“Guitar Hero: World Tour” Teaser and Drummer Demo Trailers

First and foremost, you need to head on over to GameTrailers and watch the Guitar Hero: World Tour Exclusive Debut Trailer. Sure, it is just a teaser, but you do get your first look at someone hitting (sort of, the guy looks half asleep) the new drum set.

You can also briefly see the new guitar. In a not so surprising move, Activision seems perfectly content to rip off the idea of a second set of fret buttons From Rock Band. Dont get me wrong, I am not one of those guys to complain about one company stealing from another (so long as it makes a better game experience, you can steal from Jesus as far as I am concerned). The interesting thing about this move however is that I dont really buy into the fact that those smaller fret buttons add anything to the total package. Yes, they are great for kiddies who might not have the size and dexterity to use the normal fret buttons, but that is a rather small target to aim at. Did anyone really ever use the small frets in RB more then once or twice to test it out? Why even bother including them in GHWT? Perhaps they feel the “copycat” name calling is already going to rain down, so they might as well make the most of it.

The mic is also in the video, but you dont get to see it at all really. Nothing against RB’s mic, but this is where Activision can also slap a few features in and claim superiority. Here’s hoping the GHWT mic will have some sort of setting or whatz-it to play around with.

While the teaser trailer is nice, those seeking a little bit more info on the drums can look at the other official video released so far. In the Drummer Demo Trailer, you can watch as Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Stewart Copeland (The Police) and Travis Barker (Blink 182) talk about using the new drums. Even better, you can watch them wail on them a little bit. Unfortunately you dont get to see any game play, just the guys womping on the not-plugged-into-anything pads. I suppose the almost dramatic circling of the drums in white space to give a better look at them, makes up for it in some ways.

“Playing guitar, that’s all great and everything.

But hitting stuff?… Awesome!”

In the video, Smith talks about the durability of the set (those cymbals do seem to be begging to be snapped off), while Copeland discusses the supposed ease of setting them up and taking them down. This is very interesting to me because I firmly believe that you will not be able to offer a cheap way to have the best of both worlds. Hopefully GHWT will prove me to be incorrect. Barker on the other hand goes on to talk about how important it was too have the the raised cymbals and authentic feeling of movement (going so far as to mentioning playing with eyes closed) included in the game.

Needless to say, this game is shaping up to be more then what we might have expected. The details are only now starting to come in and we will be all over every aspect of it until release.

Be good. Stay up.

Update: You can view a slightly longer version of the Drummer Demo Trailer from this post on the official Guitar Hero website. Also of note is the fact that Activision has 6 slots available for videos on the site, so we can expect a load of info from them soon enough.

Also available on the official site is a 3D view of the drums, simply click on the little star over the drums below the trailer viewing window. Guitar & mic 3D images are promised soon.