...and why it's my most anticipated title this year!
But first, an apology! Been a while since my last blog and since my exams finished(Found out today I passed with Merit
), I've had no excuses for not blogging it up. But that changes now!
I was racking my brains for something to blog about and all I could think of was Brawl, Brawl, Brawl! But I know some of you(The ones that don't have it!) are probably a bit sick of that, so instead I've decided to go for what promises to be one of the best games ever created. Guitar Hero: World Tour.
Now, most of you will know about the Guitar Hero games. It's basically a dance mat for blokes
The game comes with a guitar-shaped controller and the player simply watches the screen and 'notes' will travel down the screen while the player has to strum and press the correct note at the correct time. Simple. Of course it soon gets harder and before you know it you're playing very awkward chords and ridiculous solos!
Now this setup as worked very well for a long time now. The latest Guitar Hero outing 'Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock' proved to be yet another success for the makers, this time with a wireless guitar... What could be better! However, something came along recently that has totally changed the way we're going to play this type of game in the future. Rock Band.
Now Rock Band is a game you may also have heard of that has recently been released on the 360(Soon to be appearing on the PS3 and Wii also). It's taken the tried and tested guitar hero formula and expanded it to a whole band. Rock band allows for 4-player simultaneous games with 1 player on Guitar, 1 on Drums(A special Peripheral that comes with the game), 1 on Bass and 1 on vocals(Yup, there's a mic!). Brilliant! Now I can truly experience being in a band with my mates! Only the £160 price tag can stop me! All the other 'Instruments' work in exactly the same way as the Guitar, except they all have their slight differences obviously.
Now you're probably thinking why is he talking about Rock Band when this is a blog about Guitar Hero?? Be patient will you!!!
The thing is that the Guitar Hero makers saw Rock Band and realised that this is the future of their game, but they needed something that would separate the games and make players choose GH over Rock Band. Not an easy task when you consider they will be very similar...
GH:WT will include drums and a Mic, just like Rock band. The Drum kit does boast Cymbal pads and a 'Very realistic feel'. The Guitar will have a new 'Touch sensitive' section just below where the normal buttons are that will allow you to mess around with the sound using all kinds of effects including sustain and it can be used for finger-tapping! There's even a new button on the bridge that will allow for palm muting.
Not only that, but GH will allow you to create your own Drummer, Guitarist, Vocalist and Bassist, to really personalise your band. Also, you can fully customise their instruments! Right down to the logo on the Bass Drum. Great, but surely that's not enough to make people choose GH over Rock Band
And that's where the 'Song Creation' comes in. This is the bit that made me want to write this blog. Song Creator is exactly what it sounds like. You go into the studio using the GH instruments and record your own songs... That's right! Your own!
How does this work?? Well there's 2 modes:
New Song Wizard:
This is the simpler of the 2 modes and is probably what most people will be using. You basically chose 1 of 3 tempos, add in some Rhythm loops and record the instrument of your choosing. A drum machine is also available for the drum loops. Sounds simple enough and probably an easy way to create a song that you can call your own. However, the other mode is where the fun really starts!
Song Creator:
This is the mode where you have access to all the features available, and there's a lot!
Let's start with the Guitar, you can choose from several different scales and arpeggiate away with single notes, or you can set your guitar to play either power chords or full chords. So at a touch of a button you can play any conceivable note that could be played on a real guitar! Not only that, but the makers have teamed up with Line 6 to reproduce the guitar and amp effects used in its popular guitar pods
So not only do you have access to pretty much every note on the guitar, but you can also fine tune the sound with effects until it's exactly as you want it.
The drums are probably simpler, as it simply records what you play. Although, you can choose from a variety of drum kit sounds also.
Unfortunately, due to legal reasons, you won't be able to record vocals
This is a real shame as it's the one thing that will be missing from creating your very own song! Once you've recorded all the parts, the note highway is then automatically mapped. The original recording of your song will always be the hardest difficulty, however the game will scale it down for future playings on easier settings.
There's still more to come! After the parts are recorded, you can use a mixer to isolate various tracks, swap others and just generally master your song as though you were in a studio. When you're finally pleased with your song, you can design album cover art and throw it onto the "GH Tunes" online content-sharing service. This is where players will be able to download other peoples' songs and rate them (which is mandatory whenever you download another person's song). So within minutes your own personal song will be available for the whole GH community to download and rate!
With only limited details around atm and nobody having the chance to try it out for themselves that's about as much detail as I can find! But finding this out alone has made me really excited about this title. In my first ever blog that I wrote for the Blogging competition I speculated that games in the future may allow you to create and record your on songs... It seems that this has come true already and can only go further from here!
Be excited about Guitar Hero: World Tour, its the future of music and games and they just happen to be 2 of my favourite things in the world
P.S 1 more reason to get excited about this game... Everlong by the Foo Fighters has been confirmed for the set list
Bring it on!!