You’d really have to be living under a rock at this point to have not heard about the Guitar Hero franchise, as the franchise has single-handedly turned the music genre from a niche to a mainstream phenomenon. However, after five entries across a variety of different systems, the series was beginning to feel slightly stagnant, especially when faced with competitors like Rock Band. Fortunately, the developers at Neversoft are never ones to rest on their laurels, and have upped the ante and then some with their latest entry to the Guitar Hero franchise, Guitar Hero: World Tour.

Guitar Hero: World Tour adds the full gamut of instruments, allowing gamers to play drums and sing on top of the guitar and bass options, and allows for a full band to team up and play through a career together. The most revolutionary feature, however, is the ability for gamers to get a group together and compose songs that can be distributed online to other players in the Guitar Hero community. While there are a couple missteps, like a set list that spreads itself too thin, and some hardware issues, Guitar Hero: World Tour is a great addition to the series and the genre itself, and narrowly misses the mark of a revolution.

One of the most immediately apparent additions to the game’s formula is the addition of drums and vocals to the guitar and bass. You’ll be able to play each of the game’s four instruments through a solo career, quickplay, or band career and quickplay, much like in Rock Band. While the vocals operate with a pitch register system just like Rock Band, there are some nice differences in the drums. Instead of the four pad/kick pedal arrangement featured in Rock Band, the pad arrangement on the World Tour uses a three pad/two cymbal/kick pedal set up that looks and feels like an actual drum set should. While those who have become comfortable with Rock Band’s pad layout will have a bit of a learning curve, the layout eventually feels quite comfortable and natural.

The inclusion of drums and singing capabilities is pretty big for Guitar Hero, but there have also been some subtle yet important changes made to guitar and bass. The additions to the guitar side include a spiffy new touch-sensitive slider bar for special solo sections of some songs, and changes to sustain notes, allowing you to hit other notes while holding a sustain. Bass has received some much-needed improvements in a very subtle way, with the inclusion of open notes. Open notes are a great way of adding a little more depth to the bass mechanics, and feel more natural and bass-like than just a scaled down version of guitar.

Guitar Hero: World Tour’s career mode will feel immediately different to fans of the series. Instead of separated tiers with a different set of tracks, the career mode is divided into separate “gigs,” requiring you to complete each of the songs in the same session before moving on. There are a few surprises in the gig system, including appearances by some pro-musicians like Sting or Travis Barker who will show up and either jam alongside you, or in the case of Zakk Wylde and Ted Nugent, challenge you to a guitar battle.

The battles are far and away improved from last year, as they take out the main nagging factor, the power-ups. In Guitar Hero III, the battles suffered due to the randomized nature of the power-ups, which could literally change the outcome of a battle in seconds. These power-ups have been removed, requiring you to make it through the whole song to win, making the whole experience a lot less frustrating and more fun.

You’ll be able to edit your personalized rocker through the game’s new character creation system, which allows you to not only customize their physical appearance and characteristics, adding accessories like piercings and hairstyles, but you can also create customized instruments, using special unlockables like bodies and headstocks for guitars, which is a great touch.

The most important addition to the game’s formula is the new GHTunes feature, allowing players to craft their own songs, utilizing each instrument to lay down music tracks and distribute them to other players in the online community for them to download and play. You can even tweak the songs in the game’s mixing software, allowing advanced users to create their songs just as they want to.

This mode is a great addition to the franchise, but there are a couple of problems in its execution. There is some lag when laying down notes, which can be problematic if you’re trying to make some complex arrangements where timing is very important. Additionally, the interface can be a bit tough to navigate at first, and setting things up to record your tracks can be tough at first. Still, its presence in the game is definitely a set in the right direction and a harbinger of great things to come.

While the new features are certainly great, there are still some sore spots in World Tour. For starters, the game’s expansive set list spreads itself a little too thin at points. While there is certainly something for everyone here, chances are most people who are into heavy metal cuts from artists like Zakk Wylde or Dream Theater aren’t really going to be too keen on wading through tracks from Steely Dan and Willie Nelson, or vice versa. However, in order to complete the gig-based career, you will find yourself doing this quite a bit. There are far too many songs that fall into the “play through once and then forget about it” category, and perhaps it would behoove the crew at Activision and Neversoft to begin crafting more genre-centric installments in the series in the future.

Secondly, there are some issues with the instrument hardware itself. The new slider bar on the guitar is a nice feature on paper as it steps up from the tapping frets on Rock Band’s Fender guitar, but doesn’t feel very intuitive in practice. It’s easy to lose track of where you are on the slider in the middle of an intense solo, and it is also quite easy to accidentally tap the bar when using the actual fret buttons, hurting your score and disrupting your combo, even if the slider isn’t activated on-screen.

The drums also have some unfortunate hardware issues. As the cymbals register vibrations to activate, hitting your hi-hat a little too hard can sometimes register on your crash cymbal, ending whatever combo you may have had going for you. Additionally, the kick pedal is a bit of a problem all around, requiring a hefty stomp to get it to register, and since it doesn’t hook to any part of the rest of the drumset, it will float around quite a bit on the floor, often requiring you to pause the game and resituate it. While it does have a sticky pad and Velcro to keep it in place on a carpet, it will still move around on you quite a bit, causing problems on higher difficulty levels.

Graphically, Guitar Hero: World Tour looks pretty good and is an improvement over previous entries to the series. The established musicians that appear in the game are good-looking caricatures of their real-life counterparts. The new venues also look great, especially the licensed ones like the Ozzfest and Tool venues. Additionally, the music syncing also looks much better, and each song has a unique feel and matches the pacing with the onscreen action very well.

The sound quality is also great in World Tour. Each of the tracks is either a master track or (in the case that a master was unavailable) a live cut, which can be even better in cases like Jimi Hendrix’s Purple Haze, which benefits from some great improvisational elements.

World Tour is a solid addition to the Guitar Hero franchise, and gives fans a ton of new content and well-executed features to keep them busy for a long time. While there are a few missteps here and there, this is definitely one that fans of music-based games will want to get their hands on.

Gameplay: 9.0
The new band mechanics are very solid, and the new GHTunes feature is a great, if slightly flawed, step in the right direction for the genre as a whole. There are a few issues that come about with the hardware, unfortunately, like a problematic kick pedal on the drum set, that bog down the overall experience.

Graphics: 9.0
The graphical presentation is clean, with great syncing and nice looking character models. The venues are also very impressive, especially the licensed ones like the Tool stage.

Sound: 8.5
While the set list spreads itself a bit too thin, the master and live tracks sound fantastic.

Difficulty: Medium

Concept: 9.5
Guitar Hero: World Tour is a very ambitious game, and adds some elements that will shape the way to come for music games.

Multiplayer: 9.5
The matchmaking system is very well implemented for band play or competition, and operates very well without any online lag.

Overall: 9.0
Guitar Hero: World Tour is a great step for the music game genre, offering some excellent new features and tons of songs. While there are a few stumbles along the way, this is a title that fans will want to check out.