While many of you may have picked up your full band kits forGuitar Hero World Tourby now (the game launched this past Sunday), our review kit just arrived in our Baltimore offices today.
It arrived in a single, large brown box that my FedEx lady struggled to bring up two flights of stairs; I heard her complain aloud about her back before I decided to be a gentleman and help her out. I didn’t even have to look at the shipping label to know it was from Activision, and that contained within it were my dreams of potential rock stardom.
If you have the kit already and you’ve already “been there, done that,” feel free to go practice “Everlong” on Expert drums. For those of you interested in just what’s inside the bigGuitar Hero World Tourbox, hit the jump.
The experience of opening up ourGuitar Hero World Tourkit was a bit like playing with matryoshka dolls, with a box within a box containing another box … that has a box inside of it that’s wrapped in plastic. Our kit in particular came inside of a large, nondescript brown cardboard box, obviously meant to ship the kits to retail.
Inside ofthatbox was the display you’re likely to see at retail, with the game’s logo emblazoned on a colorful sunburst background. With it, Activision sent along a special little treat — extra drum sticks. But not just any drum sticks: black drum sticks bearing former Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker’s name. In silver, no less. The sticks themselves have a nice weight to them, but there’s nothing to note otherwise; somewhere, a Travis Barker fan is cursing my name, as I will never, ever let them out of my sight.
Once I sliced the tape from the box itself, I was greeted by — you guessed it — more boxes. The game itself sits at the top, mocking you, as if to say, “You have, like, 20 minutes left of work to do before you can play me. Sucker.” I considering just taking the game and usingotherperipherals to play it, but I pushed onward.
After moving a few slabs of cardboard aside, there’s another box, this one containing the new guitar peripheral, all wrapped in plastic. The neck of the guitar is separated from the body (like theGuitar Hero IIIperipheral) and, as if to laugh in the face of the previous peripheral’s neck/body connection issues, it snaps in tight with a loud springing noise to let you know the deed is done. Also included are an average-looking strap, two AA batteries, and some fancy stickers to customize your phony axe.
Deeper in, you finally get to the real star of the show — the drums. Once again, this is a box-inside-boxes-with-things-wrapped-in-plastic scenario. The first thing I noticed are the cymbals, which have a nice weight to them when in your hands; they look like they’ll be able to take some abuse. (And abuse them I will.)
The pad peripheral itself ishugeand bulky; there’s so much extra plastic surrounding the pads that it’s ridiculous. Looking at it head-on, it makes the kit look kind of cheap. But visuals aside, the pads certainly don’t feel cheap. They’re heavy and substantial, and just tapping the pads with your finger reveals a nice bounce and a quiet, hollow sound.
Next, you find the drum stand and the kick pedal. The stand itself is in three pieces — two feet and one support that act as legs. It’s mostly a nice solid metal and some rubber pieces; it’s an impressive stand, one that looks like it would last for awhile with regular use. Once you put the legs onto the feet, you hear a really loud snapping noise, locking the legs in. Putting it together was a snap, but getting it apart for storage may be a different story; if there’s an easy way to remove the feet, two minutes of looking at the kit (and ignoring the instructions) didn’t reveal the method.
Putting the cymbals on was pretty easy; you place them on the kit and use a “nut” to tighten them on. You then simply plug a small connector from the pads to the cymbals and you’re done. While you’re able to swivel the cymbals left and right (and around, completely), there doesn’t seem to be a way to adjust the height; once pulled up, the cymbals snap in place and (like the legs) it’s unclear if there’s an easy way to put them back down.
All told, the setup took between 15 and 20 minutes, and that included stopping to take pictures along the way. As for the game, I’ve yet to pop it in the Xbox 360; if you’re still on the fence about the title, check back next week for the fullGuitar Hero World Tourreview after a long week and weekend of rocking out.
On a side note, all of this set up and work made me a bit hungry. So it’s a good thing Activision included a coupon for a free Kentucky Fried Chicken Snacker in the box of the game itself.
