Guitar Hero World Tour

Guitar Hero World Tour is fifth game in the series and sequel to Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. It has been confirmed for PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, and Playstation 2 and is targeted for release in late fall 2008, estimated around October. The game was originally titled Guitar Hero IV but the inclusion of other instruments caused a name change. The game's name, Guitar Hero World Tour, was officially announced by Activision on May 21, 2008.

Info

While the game will continue to feature the use of a guitar-shaped controller to mimic the playing of a real guitar to rock music, Guitar Hero World Tour will expand to also include the use of drum and vocal peripherals.Furthermore, according to Game Informer, the game will allow users to create custom songs from those shipped with the game, altering everything but the lyrics, and may also be able to upload and share other songs with other users.

Gameplay

Guitar Hero World Tour will build on the existing Guitar Hero Gameplay from previous Guitar Hero games. The traditional single player Career Mode has been reworked, following a similar mechanic as Rock Bands Band World Tour mode. A player will encounter gigs during career mode which they can select songs from to play, but are not required to complete all songs to proceed. Furthermore, while the difficulty levels (Easy, Medium, Hard, and Expert) remain in the game, this Career Mode will allow to drop to a lower difficulty without restarting their career if they have difficulty with one song. The player will also be able to switch to a different instrument during the same Career without having to restart. There are four total instrument career modes within the game: lead guitar, bass guitar, drums, and rhythm guitar.

There is also a Band Career mode, which mirrors Rock Bands Band World Tour mode as well. However, this mode can be advanced by oneself or with others offline or online. A player that has not progressed as far as another player's band will still gain benefits for successfully completing songs when playing together. The interface for playing with others is described by Game Informer as being the same as Rock Bands.

The game adds in an "Easy Rhythm" guitar difficulty that is aimed to allow parents to have their children participate in the game; notes are generally simple straight lines in time with bass drum beats, and only require any fret button to be held while the note is strummed. The bass guitar player has been given new mechanics, including simulating the open E string on real bass guitars during play. A player on drums will activate Star Power by striking both cymbal pads on the controller at the same time. The drummer will also have special sections of songs open for drum solos, emphasized by in-game choreography that focuses on the drummer.

The Boss Battles that were present in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock will return with new characters to face off against, however, the format has been tweaked to remove the focus on attack power-ups.

Customization

Users will be able to use a "Create-a-Rocker" mode,and an advanced character creation scheme. Players will be able to affect their character's poise, clothing, tattoos, makeup, and age. Selected characters from previous Guitar Hero games will also be available as starting templates for creating a rocker. As a result of the present lawsuit with Gibson Guitars, the player will also be able to customize their own guitar for the game to a high degree. Drum sets will also be customizable.

Instruments

According to Game Informer, RedOctane is developing a new guitar controller for the game that is tied with a new gameplay mechanic in order to "make the guitar as expressive as a real guitar", according to developer Scott Pease. While the actual change is not yet known, Game Informer suggests that it may involve either fret sliding or improvisation sections.

The drum peripheral used in GH World Tour. It includes three snare drums, two symbol pads, and a bass drum pedal.

Guitar Hero World Tour will add two new instruments to guitar and bass that have not been in other Guitar Hero games, drums and vocals. Game Informers preview revealed that a six-piece drum controller will be developed for the game, with two cymbal pads, a snare, two toms, and a bass drum pedal. The drum kit was designed with help from John Devacka who is credited with creating the first music game,MTV Drumscape, and who developed key patents used for most modern music games that are now owned by Activision.

It is presently unknown whether Rock Band instrument peripherals will be compatible with Guitar Hero World Tour.

Custom songs

Guitar Hero World Tour will allow players to create their own songs (guitar, bass and rhythm guitars and drums only) and to share them with others through the Xbox Live or PlayStation 3 network capabilities. Vocals are not supported in this mode due to copyright concerns.

One such mode is "Jam Over"; players will be able to select an existing song from the game, and will be able to play their selected instruments alongside the pre-arranged tracks for the song for any other instruments not played. This mode allows guitar players to switch octaves by tilting the guitar as they would with Star Power, and the drum player to use one of four different samples on each drum head based on the strength of the hit. These sessions can be saved and replayed in Quick Play mode.

The "Advanced Studio" mode allows the creation of completely new pieces of music, and is stated by Game Informer to be similar to Apple Computers GarageBand software. The player can create the tracks for each song by playing it in real or slowed time, with the game quantizing offbeat notes to the nearest beat as set by the player, or tracks can be constructed one note at a time. Both guitar and drum effects can be set and changed through the song.

Custom songs will be able to be uploaded to the "GH Tunes" service, which will be used to allow other players to rate songs, and to search and download songs by these ratings, and will include a Showcase by Neversoft to offer some of the best user works alongside new songs from popular artists. Players will only be able to upload five songs to the service at the start, but players that have highly rated songs will gain the ability to upload more. The PlayStation 2 version of the game will feature custom song creation, but will not support the uploading service.

Setlist

Confirmed by Activision

• Unspecified songs by:
  • Van Halen
  • The Eagles
  • Linkin Park
  • Sublime

Rumored/Officially Unconfirmed

• Never Too Late - The Answer (confirmed by The Answer)
• One-Armed Scissor - At the Drive-In (Fearless Records press release)
• Dammit - blink-182 (Drum kit video)
• Are You Gonna Go My Way - Lenny Kravitz (Trailer)
• Unspecified songs by:
  • Dream Theater (Game Informer cover story on GH4)
  • The Police (drummer Stewart Copeland seen in video showcasing drum kit)
  • Red Hot Chili Peppers (drummer Chad Smith seen in video showcasing drum kit)

Development

Guitar Hero World Tour was announced shortly after the merger of Activision and Vivendi Games in December 2007. The inclusion of additional instruments into the Guitar Hero series was hinted at by trademarks registered by Activision and RedOctane for Guitar Villain,Drum Villain,Keyboard Hero,Drum Hero and Band Hero. Analysts speculated that future Guitar Hero games in 2008 will need to include additional instrument peripherals in order to compete against former Guitar Hero developer Harmonix's Rock Band.It was announced on April 21, 2008 that Guitar Hero World Tour will branch out into other instruments including vocals.

According to a Game Informer preview, the addition drum functionality came from work initially done towards the Drum Hero title, but later folded into Guitar Hero after Neversoft was chosen as developer of the series.