Hell hath frozen over.  This Rock Band fanboy unwrapped and inserted into his Xbox 360, the game Guitar Hero World Tour.  I gave it about 15 minutes for first impressions, and here’s what I think.  Of course, it will be heavily biased on my love of Rock Band and Rock Band 2.

Some things to keep in mind:

1) I was not the only judge, my 2 year old and 4 year old kids attended the unwrapping too.
2) I only tested out vocals.

Opening Sequence
* According to my 4 year old son, who is deathly afraid of the Rock Band 2 opening sequence, he was not initially scared of the GH:WT intro.
* Though, with the freaky cartoonish characters running, Satan in the audience, spinning black-and-white eyes, and a Kenny G look-a-like…I asked my son if he was scared.  His response, “I don’t know”.  That’s what I thought.  I don’t know either.  I did not understand the intro at all.  It was very bizarre, I can say that much.

Vocals
* People have slammed vocals on GH:WT as too difficult.  In the 3 songs I tried last night on Expert, I do not concur.  I very much enjoyed the three songs I sang, and got between 88% – 93% on all three…and got 2 achievements in the process.
* To give you a sense of my initial interest in the game, here’s what I sang (in order):

311 – Beautiful Disaster

Linkin Park – What I’ve Done

Survivor – Eye of the Tiger (that was a kids request, one of their favorite songs on Rock Band 2).
* Granted, vocals are harder on GH:WT than they are on RB2, but I think RB2 vocals are ridiculously easy.

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Overall Game Play
* While singing, I would gain Star Power (i.e. Overdrive in Rock Band), but never had a sense of how much power I had available.  Maybe I didn’t see it.  I also wasn’t sure when to activate it.  It’s probably something I’ll learn if I ever RTFM.
* I really enjoyed the game from a vocalists perspective. Graphics, songs, visuals.  All good.

That’s the 15-minute first impression. Bizzare opening, difficult but realistic vocals, good graphics, great song list.  I will play it more…and focus a lot on drums.  I have heard the drumming on GH:WT is sub-par to Rock Band.  I’ll be back soon with my drumming impressions, and more detailed game impressions.