About a week ago I purchased the complete Guitar Hero World Tour Band Kit which includes the guitar, drums, and microphone. Although you are not exploring a giant world I still consider this game to have a powerful virtual aspect as you can create a detailed avatars and play with friends online and locally as a band. Since you are with band mates instead of going solo like in previous Guitar Hero Games this “Shared experience creates a sense of reality.”(Meadows 51) One of the best features in the game is the peripherals. It is not that often in games that you feel like you are holding what your avatar is holding. The feel of the instruments, even if they aren‘t real instruments, give you a more authentic sensation than a key board and mouse, which can hardly give you the sensation of walking or swinging a sword. Due to the earlier release of Rock Band which has many of the same features GHWT is up against a wide fan base which feels either thrilled or threatened by a new contender.
Wherever you look online you will find four types of gamers talking about GHWT. There are the die hard Rock Band fan boys who take this game as a threat to their precious Rock Band. They see GHWT as a poor attempt to rip off their game. Often you will see comments like “Ha that’s what Activision gets for trying to rip off Rock Band.” or “Rock Band is so much better than this crap!” These players argue that not only does the interface in the game lack the polish and the usability of Rock Band, but the instruments are also malfunctioning for many people. I find this a funny remark to make considering Rock Band’s instruments have also been plagued by this in the past. They also mention how Rock Band has hundreds of songs to download unlike GHWT.
Another type of user accepts GHWT and claims that it is a good game if not better than Rock Band. These people tend to comment by saying “The instruments are much better when they work. I’ve never had any problems with mine.” or “I just like the songs more in Guitar Hero so I am getting this game.” I find that these gamers are constantly in conflict just as Meadow’s friend stated that “people were really opinionated. They would pick fights left and right over stupid crap.” (Meadows 43)
The final groups are the undecided or buy both. They either don’t know what side to take or just want to buy both games for more songs. This is actually possible since many of the instruments are compatible between both games.
All the communities I looked at were game review pages and the comments left clearly reflect this. Game reviewers have certain number scores. IGN’s score for GHWT on the Xbox 360 was 8/10 while they gave Rock Band 2 a 9/10. This has of course led to many members commenting that Rock Band is better. Of course 8/10 is still a very good score, this usually means the title is a worth buying. Fans do not respond like that however. Fans are ever passionate about their games, and when a unique game like Rock Band is challenged by a supposed rip off they are constantly on the attack or defense. Comments also ranged in length from a fragment to several paragraphs.
Of course these comments are more than just useless fan battles. Game Companies actually take fan opinions into account for future releases. For example owners of the Nintendo Wii enjoyed Guitar Hero 3, but they had some complaints. Guitar Hero 3 had downloadable content for most of the other systems it was on, but not the Wii. In an E3 interview one of the Vicarious Visions employees who worked on GHWT stated that downloadable content would be available for Wii owners, as that is what the fans were asking for.
I tried to get onto the official Guitar Hero World Tour message board, but sadly it is still under construction. I have little doubt that the problems in GHWT will be fixed in the next game. Developers listen to the fans after all, and Rock Band 2 showed this as many of the problems in Rock Band 1 were fixed in 2. Gamers are constantly over the top when it comes to their opinions on games, especially when they have the Internet to hide behind.
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