When developer Travis Chen hacked the Guitar Hero controller and created a PC synthesiser, little did he know he was spearheading a revolution. Ironically, his efforts were poured into a Harmonix game; a company whose game he's about to bury. Rock Band, we're sorry to say, is finished.
Just look at the drums. Rock Band's has four pads with loud, plastic covers and a flimsy pedal. GH's has three pads and two high-hats, all coated with rubber to dampen any unwanted noise. The high hats are 'flappy', like cymbals, and there's still a pedal for that extra layer of complexity. All considered, the peripheral gives Rock Band's the runaround.
Like Rock Band, Guitar Hero World Tour will rely on DLC to boost its track list. However, whereas Rock Band shipped with 67 songs in Europe, GHWT aims to squeeze over a hundred master tracks onto the disc. So far The Eagles, Van Halen, Linkin Park and Sublime are confirmed, and while we can't reveal any other names on the list we can say that there are some major players involved. But as great as the on-board talent is, the new feature 'GHTunes' is what will truly send Harmonix's game off to the labour exchange.
ROCK REVOLUTION GHTunes is, quite simply, a revolution. The premise is simple: design your own songs, design your own album covers, upload your album for the world to see and then download any album you fancy. It's the Guitar Hero equivalent of YouTube, and it costs precisely zero pounds and zero pence.
Coupled with the incredibly deep Music Maker, GHTunes has not just swung the battle of the bands in the favour of Guitar Hero World Tour, it's won the contest outright. Imagine this: there's a popular song that isn't on Guitar Hero or Rock Band. You want to play it. You could take the time to pick the song apart and recreate it in the game or, the lazy option, you could search GHTunes and download one of the inevitable fan recreations that will have been uploaded. For free.
How this system is policed is yet to be established. Monkeying with copyright material is a risky business and we're not sure how kindly the music industry will look upon fan recreations of famous songs. With no vocal recording, tracks will never be identical to the originals, but it's likely that Microsoft will have to clamp down on certain 'pirates' if complaints are lodged by the copyright owners. Cliff Richard, for one.
Inevitably though, your favourite songs will be made available alongside thousands and thousands of unique albums. Of course there will be steady streams of dross, but GHTunes will be bundled with various ranking systems - from top downloads to 'Neversoft Recommends' - to ensure the best new music isn't lost among the chaff. This, it is safe to say, is the future of rhythm action. Get on the bus, daddio.
Will Rock Band 2 implement a GHTunes-esque feature and a music maker? It has to if it wants to even put up a fight. Until then, Guitar Hero World Tour will scoop all the awards. No competition.
The GHTunes is definitely a feature that will make the decision between RB and GH:WT a lot easier (and that doesn't even include the drum kit difference!)
Who actually wants to sit there and make their own songs? They also won't have any vocals on them! It's a nice idea, but I don't see it as a selling point as most people won't even bother with it.
They're gonna have to massively improve on GH3 for me to be even tempted to splash the cash. 3's learning curve was retarded, the song list was abysmal and the graphics and animation were terrible.
Hey CVG; how much did Neversoft pay you to blow your load over this game before you've even played it?
It makes me laugh how people go off on one and slag off Rockband; the guy that came up with Rock band is the same guy that came up with Guitar hero (granted he was "influenced" by Guitar Freaks). The same guy that came up with Rock Band created GH1+2 and then moved on to create RB. This left some little bitches at Neversoft to milk the original GH idea and now they are just using the same guys ideas again (copying RB)but modifying it slightly.
I hope GH world tour is good; competition is good for us gamers; but CGV, please try and be objective about games which you haven't even played yet.
How can people say that nobody will be bothered to make songs? Just check out the stepmania simfiles community to see for yourself. User generated content can be a massive part of gaming and has only really been seen on consoles with Forge. Just wondering though if there will have to be separate GHStores for 360/wii/PS3? Because that could majorly sway which console people buy this game for...
Maybe the drum kit will be better, but Rock Bands downloadable content still seems better. By the time GH will be out Rock Bands list of available songs will be huge compared to GH'S. The US pricing is said to be $20 more than Rock Bands too. That would make the U.K retail near Ł200. Hmm
Just read that article twice and i'm still as confused as a pidgeon in a magnet factory!
That's brilliant man. I'll be chuckling about that for hours.
Fair play to them, if they can top Rock Band. Getting 3 mates and playing through this is the most fun I've had with my clothes on (and the occasional 'dicey' incident with my clothes off). Though, they really need to sort their guitar out - it SUCKS compared to the Guitar Hero one.
I can see a LOT of people doing their own songs though, absolutely.
Well colour me unimpressed. A lot of people might write songs using that feature but (lets be honest with ourselves here) 50% of them will be terrible, unlistenable crap. Of the remaining 50%, 4 out of 5 songs will be the previously mentioned low quality, no vocals attempt to do a song that hasn't been included.
Maybe it's just me, but I don't particularly want to play along to Alan in Milton Keynes doing a substandard version of Lithium without any lyrics.
Who actually wants to sit there and make their own songs? They also won't have any vocals on them! It's a nice idea, but I don't see it as a selling point as most people won't even bother with it.
They're gonna have to massively improve on GH3 for me to be even tempted to splash the cash. 3's learning curve was retarded, the song list was abysmal and the graphics and animation were terrible.
Who took their time to paint the awesome cars in forza 2 --- i didnt but someone did they look wkd and with the ent songs will be perfected and i cant wait to post my own music ive written
cant wait! I loved GH3 over RB, but by their own admission GH3 was a little rushed.. now they have had all the time they need to nail the drums, touch guitar etc.. im sure this is going to be amazing! I just hope they keep with the hard rock theme, rather than sell out a bit like RB and do lots of boring indie zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
cant wait! I loved GH3 over RB, but by their own admission GH3 was a little rushed.. now they have had all the time they need to nail the drums, touch guitar etc.. im sure this is going to be amazing! I just hope they keep with the hard rock theme, rather than sell out a bit like RB and do lots of boring indie zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Well thats all well and good, but its f**king useless to all of us who spent the money on Rock band. just on the sheer matter of fact that i i where to purchase this game, i would have to have another plastic instrument lying around my room, when i have 2 guitars and a drum kit already. Unless they make it possible to use the Rock band gear(which i doubt) im not buyin.
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