Guitar Hero World Tour – Band Pack Impressions

Its not everyday that you get a huge box through the post and when this happens you know its a special day. Last friday i recieved Guitar Hero World Tour Band Pack Edition (plus free wired bass guitar as i pre-ordered) through the post (courier to be exact) and even though the package costs £150 (which seems alot) you do get alot of plastic, as well as other bits for your money, and ill show you why now.

As you may have guessed the “Band Pack” Includes:

* Wireless Gibson Guitar (Black with Wooden Finish and Touch Pad Buttons)
* Wireless Drum Kit (With Symbols and moveable Foot pedal)
* Microphone
* Drum sticks
* The Game

If you pre-ordered the Band Pack (like i did) you would have also got a Wired Xplorer Guitar (the same one that came with Guitar Hero 2 on Xbox 360 2 years ago). Even though the Explorer Guitar is wired, it still does have its uses, like connecting it to a PC to use on PC Version of Guitar Hero (or home made versions).

As you may know Guitar Hero World Tour costs £150, which is £20 more than the Rock Band – Band Package, however the guitar and drum kit feel alot more stronger and have more weight to them, making them feel even more realistic than ever. The game disc also boasts around (if not more) than 83 tracks, which are all master / original recordings and not re-masters or covers which does add abit of “retro” feel to some older songs, but its all good fun. Like before tracks can be purchased from Xbox Live Marketplace or PSN Store, however like Rock Band you can also use the “in-game” music store to buy , download and play songs without having to leave the game itself.

One of the newer features is the recording studio, its a little complicated to get used to but it can be interesting, i also tried out GH Tunes. GH Tunes is basically a collection of user generated content that you can download and play, the track i download was the original Banjo Kazooie Theme and it sounded exactly like it – so its all good fun.

The Hardware:

The Guitar:

The Guitar is very similar to previous Guitar Hero Games, its still a gibson branded guitar , it still has the same buttons except its a different colour, looks more rock-star-ish, and it has the new “touch fret buttons” in the middle of the neck of the guitar. These buttons are used in certain parts of the game (mainly fast solo parts) where all you need to do is touch the pad with the corisponding colour. However if you do not have the new guitar you can just simply touch the correct colour fret button (at the top of guitar) at the same time it appears on screen, the cool bit about these sections is that you dont strum you just hit the note – similar to a hammer on or a pull of.

In my opinion this new guitar feels around the same weight as the Xplorer guitar that came with Guitar Hero 2 and the fret buttons at the top of the guitar seem wider apart than normal, but overall the experience of playing some sweet tunes is great and alot of fun!

You may already be aware of this but all previous Guitar Hero Guitars work with Rock Band and this new Guitar Hero World Tour games, so if you already own a guitar you can play the game with no problems.

The Drum Kit:

Before i started playing Guitar Hero on the PS2 i used to be a drummer, was once in a drummer (as well as a back-up drummer) for a local school band – so ive always thought about playing drums on a game ever since the Guitar Hero franchise took off, well that dream came true with Rock Band, but was later shattered due to its clumsy reaction times, dodgey equipment and unrealisitc button layouts, so does this new Drum kit fair any better?

Well when i was putting the drum kit together everything felt awesome, nice and strong, and stands up without wobbling, as soon as i connected the symbol pads on i knew that this was going to be fun, as it actually looked like a proper drum kit. I started off with training and so far everything seemed ok and it felt more natural compared to rock bands drum kit, but then when i jumped to easy i noticed that my yellow cymbol pad wasn’t responding as fast (or as good) as the orange cymbol, it still worked just not as good – so im a little disapointed with it, however it terms of how it feels, compared to the real thing its ALOT better than EA’s Rock Band Drum kit – mainly because of the cymbols allow. For anyone starting out playing on the drum kits take all the training levels before doing a song, it does help get used to the controls and dont be annoyed if you miss a few notes to begin with.

Another thing id like to mention is that the Guitar Hero Drum Kit does infact work with Rock Band, and yet again it feels better and more natural, of course you wont use the “Orange Cymbol” but you use the rest as normal and it feels alot more natural and better than the original Rock Band Drumkit, Im guessing this drum kit will also work with the upcoming Rock Band 2 game, as Rock Band 2 is mainly a “track update” with new tracks but same graphics.

The Microphone:

The Microphone is exactly the same as the Rock Band microphone (or any other stage microphone) – its black, looks very realistic, its heavy and its fun to sing down, the only difference between the Rock Band microhpone and this is that it says Guitar Hero – other than that its the same thing.

Another difference, while playing the game, is that instead of screaming down the microhpone to activate star power (like you did in Rock Band), all you have to do now is clap on the microphone to activate it, i tried it using the Rock Band microhpone and i only got it to work once (however my Rock Band Microphone is abit dodgey), but its alot easier (and less annyoing) to clap rather than scream.

Speaking of being the same you can use your ROCK BAND microphone on Guitar Hero World tour (or vice versa) so in a sense both games (and controllers) are both interchangable, which is awesome unlike singstar where you have to buy the proper singstar microphones.

Anyway to sum up the Guitar Hero World Tour band pack package may seem expensive at £150, HOWEVER since you can use these nice comfatable controllers on other guitar hero and rock band games it isnt such a bad buy, because this equipment will last for a fair amount of time and it will save alot of money (in buying equipment for both set of games). So i say if your planning on getting into the Guitar Hero / Rock Band franchise, by the Guitar Hero Band Pack (which includes the game), then buy the Rock Band game on its own – lot easier and alot more fun.

To finish off heres a few pictures of me unboxing the guitar hero band pack, enjoy: