Guitar Hero World Tour - Stand Alone Guitar

Customer Ratings:
List Price: Price Unavailable
Sale Price: $139.99
Today's Bonus:

I really like this guitar. For this review I'm comparing it to the Rock Band guitar. (I own a PS3, but have played Xbox as well)

Positives:

Very sturdy. It's slightly bigger and heavier than RB guitar that makes it feel less like a toy.

Very responsive--it only takes a slight tip to activate Star Power.

Unlike RB, the buttons protrude from the neck and are curved, so sliding up and down notes is much easier.

The buttons are spaced out better than RB, so normal sized hands don't bump adjacent buttons. For new players, it also makes it easier to know where your hand is positioned without having to look.

It clicks when you strum, making it easier to keep the beat.

2 options to activate star power. Tip the guitar up, or hit the button next to the strum bar (works in both games).

Neck Slider. The new neck slider is kinda cool, allowing you to tap on it instead of strumming notes. It can also be used for a different distortion sound, or in certain parts of the song where the notes are chained together. The slider is disabled when playing RB.

Negatives:

The clicking is very loud and can get annoying, especially to those in the room that are not playing.

The PS button / directional controller is too close to the whammy and can easily get bumped. If the directional controller is bumped, it thinks you hit a wrong note. If the PS button is bumped, the game gets paused. Once you're used to the guitar, you learn to avoid it.

There are limited distortion options. (there's no switch like RB) Very minor.

Children or adults with very small hands may find it a stretch to play the 1st and 5th button at the same time, but you won't need to worry about this until you get to Expert mode.

I have had no problems with timing, connectivity, or notes registering correctly, except when the batteries are almost dead. If you notice these problems, TRY REPLACING YOUR BATTERIES. The only problem I've had is that my neck slider is overly sensitive when I try to play the GHWT connected notes. Easy solution--I play the notes normally.

TIP: If you own a guitar hero guitar or drum set, I recommend picking up a rechargeable battery pack made by Blockhead. They're super cheap and work great. I have one for each of my instruments:

Click Here to Read More Reviews >>

I bought the Rock Band "Fender" over a year ago and between the "mushy" strum bar and non-functional tilt (overdrive or star power activation), playing Rock Band was far less fun than it should have been. I bought this Guitar Hero World Tour guitar recently and it has made playing Rock Band a blast. The strum bar is more like the "clicky" bar of the older Guitar Hero guitars and the tilt activation doesn't require you to tilt the guitar almost vertically to activate overdrive, I'd say it's more like a 22 degree tilt which keeps me from getting distracted and therefore missing notes. I actually improved so quickly I was finally able to move up to hard difficulty. I'm playing Rock Band 2 mostly now, this guitar is compatible with all versions of Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

Buy Guitar Hero World Tour - Stand Alone Guitar Now

Good news to PS3 owners. The lag has been fixed. After comparing the Les Paul and World Tour guitars, this is much more responsive and does not drop notes like the Les Paul does. Also, the connection (detachable neck) between the neck and guitar has been hardened to prevent issues with the frets like the Les Paul did on some models.

But, that doesn't mean this is the perfect guitar.

For one, I experienced strumming issues on my first guitar after a few hours of playing. It would register a proper strum 25% of the time (most of the time it would drop a strum or double-strum). So I exchanged it for a new one. And whad'ya know? It, AGAIN, goes through more strumming issues after a few hours of play. I was about to return it for a new one again. But after doing some research, the issues were because of faulty SPDT switches under the strum bar. So instead of returning it, I opened up my guitar and replaced them with much higher quality switches. Now the guitar no longer has strumming issues.

But I'm still unhappy. Sometimes when I elbow-strum to 2-hand-tap on complex hammer-on parts, my elbow would hit the start or select button, which results in pausing the game or activating star power at unwanted times. So, again, I open up my guitar and remove one of the start buttons. This fixes the accidental pausing, but not the accidental star power activation. I prefer the other models where there is 1 start button and 1 star power button, both the same size, further away from the strum bar.

The strum bar is ok, but the other models' strum bars are much better. This one is too long. Sometimes, it's hard to strum at extreme speeds (such as the beginning of "The Devil Went Down To Georgia" on Expert difficulty). It feels more mushy and springy that accidental double-strumming can occur.

Overall: I do like the feel and responsiveness, but it could've been much better.

Read Best Reviews of Guitar Hero World Tour - Stand Alone Guitar Here

Works great, good construction, good price, nice action. I played guitar in a band and would buy this guitar controller again.

Want Guitar Hero World Tour - Stand Alone Guitar Discount?

The PS3 stand alone guitar was purchased to replace the one we wore out. It was received on time and was in excellent condition and works great. I would recommend.