Gaming and Geekery

Despite my claims that I would be fighting off the desire to pick up Rock Band 2 for the eagerly-anticipated release of Guitar Hero World Tour, I still somehow managed to pick it up. In retrospect, I figure that if I have played (and own) them both, I can base opinions on personal experiences instead of hearsay (which happens all too frequently with some people).

Good rationalization, there, eh?

My first few hours with the game were pretty good. It took me a while to get the game synchronized to my home theater system and TV, mainly because I figured I was too cool to go through the automatic calibration tools. Those tools, by the way, are much much better than their predecessor. This time around, they run calibration for audio AND video separately. In the end, the game feels a lot more responsive than it did with RB1.

The track list is a little odd, and I can't remember for the life of me the names of some of the songs at the beginning of the list that made my ears bleed, but I will say that the collection so far is... different. There are some really nice additions within the realm of music that I enjoy, from Disturbed's "The Sickness" to Pearl Jam's "Alive" and Soundgarden's "Spoonman." And then there's the stuff like Devo's "Uncontrollable Urge" that makes me wonder what the hell Harmonix is smoking these days.

Getting back to objective observations, the game offers a nice chunk of new character customization options but the vast majority of them are all from the first game. Ultimately, they merely piled on a few new things here and there and repackaged the game.

The graphics seem a bit cleaned up here and there, with added texturing to character attire and enhanced animation to the characters and venues. Character movement doesn't seem as random as it used to. But even then, all of the base character models still look the same.

The new "Challenge Mode" is an interesting touch, but I have yet to discover the true purpose behind it. I also have yet to try the online play, but that will definitely come soon enough.

Even based on what little time I spent with it, I'm pretty sure that if you enjoyed the first game, you'll find this one is definitely better. But whether it's better enough to warrant the current price tag of $60 is yet to be determined. I look forward to weighing the game's experience with GH:WT. In the meantime, I have to unlock the rest of the stuff in this one.