Slider notes in Guitar Hero World Tour.
Slider notes,[a] also known as tap notes[b] or tapped notes[c] (or taps for short), are a type of note introduced in Guitar Hero World Tour alongside extended sustains. Slider notes appear to be metallic (or semi-transparent on the Wii games) notes. In Guitar Hero World Tour-styled games and in the iOS game, they have a purple rope attached to each slider note.
This note type appears in Guitar Hero World Tour, Guitar Hero: Metallica, Guitar Hero: Smash Hits, Guitar Hero 5, Band Hero on console, Guitar Hero: Van Halen, Guitar Hero (iOS) (as "Slide Gems"), and Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock. They are not featured in the main game of Guitar Hero Live but they are available in Touch Mode of the iOS version as "combo notes".[1] They are also not featured in the Guitar Hero Mobile series or Nintendo DS titles.
Gameplay mechanics and slider bar[]
Guitar Hero World Tour Wireless Guitar Controller featuring a "slider bar" in the middle of the fretboard.
The slider bar is a controller feature that debuted in the Guitar Hero World Tour Wireless Guitar Controller, which is a touch-sensitive axis bar with five frets (GRYBO) that the player can tap, hold, and slide to play these transparent slider notes, following along the ropes (not in Warriors of Rock) attached to them. The slider bar is available on the Guitar Hero World Tour/Metallica Wireless Guitar Controller, Guitar Hero 5/Band Hero Wireless Guitar Controller, and Logitech Wireless Guitar Controller, but was omitted on the Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock Wireless Guitar Controller (and its variants) but Warriors of Rock does support the slider bar for its tap notes.
Slider/tap notes can also be tapped or strummed with the regular frets just like with hammer-ons and pull-offs and plays similar to hammer-ons and pull-offs. However, unlike HOPO notes where HOPO notes would have to be strummed when a combo breaks, slider/tap notes can still be tapped even after a combo breaks without having to re-strum the guitar controller, allowing the player to quickly get back into a combo in fast guitar solos featuring slider/tap notes.
Also, slider/tap notes can be featured on consecutive notes of the same lane whereas HOPOs cannot (with the exception of the Guitar Hero: On Tour series featuring consecutive HOPO notes on few songs). To play consecutive slider/tap notes, you can either re-tap the same fret or strum them.
Other uses for the slider bar[]
The slider bar on a Guitar Hero controller is not only used for tapping slider/tap notes, but it can also be used to strum notes as an alternative strum bar by tapping any part of the slider bar (with your strumming hand) while holding the regular corresponding frets to play them. When playing long notes, the slider bar can also be used to create a "wah" effect on the and if it's a starred long note, the player accumulates Star Power energy for sliding the slider bar on a starred long note just like whammying.
Other things to note is that the solo buttons on a Rock Band guitar controller do not function like the slider bar and are treated as another set of normal GRYBO buttons (the player cannot tap them to play basic/strum notes),[2] and a Guitar Hero guitar controller's slider bar does not work in Rock Band titles.
Slide Gems and combo notes on iOS[]
Guitar Hero and the Touch Mode of Guitar Hero Live for iOS also features this note type as "Slide Gems" in Guitar Hero (iOS) or "combo notes" in Guitar Hero Live (iOS),[1] which can be played by either tapping the note on the touchscreen or by sliding from one note to another that is linked with a purple glowing rope in Guitar Hero or a white rope in Guitar Hero Live).
4→3→2 in Touch Mode of Guitar Hero Live (iOS).(screenshot captured from EPN's Guitar Hero Live iOS review at 1:37)
Reception[]
Many players contend that these slider notes are actually more difficult to hit than their normal hammer-on/pull-off counterparts, particularly when using the slider bar of a guitar controller. This problem is especially noticeable in Guitar Hero World Tour, although it persists to a lesser degree in the later games. While there are many theories about what makes these notes so difficult to hit, the most popular theory is that on slide note, it is possible to hit a note after the note you are attempting to play, and this forces a miss on the current note. For example, if the pattern green→red→yellow→red is coming up, even if the player hits the buttons in that order, when they hit the red button the game might think that they are attempting to hit the second red. This will count the second red as being hit, but force the player to miss the yellow before it. Most players who are very good at the game agree that these notes are somehow "broken." This, coupled with the fact that the touch strip is difficult to use efficiently, makes the addition of the slider bar an unwelcome feature to most experienced players.
While the necessity and usefulness of the slider itself is debatable, the special slider notes are widely considered a godsend on harder songs that feature such notes. For example, DragonForce's "Through the Fire and Flames" in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock features very difficult strings of hammer-ons and pull-offs throughout. However, when "Through the Fire and Flames" returned in Guitar Hero: Smash Hits, these hammer-on and pull-off sequences are replaced by slider notes. Since slider notes can be played like regular HOPOs without requiring strumming, this change reduced the song's difficulty significantly.
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Touch App Play — Guitar Hero Live Cheats: Tips & Strategy Guide for the iOS version, posted on Oct 22, 2015 1:41 am
- ↑ ScoreHero Forums for Rock Band — Solo buttons in Guitar Hero? Forum topic asked by mika1h on Tue Jan 12, 2010 5:58 pm
Footnotes[]
- a. ^ Slider notes in Guitar tutorials for Guitar Hero World Tour, Guitar Hero: Metallica, Guitar Hero: Smash Hits, and Guitar Hero: Van Halen.
- b. ^ Tap notes in challenges of Guitar Hero 5, Band Hero, and Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock.
- c. ^ Tapped notes in the intermediate Guitar tutorial for Guitar Hero 5, Band Hero, and Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock.
- * The cheat code to make all non-chord notes slider/tap notes is referred to as "Always Slide" in most Guitar Hero games except Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock refers to it as "Always Tap".
