Many quote that "World Tour is a Rock Band clone". This may be true in some respects but you could say that about many platformers or FPS's with similar attributes to rival developers titles. Guitar Hero has enhanced the instruments compared to both its previous games as well as that of its competitor. The new guitar is rather sturdy though a little bland looking with its sunburst effect. It also now incorporates a touchpad along the neck used for sliding solo sections of the track where you simply slide from colour to colour. You are not penalised for not having the new guitar which is of course a good thing for us out there without endless wallets. You can play the slider notes as hammer ons that do not have to follow an initial strum, thus keeping the backwards compatibility of instruments. The 360 version supports both the wireless GH3 and the wired GH2 guitar. The drum kit is an advancement on the Rock Band version including the addition of raised cymbals which was often requested by gamers and musicians alike. The 2 crash cymbals along with the 3 pads and bass kick pedal mean that Rock Band is at a 1 pad disadvantage, however World Tour has incorporated Rock Band compatibility, even for the drum kit peripheral via the merging of 2 of the colours to lower the number of pads to those of the Rock Band kit.

The single player aspect follows the tried and tested formula of a series of gigs followed by the appropriate encore. Unlike previous games the gigs are not linked one after another but are set into smaller gigs located all across the world. As you complete each one you continue to unlock more events until you have reached the last of the gigs, where the final showdown takes place in the heavens. In single player, World Tour makes use of the same interface as GH3 which, to be fair, was pretty solid and had everything you needed in visible range that wasn't too distracting from the fret board. The single player career is available for every instrument, unlike Rock Band's lack of a bass guitar career mode. There are small intro and ending videos to the career but these add nothing to the game and are just wacky, amusing diversions, but diversions none the less. The single player is easily as good as that of the previous games in the series as it's a bit of 'same old, same old', but with the new instruments thrown in for solo play, World Tour pushes the GH series forward.

GHWT is as good a single player game as GH3. In fact it is even an improvement on the last in some ways. World Tour just doesn't feel like a single player game, I would even go so far as to say it feels like you are cheating by not playing as a band, very similarly to Rock Band. When playing as a band locally with your friends, you follow through the same campaign as the single player. You can also team up with friends across Xbox LIVE and against other bands. The fun factor is ever present as each member works to outdo each other with their final statistics which are separated after the song. With a new added bonus of a split of the money after each gig based on your difficulty and how you did within your difficulty, this means that better players will always screw the weaker players out of a fair cut. Star power is also pooled in band play which is available to any for activation. The effect of this is that you will always find that one member of the group (usually the lead guitarist) will whore it all leaving none for anyone else. This can be quite infuriating especially if you are pulling an awesome multiplier and want to boost the score up, only to find the power depleted. World Tour also penalises weaker players in a band via song failures, as a failure by any member is an instant total band fail, and there's no revival via star power to be found here. It is pretty much a slog to the end of the song. Lucky then that you can change difficulty mid set list to any difficulty level including the ridiculous new Beginner mode which lowers you to pretty much one button and is the most boring mode on earth. This addition means you won't be sitting there constantly retrying the final song in a set list over and over due to one of your members having picked too high a difficulty.

Difficulty is something often discussed in relation to these rhythm games with GH3 known for its extremely difficult later game songs, with the 'Dragonforce' and 'Slayer' tracks being near impossible for anyone less than a complete expert. In comparison, Rock Band'ss tracks are much milder but still hold a challenge. World Tour strikes somewhere in between these two with the easier songs being embarrassingly easy to some of the later tracks, which are extremely difficult. This difficulty curve as you progress is not reflected for all instruments though and the majority of songs have a much higher difficulty on drums than on say the guitar. On a positive note, World Tour has upped the ante for bass guitar. The days of boring easier versions of the lead or otherwise repetitive game play is over. The addition of new open strum notes mixes things up and makes songs far more satisfying.

Speaking of songs, we come to the set list which is inevitably one of the reasons people will purchase a game in this genre. This is when there are such viable alternatives as the upcoming Rock Band 2, which is set to develop on the already established Rock Band set up. A diverse set list is definitely on display here with over 80 initial songs including cult classics like 'Eye of the Tiger' and Bon Jovi's 'Living on a Prayer', ranging to the more diverse tracks like 'La Bamba' taking us away from the classic rock feel of the opposition. This is good for the fans of country music and the like but for those with the rock bug at heart it is disconcerting and may put you off as these songs are compulsory to complete the career. Guitar Hero goes one up on Rock Band in one respect of the set list with all songs being Master recordings. There was nothing worse than finding out that one of your favourite songs was available in Rock Band only to find that it was a cover. This is an achievement in respect to the calibre of a number of the songs on display including Jimi Hendrix. A number of characters even come out and play alongside you (or boot you off stage) on a number of their songs a la GH3 each thereafter available for use as a playable character.

Guitar Hero brings back the familiar cast of previous GH games including the missed Pandora and Clive Winston characters from GH2 while losing a few of the more unusual characters. Most of the time though you will be wanting to use your own created character anyway so these additions and losses are of no great importance to the majority of us. Whether you want to be a representation of yourself, a robot or even a carbon copy of Bruce Forsyth, the character creation tool accommodates for you. An extensive array of customisation options are available which are not only limited to the character but to the instruments themselves, including custom guitars available in an all manner of body shapes which can be customised down to the tuning pegs and pickups or a double bass drum kit emblazoned with your band logo.

Once you have customised your characters and their instruments why not divert your customisation fever to the songs that you play. World Tour is the first game in the modern rhythm music genre that brings us a music creation tool. This tool though is complex and offers little in the way of assistance, yet with a lot of patience and extensive time at hand it is possible to make some real classic tunes to play along to. You can even publish these songs when you are finished for others to enjoy as well as provide feedback on. You can create your own underlying track to the song as well as the playable track and the instruments can be tuned to create a massive array of different sounds for combining. Yet, most creations will still lack something and the sound dynamics are a little off at times. This is apart from the fact that there are no vocals in the studio creations. This said there are some gems on the Marketplace like classic theme tunes and user created compositions available in the GHTunes (which is the server which distributes and stores all the user content). Don't expect the theme tunes to stay for long though as the majority of songs covered by any kind of copyright are deleted daily.

It is also to be considered that adding more instruments may be the next logical step in the series in order to keep the game play fresh and interesting. It is hard to imagine what instruments could have been added over those seen in rival game Rock Band other than perhaps a keyboard/synthesiser. Though converting a keyboard into the music game format is not a simple task as it comprises so many more single buttons and has no significant actions such as the swing of the drumsticks or guitar strumming. It will be interesting to see in which direction both Activision and EA will take their next titles, or if they just stick to a tried and tested formula until the next console generation comes around.

Guitar Hero World Tour is another solid addition to the genre but not one that brings any kind of major revolution. With the music creator attempting to expand the genre and the track list being its main selling point, Harmonix have a real competitor on their hands. It is simply a good laugh to play with friends and a bit of wacky fun alone and what more could you really want in a game.