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Guitar Hero: World Tour vs Rock Band 2
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If you like to rock out but don't know an instrument, 2008 was a great year. It not only saw the release of the much-anticipated Rock Band 2, it also saw Guitar Hero expand to drums and vocals with Guitar Hero: World Tour. Better yet, both of these games are amazingly fun to play and such cool party games that they'll make you forget all about Wii Sports.
At first, I have to admit I was a little skeptical of the Guitar Hero phenomenon. In my defense, I've played guitar for well over a decade and also dabble around with the keyboards. But once you pick up one of these games and play them, thoughts of instrument snobbery are kicked out the door by the sheer fun they are to play.
But which is better? Rock Band 2? Or Guitar Hero: World Tour?
World Tour vs Rock Band 2 - Songs
After playing Rock Band 2 for a few weeks, I was pretty excited when looking over the Guitar Hero: World Tour song list. While Rock Band 2 is littered with an eclectic mix of songs, it is truly lacking on the WoW factor -- something that World Tour has in spades.
However, these games are about playing the songs, not listening to them, and I really began to appreciate Rock Band 2's song selection after playing some amazingly boring parts in World Tour. Whoever decided Beat It would make a great song for anything other than Guitar?
The best example of World Tour's poor selection is What I've Done by Linkin Park. An awesome song and one in which I never tire of hearing, but playing the guitar to it is a yawnfest, and for a song picked for its drums, that portion of it isn't all that great either.
Winner: Rock Band 2.
World Tour vs Rock Band 2 - Interface
Guitar Hero has been at this for a while now and it shows. The gigs feel much more like gigs, with the crowd rooting you back on stage for an encore, and nice visuals that accompany your dynamic return to the stage. The streaming interface also rocks compared to Rock Band 2, with flames and lightning bolts letting you know when you've hit the notes or nailed a sequence. I also love how it stutters when you miss a key note.
Rock Band 2 does make it easier to see how well you are doing on your individual instrument, and it's great to see how hard each instrument's part is when picking out a song. I also like how Rock Band 2 breaks the song down into categories based on difficulty.
Winner: Guitar Hero: World Tour.
Guitar Hero: World Tour has very tight visuals and a great interface.
World Tour vs Rock Band 2 - Gameplay
I really like Guitar Hero: World Tour's set lists and how you get called back onstage for an encore. That said, Rock Band 2 owns Guitar Hero:World Tour when it comes to overall game play. Not only is the world tour filled with lots of cool little competitions and extras, Rock Band 2 also has various challenges and online matchups that are seamlessly integrated with the world tour.
From mystery sets to doubling your fan based at the sacrifice of making any cash to hiring your mom to helping out with the band, Rock Band 2 delivers on both atmosphere and variety.
It is also much easier to fail out in Rock Band 2, which makes it more of a challenge when jumping up from one difficulty level to the next.
Winner: Rock Band 2
World Tour vs Rock Band 2 - Guitar
It shouldn't come as any surprise that Guitar Hero: World Tour really delivers on the guitar portion of the game. But Rock Band 2's guitar portion shouldn't be dismissed completely. I actually find Rock Band 2's rhythmn guitar sections to be much more organic and true-to-the-instrument than the rhythmn sections in World Tour.
But it's not all about rythmn, is it? It's about throwing in a blazing fill and rocking out to an in-your-face solo, and when it comes to the lead portions, Guitar Hero: World Tour delivers.
Winner: Guitar Hero: World Tour
World Tour vs Rock Band 2 - Drums
I really like the setup of the Guitar Hero: World Tour drums. While you can get symbols as an add-on to the Rock Band 2 drum set, they aren't integrated into the game as they are in World Tour.
But once you get in and start playing the songs, all thoughts about how the drum set is arranged fall away to how well the drum parts are implemented in the game, and that's where Rock Band 2 really shines. Not only are the drum sections in Rock Band 2 a bit more difficult, but they also make you feel as if you are really playing the song much more so than the drums in Guitar Hero: World Tour.
One thing I did really like about playing drums in Guitar Hero: World Tour is the ability to unleash my star power at will. Having those fills constantly come up in Rock Band 2 when you are trying to safe your overdrive for when you partner might need to be saved is a real pain in the butt.
Winner: Rock Band 2
World Tour vs Rock Band 2 - Vocals
While the guitar and the drums have to be interpreted on the simplified instruments, the vocals can be implemented close to real life vocals. This is true on both games. One thing that's nice about Rock Band 2 when doing vocals is the virtual tamborine that is implemented for guitar solos and long instrumental portions of the song, which gives the vocalist something to do while waiting for the lyrics to reappear.
Winner: Tie.
Rock Band 2 excels at delivering the full band experience.
World Tour vs Rock Band 2 - Extras
When playing the original Rock Band, I wondered why they didn't allow a freestyle mode where you could just drum. They must have heard my thoughts, because that's exactly what they implemented in Rock Band 2. Going further, they created a drum trainer where you can work on beats and fills to learn a bit about playing in real life.
The drum trainer is nice, but it doesn't beat the music studio included with Guitar Hero: World Tour. The ability to create your own music is cool, but even cooler is browsing through other people's music and downloading it. This can become a game withing a game and really takes Guitar Hero: World Tour in a new direction.
Winner: Guitar Hero: World Tour.
World Tour vs Rock Band 2 - Overall
Personally, I think anyone buying one of these games should probably buy both of them. They are both great, with each having areas where they really shine. Rock Band 2 delivers on the game play and drums, while Guitar Hero: World Tour wins out on guitar and the music studio.
But if you really have to choose between the two, the decision is best made based on how you are going to play the game. If you are mainly interested in the guitar, then Guitar Hero: World Tour wins hands down. On the flip side, Rock Band 2 has the best implementation of drums and a more rich game play and Xbox Live experience.
Winner: Rock Band 2 by virtue of being a better 'band' game. But Guitar Hero: World Tour is still the king of guitar.
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