wants to play the guitar right-handed even though he's left-handed; and the five-year old wants to play the drums but has no understanding that she should be hitting the drums in time with the cues instead of playing like Animal. Depending on their moods, they may all want to play the drums and will fight over it. Before it escalated to the drum sticks being used as katanas, I'd step in to ensure no limbs were lost or eyes poked out. Fortunately, online play is supported if you can't drum up some real people.

The durability of the set is pretty good. As of this writing, only one minor bit of damage has been observed. One of the drumstick holders on the drum stick was snapped off. (See above reference to Animal.)

The Guitar Hero: World Tour drums (left); and guitar (right)

So, I spent a lot of time playing solo, which is not the best way to play, especially when you're playing under the wrong account and all those achievements don't add to my Gamerscore the way they should. I would include a partial song list below but the list is pretty damn long, (not including all the downloadable tracks) but here's the Wiki page that lists them all and you can see there's "something for every body."

I've written about the song list now and the instruments, so lets turn our attention to the difficulty level, which is pretty much insane on medium. I can't even imagine playing some of these on the hardest setting. There are plenty of Youtube clips out there proving the highest difficulty setting can be tackled and defeated but as a more casual player of such games, just watching those clips makes my fingers ache.

Coming in at about $190US -- you may be able to find it for cheaper -- it's a pricey game. For a solo player the purchase doesn't make much sense; grab Guitar Hero and some downloadable content. For someone with a lot of friends into music games, this will get a lot of play, especially with the potential endless supply of songs over Xbox Live.

- Aaron Simmer