Okay, so, with the release of Guitar Hero: World Tour, I'm interested in what people think is the better game currently. I've been debating on which one to buy. I love the GH drumset that just came out, but I've had more experience with RB2.

So overall, my question is for those who have played them, which do you think is the most balanced game? By this I mean, which balances a good song selection with good note matching, extras, etc.

List the pros and cons of each and which one you believe to be better.

Berto this is an easy choice.

Activision >>>>>> EA.

/thread

but Jeff...

Harmonix >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Neversoft

in rhythm games at least

That is hardly and apples to apples comparison. Plus GHWT has RedOctane perifs. Do you know anyone who actually likes the RB guitar? 'nuff said

for the 3rd time


no

I seem to like RB better.

How is that not an apples to apples comparison? They are both guitar only and band rhythm game developers. I'm just going to say that Harmonix has revolutionized the genre twice, and brings the real innovation to the table. Neversoft has only polished and added gimmicks.. case in point, boss battles.. the only thing that made GH3 any better than GH2 was the guitar.

I will agree that the GH guitars are better, but jury is still out on the drums.
So far, I think the cymbols are a gimmick and that they've limited themselves with only 3 heads. but i'm going to hold off on final judgement until I've had a chance to actually play on them.

Neversoft has made 2(ish) rythm games. GH3 and GHWT (I don't count the expansions for 3) and a whole bucket full of Tony Hawk games. On the other hand Harmonix has developed exclusively music based titles. (with the exception of that one eyetoy game for ps2). If we are strictly comparing GH1/2 to GH3 and GHWT to RB1/2 then I think you should use way less >'s if any at all.

That'd be pretty insane playing a tony hawk game with a guitar though

OMG....as soon as I get my guitar fixed I am reinstalling gh2 on the PC and trying that shit out.

i have played both.. bought GH:WT at midnight when it came out, full band. One of my friends had RB1 last year, so I played those drums, but never played them on RB2, although I have the game and have played them on guitar.

First off, the guitar...

never was a fan of the RB guitar, although the buttons higher on the neck were cool, was nice not to have to strum on certain parts.. the new GH guitar has the slide part which is essentially the same thing for the slide parts in the songs--although i find it hard as hell to get used to (and it can only be used on the specified parts, the rest of the time it can be used to strum (like you're playing slap bass) or on sustained notes it produces a wah wah effect) And the clickiness of the strumbar... I prefer the GH clicky.. And the new guitar is slightly different than the old one, there is a slight bit of play each direction before it actually clicks.. I didn't like it at first, but i've gotten used to it. (and it's not just mine like that, my friend has one and it is the same) And the hammer-ons... seem to be a little bit harder in WT than GH3 in the slow parts.. pretty picky there, but in the really fast stuff, not much difference, maybe even a little easier in WT (i've been hitting the hell out of some crazy stuff..) And RB2 seems about the same as RB1 in that respect.

Bass

Same stuff as guitar pretty much.. but GH has the extra note, the open strum, which adds a degree of difficulty. And combine that with the ability to tap the slide part like you're playing slap bass... Makes it a lot less boring (although a couple songs still get really repetitive...)

Vocals...

I've spent very little time with these.. but here's my experience anyway... RB2 I was able to sing most of the songs I attempted on hard without much trouble.. I still haven't done any on GH, but a couple of my friends have, and they can normally do medium with no problem on RB (yeah, i know they suck..) but oh GH, it must be a shitload harder (or more accurate) b/c they fail... sometimes even while using star power. One of my friends dropped it down to easy and still failed the piss out of a couple songs... I'm well aware that he is not half the singer he thinks he is, but it seems to be really unforgiving to fail him that quickly even on the easy difficulty...

Drums:

Only played the RB1 drums, and not all that much either.. But from my limited experience, GH is a lot better. The pads have a much better feel and they don't make such an obnoxious racket as the RB ones did. Also, the layout feels a lot more realistic, the drums are the same notes every song. you have the snare with the high hat and two toms and a crash. I don't feel like it is limited by only having 3 instead of 4, although I wondered that myself before.

So... In my opinion GH is a lot better. I didn't really see too much difference in the selection of the songs, in fact, there were a lot of the same songs in both games. Neither game provided me with much of a challenge on the guitar. I played through RB2 and only failed one song once, beat it second time through. GH, a friend and I co-oped on guitar and bass, we failed one song twice (which brings up another point.. if one person fails, everyone fails, unlike RB..) but we switched parts and beat it with no problem. Then we had trouble with the very last song a few times, but went into practice for a couple minutes and then beat it with no problem as well. So neither game has anything too epic in the guitar parts in comparison to GH3 even... But I have the feeling that a lot of the songs on GH are focusing on drums a lot, so that's where the epicness might be. so.. I like GH better, but there are still a lot of aspects of both games i haven't really explored fully, so... take it for what it's worth.

Awesome review.

Can we get a poll?

pretty much everything tom green says above is true... except for the part about his friend who isnt as good as he thinks at vocals... that is false.

the drums for world tour are a lot tougher in my opinion from those on RB1, havent played RB2 drums but the cymbals being up higher means you cant rely on the order of the notes you have to really keep track of which notes are the raised cymbals and which are the regular drum pads. that and between the bass pedal and everything it has 6 notes vs RB2's 5 notes.

Now the slide guitar thing is kinda cool but i prefer to just finger tap the fret's during those sections instead of sliding my hand down the neck to find the slide part for a 5 sec . on the longer faster solos it is pretty easy to BS your way through it on the slider though lol. open strum on the bass is interesting. it keeps you paying attention thats for sure. it is different enough to keep you awake on some songs.

Then vocals are pretty annoying on world tour. i passed quite a few songs on RB2 on hard but struggle through fairly easy songs on medium on world tour. some of that is that i didnt know the songs at all but it seems a lot less forgiving on being a little off pitch.

so my final conclusion is im a GH fan. the game play just seems smoother and more put together. from what ive played of RB2 it kind of seems they rushed it out the door to beat the release date on world tour and the fact that the original release was game only and no new instruments kind of reaffirms that conclusion. also tom green is currently giving me the bird (the bird is the word) through a hammer on section as im writing this... lol. anyways they both have a lot of goods songs and as already said they share quite a few songs too but if i were you i would get world tour. either one is fun but i just like game play a lot better on world tour.

So I ended up buying GH:WT. I like the touch pad on the guitar, definitely makes things interesting.

The one flaw I saw in the review was about the set list. Yeah, there are ~10-15 of the same songs, but that is nowhere near "a lot" considering both games have between 84-86 songs. I probably should've looked before I bought GHWT, but I like RB2's set list more.