Activision's Guitar Hero World Tour launches Australia wide tomorrow, EA's Rock Band finally landed on local shelves last week and both are going to be at the top of a lot of xmas lists. They both cost a pretty penny, so which one should you buy?

AusGamers has had some extensive quality time with both games and we're here to give you the low down from an Aussie perspective. Check out our in-depth comparative review for our personal recommendation as well as everything you'll need to know to make up your own mind.

In terms of build quality the World Tour drums are a definite cut above Rock Band's, they're also wireless while Rock Band's require a cable

Sorry but having 4 instruments that all require batteries is bloody stupid to me. I'm GLAD the Rock Band controller uses a hub and is corded. Who would need a wireless drum kit anyway? You plan on moving around with it while playing?

Anyway was hoping someone would put something up like this so I could put my thoughts on RB.

- The RB guitar I thought is good but you have to get used to it. Having no "click" noise when you strum is a bit odd at first and you will need to get used to it. My sister prefers to use the GH3 one when we play together. Also the neck buttons don't really have any spacing so you can lose your mind's tracking on where your fingers are and fudge things up

- if Guitar Hero 3 is anything to go by then RB is, and will, lead in DLC. Ton of awesome songs to get against a Metallica album that is bloody huge and not that good? Yeah...

- Timing. This will destroy you for the first few hours to a full day. In GH1, 2 and 3 I can pass 98% of the songs on expert without worry. In RB I failed my first hard song because the timing window was so different to me. No it wasn't lag either. You have to be spot on with very little room for error. Ho/Po's too are the same. Don't expect to be able to rattle off huge combo lines like in Gh3 or even 2. At least not without some practice. I avoid them as much as possible because I usualy fail the timing.

last edited by DM at 19:06:53 11/Nov/08

I know GH3 guitars can work with GH:WT but will they work with RB? (Wii specifically)

When you have a billion cords running from instruments to one console while people singing, playing guitar while moving about and people swapping in and out constantly about above said cables it's an accident waiting to happen. f***ing hate Buzz on the PS2 for that. I'm glad they're wireless.

Anyway I chose World Tour's instruments over rock bands based online reports and IGN's comparison which was much like yours. I'll pick up the game only for Rock Band after I'm sick of the songs on WT and have played through on all instruments (except singing)

Yep, I definitely want people forming their own opinions so I tried to provide a lot of details.

re: the wireless vs wire thing. A USB hub requires another power point, and it has a plug pack so you can't plug it in next to other things on a powerboard - only slightly annoying though.

Also, I was playing it on an HD projector over the weekend and the rock band's drum cable wasn't really long enough to sit far enough away to watch the screen comfortable, not a problem with the wireles GH drums. Obviously that's not going to be an issue with regular TV's but just another example benefit. Choose the best setup for you.

Another big IMO the GH drums are much better at playing RB, than the RB drums are for playing GH.

Yeah, I've spent so much time playing Rock Band, either just practising by myself, or with friends over, I think possibly the only game I've clocked more hours on is WoW. I've spent heaps of extra money on it (buying DLC, buying a better pedal, getting proper mesh heads for the drumset, and probably other s*** I've forgotten), but its all worth it cos the game just delivers so much fun.

So, at the end of the day, whether your flavour is Rock Band or Guitar Hero, I'd highly recommend picking up at least one of them, sure its not cheap, but you wont regret it!

I never have played or wish to play any of these type of games.. ever.. I see absolutely no appeal whatsoever strumming on an oversized eukalaley... What is the appeal of them??

Wow, if only I had have mentioned something like that in the closing paragraphs of my review... oh wait.

boxhead: me either. I don't see why you would spend so much on a silly 4 pad drum thing to hit when dots fly over the line...

But i'm an actual drummer in an actual band so makes me lol at ppl who think they're so awesome at guitar hero. I tried playing the drumming one at an arcade once and couldn't even do it. Give me a real drumkit and band anyday

It's funny when you see guys at jb or dick smith playing GH nonstop for like 20 mins by themselves.

It's funny when you see guys at jb or dick smith playing GH nonstop for like 20 mins by themselves.

why? because they are having fun?

Why play games at all? I should just go buy a real shotgun and just blow people away.

I tried playing the drumming one at an arcade once and couldn't even do it. Give me a real drumkit and band anyday

One of the lead programmers at work is a professional drummer and he had a blast playing Rock Band, so maybe you just suck :P He jumped on the drums and did Enter Sandman on hard having never played the game before, cos it was close enough to the real thing and he knew the song really well from playing it at gigs.

Really though, I don't get the hate towards these games, its not like they're in any way dimishing your ability to play a real instrument or making you less cool or something. Just because theres suddenly lots of people out there playing a drumming game on their home consoles doesn't somehow make you less of a drummer yourself. If anything, they get more people interested in music and maybe get people interested enough to pick up a real instrument. Plus, they're just lots of fun to play.

boxhead: me either. I don't see why you would spend so much on a silly 4 pad drum thing to hit when dots fly over the line...

But i'm an actual drummer in an actual band so makes me lol at ppl who think they're so awesome at guitar hero. I tried playing the drumming one at an arcade once and couldn't even do it. Give me a real drumkit and band anyday

Yeah, all of these silly people having fun. Why should they bother having fun with a simple enjoyable game with friends when they could spend years learning how to play a real instrument?

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/rock_band.png

I lol at that pic everytime I see it Midda

Why play games at all? I should just go buy a real shotgun and just blow people away.

um what.

Who would need a wireless drum kit anyway?

Me.

GH:WT is due tomorrow (today now), but as of yesterday midday the local store still didn't have their shipment in, although they've been shipped last week so it's gotta be close.

I used to think I'd never play a rhythm game because they all blurted about how you can be a real rock star, etc. that I'm totally against. I picked up GH3 with the PS3 purely because it was a defining console game, not becuase I thought I'd enjoy it. Tell you what though, like that comic strip, it's just fun. To hell with the promo wiffle waffle, it's just fun to get in there and play.

Now that the entire family is converted to GH3, GH:WT will mean we're all on at once, and hopefully my 3 year old can keep up on beginner drums (if I can get him off LittleBigPlanet).

"GO PLAY REAL INSTRUMENTS YOU NOOBSSSSSS" irritates the f*** out of me. Why is it that this comparison is only brought up for these faggy instrument games? What about sports games, racing games, and army games - all these things you can do IRL as well.

Let me rephrase my post. Its sad to see some random walk into DSE or JB and go straight to the GH stand and stand there for 15 mins mashing away... I go into stores to buy things not to have a gaming session.

I take back my go-play-instruments post tho - point was kinda moot given other games...

Self-induced flaming....

last edited by 3dee at 11:28:36 12/Nov/08

A friend just picked up Guitar Hero III with 2 guitars for $30 (go kmart!) so i'll be having a crack at it tonight for the first time..haven't played these types of games before

it's called try before buy

http://freespace.virgin.net/bg.shields/HighHorse.JPG

GH:WT prices ?

Best I have seen for xbox360
DSE $278
BigW $278 (Tommorow)
JBHiFi $288

Yeah $278 seems to be the best around, harvey norman matched that for me this morning.

I HAD preordered from JB in the city on the 27th of last month, I got a phone call yesterday (tuesday) saying they didn't have enough stock to fill my preorder. So after ringing around a ton of places I found some copies at harvey norman down the road who were kind enough to match Big W's price with me even asking them (usually they're dicks to deal with). So first thing this morning I went down and picked it up. Jump to lunch time today, JB rings me and tells me my World tour pack is ready to be picked up! wtf

anyway hopefully I'll get my $20 deposit back, then I'll just buy the guitar stand they were giving away with preorders :P

So, just as a heads up to anyone else

My red pad on the drum set is already broken

culprit of very s*** soldering

Vorador, which game did you get?

I should have pointed that out hey - GHWT for 360

How awesome is the Eagles "Hotel California" chart! Missed 1 note in the whole thing to & earned $1200 for one song.

Oh & I like how the Tool "Location" is basically just trippy spiral with Tool images, rather clever

My yellow cymbal seemed a bit flaky but after talking to someone else who got it, they told me to hit more precisely in the center of the cymbal and harder. It's not too bad now, though I still might hook the kit up to a PC and calibrate it with their software once I can get a hold of a USB to MIDI cable.

Otherwise it's been awesome, I'm slowly getting better, I started on beginner on drums but it's retarded, it's literally nothing but kick drum. I put it up to medium and it's a s***load better, more notes makes it easier for some reason, I guess it's closer to matching the real drum notes and it's easier to predict or something.

Anyway when you do nail notes all over the place on a good song it feels awesome.

> I started on beginner on drums but it's retarded, it's literally nothing but kick drum.

Actually you can hit any pad on beginner level. I was pissed when I found that out after pounding thru 3 songs on kickdrum.

Found out the hard way - the PS2 version of GHWT doesn't recognise the PS2 singstar mics, even if you have a controller plugged in. Back to get the Wii version and re-buy my guitar controller :(

Ok so ive bought both these games and here are my thoughts. (Keep in mind i havent used the guitar or mic once yet for either game but im sure they're fun)

Rock Band: Great game, started on Medium and have completed the game and now half way through hard, drums seem to be good, very responsive, although quite noisey and not so durable, also could be set up in a much cooler way.

Guitar Hero World Tour: Lets start by saying i like the set up of the kit itself a lot more, and the toms/snare feel good, a lot less noisey. First thing i noticed is (again starting on medium) world tour is much much harder than Rock Band, not entirely a bad thing just something i thought i would note.

Now for the bad, the kick for me is s***, it feels crap under your foot and its response is s***house, at the start of the songs when you can hit anything all pads work fine and the kick picks up maybe one in every 4 kicks.

Also the left cymbal doesnt seem to be quite as sensitive as the rest of the pads, and the right cymbal when raised rattles when hit, so im currently playing with both cymbals down.

Anyone else experienced these problems? If so id love to hear.

last edited by Deathwalker at 19:57:28 14/Nov/08

First thing i noticed is (again starting on hard) world tour is much much harder than Rock Band, not entirely a bad thing just something i thought i would note.

There are a few RB songs that are quite insane on difficulty. Green Grass and High Tides comes to mind. GH:WT do seem to be tougher looking at them on youtube but that is what I think to be just the GH series. Ever since Neversoft took over they seem to like to make the note charts a big tougher than what they have to be.

Just look at videos of Number of the Beast in RB and GH3 and you'll see what I mean. That isn't a bad thing though. Just depends on what you like, eaiser or harder difficulty. I'll be picking up this next time I get payed

Sorry meant to be saying starting again on Medium, im not up to hard on world tour yet.

Picked up GHWT on Xbox on Thursday, and the Red pad has stopped working already.

Looks like time to send it on off to the old Activisions return centre and see what they say....

Quite disappointing. Doesn't stop me doing the career with the guitar, but eh, drumming was awesome fun.

I can only hope they don't knock back a warranty because my housemate managed to spastically break one of the little plastic tabs which keeps your drumsticks in place when not playing it, because he left it up while guitaring and managed to smack it.

exact same problem with mine cyph, red drum just died friday night when I had a heap of people over playing it :(

had people round last night ... we bashed it all night long no problems with any of the pads

I played GH:WT at a mates place and mainly did the singing, but had heaps of fun on the drums and guitar. I'm mainly a medium player for the instruments.

I think with party games like this, it's sometimes hard to get everyone to play if they don't know the songs, or if they don't have the games themselves. I found that the songs on GH:WT weren't so "singing"-friendly. It was a bit hard to get everyone to play if they had to sit there on Beginner/Easy and mumble lyrics. Granted, I'm sure you can disable it though. But yeah, how do you sing a Tool song? Or that Mars Volta song? Not fun at all! :p

But yeah, how do you sing a Tool song? Or that Mars Volta song? Not fun at all! :p

I smashed that Mars Volta song first go! Probably only because I knew the tune though; I don't think my attempts to read the Spanish were particularly accurate!

The beastie boys one is hard to sing too... I am to white to rap

Not liking hearing about the drums f***ing up on GH:WT because I have one on order. So is there a main reason they're breaking? Like smashing the crap outta the drums or just built dodgy?

Built Dodgy though it's not all of them, I know of more people who's are working fine than those who have broken ones. Either way I don't regret getting the GHWT ones over the rock band ones

I belt the f*** out of my drums and haven't had any problems..

The Mars Volta song was difficult on drums but that's probably because they are freaks, in a good way :)

I haven't tried the mic yet, I'm tempted to try guitar and mic together for Everlong

Rev, mine works just fine and i beat the s*** out of it (I am not a small guy) ... so meh ... guess its just pot luck

Not liking hearing about the drums f***ing up on GH:WT because I have one on order. So is there a main reason they're breaking? Like smashing the crap outta the drums or just built dodgy?

I mentioned this in the review, it's a calibration issue with some early kits.

It's a software fault, not hardware. It's fixable but requires a MIDI interface in order to connect the drums to your PC to do so. Red Octane support were mailing these out for free to people in the US that requested them, not sure about Australia.

They are available for purchase around the place.

Not that I have an issue. But I am all for chipping to buy one to keep say with the folks at mamoth for locals to fix their drums ? (assuming they'd be ok with that concept?)

can you buy the drums separately?

I went in after reading this thread and just got the guitar + world tour game
I'm already loving it, I wouldn't mind trying the drums

Well, I've been too lazy to getting around to mailing my drums off to Activision to RMA them, so I've opened it up with a Torx attachment for my socket set (all except 2 of them, damn thing isn't long enough to reach them, to bunnings it is!), and I can see that the ground wire to the red drum isn't connected anymore.

So a small soldering job tomorrow when I get back from Bunnings tomorrow.... and I should be back in action...

I got my drums back yesterday, 8 days after I sent them off for repair. They've replaced the whole unit with a brand new one which is good, doesn't seem to need any calibrating either.

guitar hero ftw

that sucks that the drums break so easily =( would have thought $300 would get u something that lasts longer than a week

*edit* a better ... slightly more adult version

last edited by Obes at 12:02:25 27/Nov/08

So far has red drum issues with GH:WT which has managed to be fixed up via soldering. Still have issues with the yellow cymbal which requires calibration - AU red octane are now offering the same support as in the US so you can get fill out a warranty form and get a USB-Midi cable sent to you rather than paying for one.

Went and picked up GH3+Guitar at Harvey normans for $90~ yesterday and figured I'd get the rockband game while I was there. Playing rockband and enjoying the actual game a bit more than world tour, but that may be because with the yellow cymbal issue, I've swapped the orange to where the yellow should be and can actually play 4 drums :P

seen this??

impressive

And now I can blame my lack of guitar hero power on an inability to play the real instruments.

Everlong is a f***en hard song to play on drums, its good to see they made it hard in rock band/guitar hero.

Maybe I missed something but my PS3 Rock Band guitar is wireless. Picked it up day 1 here in Oz so I don't know what you guys bought to get it wired? The drums are indeed loud and need something to dull the noise.

But i'm an actual drummer in an actual band so makes me lol at ppl who think they're so awesome at guitar hero. I tried playing the drumming one at an arcade once and couldn't even do it. Give me a real drumkit and band anyday


And i suppose just because you play the drums real drums that makes you cool? I play guitar myself but that doesnt mean im too good to play guitar hero. It makes me laugh at people like you who take games so seriously. Doesnt sound much like a life to me hun lol.

Although i dont have the rockband or the guitar hero world tour as of yet i will soon but its not because i can play a real guitar. Its because i believe in having fun. Not stuck at home beating my drum you know what i mean?

So you do it on an online gaming forum instead.

nice!

get out of this thread Royal

you must be a crap drummer, my bro in law is incredible at the drums (gigs for lots of bands etc) and even he said he was surprised at how reasonably accurate GHWT drums are to the live songs.

he plays on expert and hardly misses a beat (for the songs he knows). thats without really looking at the screen, so they have programmed the game well to detect the correct beat patterns

I play real Guitar but im kinda interested in Guitar Hero.
I was very sceptical of it at first but now..
Looks a load of fun and aint that what games should be ?

Its a GAME. Lighten up.

They're awesome fun games to play. Solo they can get a bit boring but if you've got others with you it is f***ing heaps of fun. My suggestion is to buy GH:WT bundle with the lot and then buy the Rock Band disc separate. The RB drums only have 4 pads compared to GH:WT's 5 so it makes playing GH suck without being able to use the 5th pad to drum.

Far out. This is an amazing amount of technology for the money. Very impressed, wished I had the skillz to do this.

hell yea ^
love metallicas drumming, has always appealed to me in its simplicity and awesomeness.
so this vid is the rockband game?

Ok I've got GH:WT now, sweet. Being as actual drummer this is what interested me the most was to play the drums portion and see what it was like. I'll just say that it's not really the same, give me a real kit any day. On the other hand I play a little guitar and I'd rather play the GH Guitar haha cause I'm much better at that than real guitar :). My cymbals need to be calibrated cause they don't pick up all the hits properly. When that's fixed we should be sweet to go straight to Expert and bash away. Awesome game!

Yeah, that video is Rock Band

I ended up ordering RB2 from that Game place you suggested in the UK Khel. Ended up working out pretty much the same price as you'd pay here for games. So any idea when it get's released out here? Prolly ages away.

let me know how that turns out rev, you got it on 360 right? if you get yours and it's all working fine on an unmodded xbox I might have to do the same

Yeah, got the 360 version. Did some googling and it seems everything should be fine.

Yeah, it works fine, mine arrived on monday before Christmas and we spent all day/night monday playing it, getting drunk, and taking turns singing Eye of the Tiger and Hungry like a Wolf, much fun :) Still haven't unlocked Everlong though, I'm hanging out to try that cos I downloaded the Foo Fighters album but it doesn't come with Everlong, since thats already in Rock Band 2.

So any idea when it get's released out here? Prolly ages away.

Yeah, I don't think theres even a date for it yet :(

last edited by Khel at 13:34:52 27/Dec/08