Activision announces Guitar Hero World Tour, Wii downloadable content

All you air guitarists can continue to pamper your musical dreams and fantasies in grand style as Activision has heralded the Guitar Hero game. The game titled Guitar Hero World Tour was announced on May 22, 2008, in a press release and it will come stuffed to the hilt with several new additions.

The release heavily plugs revamped guitar among other additions but it drops a bombshell with the promise of downloadable content (DLC) for the Wii version of the Guitar Hero World Tour.

The game will feature recordings from the eminent likes of Linking Park, Van Helen and Sublime. It will also introduce a feature called Music Studio that will allow players to concoct their own music using all the musical instruments and then play it in the game. The composed music will be shareable using GhTunes – pretty original. So now players can not only prove themselves as performers but music virtuosos. There will also be an unprecedented Battle of the Bands online multiplayer mode that will allow 8 bands to lock horns with each other, only for one band to establish its supremacy over the others.

There are advances on the instrument front as well. The game will be accompanied by a revamped guitar controller and a drum kit that features “three drum pads, two raised cymbals and a bass kick pedal, the drum controller combines larger and quieter, velocity-sensitive drum heads with soft rubber construction to deliver authentic bounce back and is easy to set up, move, break down and store.”

Although the availability of downloadable content for the Wii is a huge announcement and will certainly bolster the sale of the game when it comes out, the announcement comes with a caveat. Players will not be able to store the downloaded content on SD cards and will have to be content with the Wii’s internal memory.

A few gamers are a little disenchanted with the series as they fear the series might just replicate EA’s popular sports game franchises like Madden and FIFA – much hoopla for nothing – and become stagnant. Let us hope that Guitar Hero World Tour is refreshing enough. Activision cannot be too complacent with its Guitar Hero franchise as Rock Band is breathing down its throat.

Read [The Escapist Magazine]