Guitar Hero

Title Guitar Hero: World Tour
System Wii
Creators Activision
UPC 047875954557
Copyright Date 2008
Interest Age 10+
Rating Teen
Genre Video Game: Music
Plot Summary
Guitar Hero is back with the World Tour edition for Wii. The game package comes with a guitar, a microphine and a drum set that enables three different people to play at once. Get an extra guitar and four can play: guitar, drums, bass and vocals. On the screen, colored squares speed towards you, indicating that you should press (or hit) a certain button while a voice indicator tells the vocalist if they are within range. The songs that are available are a mix of rock, punk, emo and even some Spanish music, with more songs available for purchase.
Critical Evaluation
Who didn't want, at some point in their life, to be in a band? This game boils what usually takes lots of practice to learn down to a simple to understand, five-key, color-coded game that can be set at varying levels of difficulty. The songs are fun and a great mix of both old classics and new hits. The incentive to unlock different venues is not very motivating as the venue becomes unimportant as soon as the music starts. The only really unfortunate thing about this version is that the graphics are extremely poor; all of the audience members move at exactly the same time and there is a strange monster motif that keeps reoccurring, even though it's never really explained.
Reader’s Annotation
Let's get ready to ROCK! Get three (or twelve) of your closest friends together and fulfill your fantasy of being in a band with this great game for the Wii gaming system.
Curriculum Ties Could potentially be used to assist teens with hand-eye coordination skills that are important for sports and music; help teens to begin to play a musical instrument.
Gametalking Ideas
1. Explain each of the four instruments (perhaps even have them available) and explain how the game works. Be sure to let the audience know about a few songs they might particularly like.
Challenge Issues
None
Why did I include this game?
It is extremely popular and is used in many libraries for programming.