Guitar Hero was featured recently as being one of the fastest selling gaming franchises in US history, and it’s clear why. Instead of now playing air guitar to yourself, you can do it on a physical guitar – not to mention actually being able to hear what your playing. Just last Friday, World Tour hit worldwide, bringing with it a physical drum set and mic retailing at £149.99.
… But it’s not just the big consoles which are getting the attention – Oh no – Guitar Hero mobile nearly reached platinum (1,000,000 sales worldwide) last year. Platinum! With this in mind, it comes as no surprise that Guitar Rock Tourâ„¢ which is a mobile reincarnation of Guitar Hero, is currently hot on iPhone …
Does it live up it Guitar Hero?
For a mobile game, Guitar Rock Tourâ„¢ [App Store] is extremely polished graphically, however, it doesn’t come without it’s down sides. For a start, because the game is so graphically intensive, the frame rate of the runway can slow down dramatically, to the point where the notes will sometimes appear the fall behind the actual beat of the track.
Gameplay
There are four tabs across the bottom of the application, and these include:
Quick – Play an unlocked track, gain points
Tour – Play an unlocked track, pick a character, gain points, get ranked
Options – Change language, get thrown into a tutorial, read about the app
More Games – Launches CoverFlow-like interface with links to other Gameloft apps
Playing Guitar Rock Tourâ„¢ is pretty much the same as Guitar Hero … minus the guitar, drums and mic. Yes, Guitar Rock Tourâ„¢ is played with those things you call fingers, and clever synapse technology called multi-touch. When you first open the application you’ll be greeted with a intro video, skipping that you then come to the main screen. The main screen offers a track set list, which includes;
Rock you like a Hurricane, You Really Got Me, Heart Shaped Box, Message in a Bottle, Walk Idiot Walk, The River, What’s my Age Again?, Smoke on the Water, Beat It, The Great Escape, In the Shadows, If Anyone Cared, Who Knew, Under Class Hero, Girlfriend, Honest Mistake and Banquet.
Tracks are displayed in a CoverFlow like fashion, and swiping left to right moves the rack of CD covers. Covers marked with a ‘lock’ in the top right are yet to be unlocked and are unavailable. There are three levels of difficult just like the console version; Easy, Medium and Hard. Once you’ve chosen your track you have a choice of playing with a guitar or drums. If you’ve never played Guitar Hero before, on any of the major consoles, it’s basically a virtual simulation of a guitar. Various notes are thrown down the ‘Runway’ towards the strike line. Each note is colour coded and responds to the various colour coded buttons on the normal guitar provided. The more notes you hit, the bigger the score you rack up.
In game you’ll find your score up top (left). To the left side – your performance meter. See the tube with the skull, your aim is to keep this as full as possible at all times. Trust me, drop too low, your in trouble. To the right? – your star power meter. Now on the console version of the game, there is a feature called ‘Star Power’. This is gained by successfully hitting a string of notes consecutively. When this happens, normally you would lift up your guitar, all the notes would be ‘electrified’ and further notes hit from that point onward would score you massively increased points. So with this in mind, you’d think gameloft would have released the iPhone has an accelerometer right? – Well, seems they didn’t. To active ‘Star Power’ you simply tap on your star power meter (right) when lit. You’ll also be glad to know you can pause the game. To do this, just hit the icon marked with a house shape, in the top right.
And that’s basically it – Ok … I’m saying that as if I hate the game – it’s a good game, it truly is, but now onto my next point ..
It’s Crashilicous
This game is extremely unstable, which is a shame as the reply value of this thing, for me, is off the scale. But I can’t avoid the fact that you can’t get through one entire song without the app crashing back to the home screen. Now, normally I’d say this is the fault of iPhone software 2.1, but really, it crashes so much, its unlikely. For a game which retails at £4.99, it’s pretty unacceptable, especially seeing as though Gameloft seem to be a well respected, definitely prominent, gaming company on the store.
Visuals / Sound
If I had to give a developer 10/10 for visuals and sound on a title, this would be it. They’re exceptional.
The animations, smoothness, and complexity of the visuals are really satisfying, and for a game of this genre, they suit perfectly. Even down to the misplaced ‘cool-acting’ little tags:
“To optimize performance, put your headphones in and eat your vegetables”
Audio, with the device also being an iPod, sounds great! Not too loud to be distorted, and not too quiet where you have to put headphones in to even hear what your playing. It’s just right. If you miss a note, as with the console version, it’s not played in the song. The more notes you miss the worse the track sounds – Realistic? – definitely. One thing which is great about Guitar Rock Tourâ„¢ however is, Gameloft give you the option to turn the ENTIRE interface on it’s head, so you can play with the iPhone’s speaker on the top! – This is absolutely fantastic thinking on their part, and I only wish other developers would follow suit. You may have noticed playing some games, you can accidentally cover the speaker with your little pinky. No More, is this the case!
Price
Was £7.99, now £4.99. Ok, It’s affordable – is it worth every penny? – not really, not in it’s current state, not until they fix the constant crashing anyway. Visually, as I’ve described (and as you can probably see) Guitar Rock Tourâ„¢ is outstanding. It’s like they’ve completely ported guitar hero to the iPhone.
What I’d like to see
– Character customization
– Accelerometer involvement (Landscape mode / Star Power activation)
– Less Crashing for £4.99!!
Overall, I think this game is respectable. I can’t say it’s excellent, although I want to, as for the above issues. If they fix the consistent crashular behavior, then yes, this game would be excellent. In it’s current state, it’s well designed, has a high reply value , and at £4.99 – your pretty much getting the console version of Guitar Hero on your phone. Still, what’s a game if it crashes constantly?
It’s worth noting that Guitar Rock Tourâ„¢ is NOT COMPATIBLE WITH iPod touch. No-one knows the reason for this, it just isn’t. A couple of people have suggests the game may require cellular data – I say, in what way?! …
… and so I leave you with these questions:
Have you ever played Guitar Hero?
Did you (or are you going to) buy Guitar Rock Tourâ„¢ for iPhone?
Do you think Guitar Rock Tourâ„¢ for iPhone is even comparable to Guitar Hero?
Go grab it: Guitar Rock Tourâ„¢
Official Site: Gameloft.co.uk/mobile-games/guitar-rock-tour/
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