When Guitar Hero World Tour was announced, one of the most hyped features was the fact that players were able to enter a game mode which allowed them to create their own songs, record them as tracks and as in game playable items and then share them with friends over the Internet. Activision played up this part of Guitar Hero as one of the key differences between its game and Rock Band 2 from Harmonix.
Now Guitar Hero World Tour is out and the people at Harmonix, who have already expressed some reservations about the music creation mode, have had the chance to try it themselves. If a
VideoGamer statement is to be believed, they aren't too impressed. Dan Teasdale, the lead designer for
Rock Band 2, said that it feels limited and only half done.
He shared that “We actually want to find a way for people to create music and express themselves, but when we do we want to make sure that people can sing, or the songs can be longer than three minutes, or that you can have more than 1200 notes, or that you're not tied to some dodgy sample somewhere. We want to make sure it's an authentic experience and it fits on the platform”. So, Harmonix seems to be thinking about developing a title, possibly separated from the Rock Band franchise, which will focus on music creation and will deliver a complete experience in the area.
Recently, Activision has begun
taking down some of the tracks shared by users online. The reason was copyright. As soon as Guitar Hero World Tour launched, players began making music which was too similar to songs featured in various videogames, the majority of them Nintendo produced. Even if Activision is taking action, tracks which copy known music are continuing to pop up on the Internet.