Guitar Hero World Tour shows up at OSU
posted:
10/15/2008 9:39:00 PM
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Guitar Hero World Tour
Yesterday on OSU campus Activision held a demo for Guitar Hero World Tour, so I checked it out between classes. On my way to morning class I snapped some shots of them setting up, putting the drum kits together and such. A couple hours later the event was in full swing with the obligatory free pizza and soda. A sizable crowd had gathered on the South Oval courtyard to check out the event, so there was no shortage of people to try their hand at the game.
Thankfully there were three kiosks, two side setups and one main stage, so the lines moved pretty quickly and I got my chance to play. I took the bass guitar for a spin first, and I must say the developers have fleshed it out a lot since the 2 player co-op GH 3. In addition to the standard notes, a solid purple bar will appear along the highway. You just strum these without hitting any of the frets, to simulate the open E string on a bass guitar. The new guitar controller itself is pretty slick, with a solid weight and similar construction to the GH3 Gibson Les Paul. RedOctane might have lost their Gibson license, but the new controller has the same quality as the old ones.
Me and a couple friends then went up on stage to try "Float On" by Modest Mouse, with me at the drums. I admit to being a noob and picked the easy setting, as I never played much Rock Band. I did pretty well and our hastily constructed band scored decently high on the song, and we all received some swag for our effort. We hit one of the side kiosks for another go, this time with "The Joker" by The Steve Miller Band. Again the drums were easy (I failed a slightly harder song) but despite my novice skills I could appreciate the quality of the drum kit. The pads are soft and quiet like the new Rock Band 2 set, but the cymbals add an extra bit of authenticity. At first drumming on two different elevations tripped me up, but after a while I adjusted and I can see that the placement of the different pads and cymbals is more natural than what Rock Band offers.
I wasn't brave enough to try the vocals (although I'm sure Ben would have given it a shot) but from what I could see it's a very similar setup to Rock Band. I did see a number of people try out the new "beginner" difficulty on all three instruments. Basically it lets you strum any note, hit any pad or mumble anything into the mic when a note or word comes up, and every note is displayed as a glowing multicolored bar on the highway. It'll definitely let the kiddies get in on the action, but I would've preferred an intermediate difficulty between medium and hard--maybe a slower transition to that orange button. Simultaneously adding that orange note and doubling the speed still kills me.
Activision only had the 360 version on display, which disappointed me a little because I'd like to try out the Wii's exclusive Mii Freestyle mode, and see how it stacks up to the vacuous Wii Music. Overall it was a great little demo and I'm looking forward to Guitar Hero World Tour even more. There's a brief video of the event below, and several pics after the jump.
Thankfully there were three kiosks, two side setups and one main stage, so the lines moved pretty quickly and I got my chance to play. I took the bass guitar for a spin first, and I must say the developers have fleshed it out a lot since the 2 player co-op GH 3. In addition to the standard notes, a solid purple bar will appear along the highway. You just strum these without hitting any of the frets, to simulate the open E string on a bass guitar. The new guitar controller itself is pretty slick, with a solid weight and similar construction to the GH3 Gibson Les Paul. RedOctane might have lost their Gibson license, but the new controller has the same quality as the old ones.
Me and a couple friends then went up on stage to try "Float On" by Modest Mouse, with me at the drums. I admit to being a noob and picked the easy setting, as I never played much Rock Band. I did pretty well and our hastily constructed band scored decently high on the song, and we all received some swag for our effort. We hit one of the side kiosks for another go, this time with "The Joker" by The Steve Miller Band. Again the drums were easy (I failed a slightly harder song) but despite my novice skills I could appreciate the quality of the drum kit. The pads are soft and quiet like the new Rock Band 2 set, but the cymbals add an extra bit of authenticity. At first drumming on two different elevations tripped me up, but after a while I adjusted and I can see that the placement of the different pads and cymbals is more natural than what Rock Band offers.
I wasn't brave enough to try the vocals (although I'm sure Ben would have given it a shot) but from what I could see it's a very similar setup to Rock Band. I did see a number of people try out the new "beginner" difficulty on all three instruments. Basically it lets you strum any note, hit any pad or mumble anything into the mic when a note or word comes up, and every note is displayed as a glowing multicolored bar on the highway. It'll definitely let the kiddies get in on the action, but I would've preferred an intermediate difficulty between medium and hard--maybe a slower transition to that orange button. Simultaneously adding that orange note and doubling the speed still kills me.
Activision only had the 360 version on display, which disappointed me a little because I'd like to try out the Wii's exclusive Mii Freestyle mode, and see how it stacks up to the vacuous Wii Music. Overall it was a great little demo and I'm looking forward to Guitar Hero World Tour even more. There's a brief video of the event below, and several pics after the jump.
