General: Guitar Hero World Tour

When Mary-Alanna moved out of Karlson's house, she unfortunately took with her a selection of Guitar Hero games and her guitar – leaving Karl with a single guitar and game, for the PS2. Karl and I used to spend many an evening playing co-operatively.

After much talk, we took the plunge and ordered Guitar Hero Word Tour, for the Xbox 360 at a mere £150. We then ordered Guitar Hero 3 + Guitar for another £40. This guitar is slightly shorter than the GH4 guitar and doesn't have finger sliding pad – but we really don't consider this to be an issue as it would be mainly used as a bass. However, £100 each is a lot of money to spend on a game, but we knew we'd get value out of it. We decided on XBox instead of PS3 or Wii because both our households have an XBox and although I'm considering buying a Wii, I don't like the fact it's in SD (makes reading lyrics hard) and you need a controller for each instrument.

The World Tour comes with a drum kit, microphone, guitar and the game. The guitar portion of the game is much the same, apart from the inclusion of a sliding pad for playing some of the scales very quickly, by simply running your finger up and down it. Another inclusion is that of a purple bar, which means to strum an open chord – something that took a while to get used to. We also see a few moments where you are expected to play one note, hold it on and then introduce another note during it. Finger stretching and surprisingly tricky.

The vocals are nothing special – just static or scrolling lyrics - sing along and get the pitch as accurate as possible. Not much to say really – if you've played Sing Star, it's very similar but with a much better selection of songs (unless you're into Pop music). By use of a microphone stand that I pulled out of the cupboard under the stairs, I was able to play bass and sing at the same time without too much trouble. However, it isn't exactly designed for this as the lyrics are a the top of the screen while when playing guitar you look at the bottom of the screen. So it only really works if you know the lyrics, or don't mind just singing just the melody. It would be nice if it actually had the option to specify that you want to sing vocals as well and then they would appear just below your guitar fret on the screen.

The drums are what I was most excited about because it's something new to me. Compared to guitar it is a lot closer to how it would be to actually playing the instrument – after all, you do have to keep a beat – you can't fake that. Karl wasn't overly impressed with the layout and wondered if a modular system so you move things about would be nice for those used to the drums. After a bit of practice I can play on “Medium” fairly happily and haven't tried pushing any further yet. In comparison I play “Expert” on Guitar or Bass.

So how does it work as a group activity? It goes without saying that is amazing fun and just like a real band – if the drummer starts screwing up, it has a knock on affect with everyone else. Unlike playing guitar or bass wrong where you are greeted with the sound of a duff note – you can obviously hear the drummer, so it's much more obvious when hearing an off beat or erratic drumming. If one of you is doing particularly badly, you can use your star power to recover the weakest member slightly. Useful if I decide to tackle the vocals

One area I was a little disappointed with, was the inflexibility in choosing your instruments. I just don't think it's that common that you'll want to choose one instrument and stick to it for the duration of play. In the time I've played – I've probably played all 4 instruments equally. There should be a quick and easy way before each song to change instruments. If “Living On a Prayer” comes on – I'm not going to want to blow my voice out, so I'd sooner get on the drums. The only way to do this is to go all the way back to the main screen and setup the whole band again. Irritating to say the least, but I guess we'll go cope. On the plus side, changing difficulty can be done from the options screen on a per controller basis and it's very quick.

So do I feel like I've got my £100 pounds worth – or collective £200? Yes. The selection of songs is excellent and it's fun to have more options like drumming or singing. I think it's going to be great fun later in the week when we exchange our Secret Santa's and have one or two festive drinks to celebrate