Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock
Producer: Activision
Release Date: September 28, 2010
Platform: Xbox 360
Rating: Teen
Genre: Music
I Love Rock ‘n Roll!
Written by Albert Marrero, Jr.
So if you’ve been playing Guitar Hero since it’s early days, you’ll notice something pretty cool about GH:WOR; the game has given old school a shout out and gone mostly rock n roll tunes. In fact, every song is labeled with Alternative, Modern Rock, Speed Metal, etc. monikers, so if you’re a fan of the devil horns and battle axe moments that helped create the series, this game will feel right at home.
The music is pretty heavy on the guitar stuff, which makes sense; the game is freakin’ called GUITAR Hero for a reason. To some, this is exactly what they’ve been missing from the series, to others, they may wanna look more at Band Hero or even Rock Band for the more pop-ish songs. There are some real gems here too: Muse’s track rocks, there is old school Tom Petty, REM, and Def Leppard’s live rendition of Pour Some Sugar on Me is what makes Guitar Hero for social gatherings awesome. The only caveat is that the less hardcore stuff is in short supply for this outing. That’s not to say you can’t rock out, but you just won’t be seeing Taylor Swift’s latest on this game.
What is uber cool and totally gets me more excited than a wino with a $20 bill is the all-new Story Mode. You essentially get to play through songs with the characters to unlock their inner rock demon. Personally, I think they should morph into Robert Page, Eric Clapton, or Santana, but I guess a rock demon is ok. You’re still getting to play the music, but following a story line is a more engrossing way to play the game.
The Quickplay list now has a new label called “Quickplay +”. The + means that for each song you have a plethora of challenges that you can use to gain stars for each song. And by plethora, I mean there are over 10 for each song. Challenges like high score single, band score, star power challenge, etc. Again, it’s just another way to keep interest in a song, and will ultimately help n00bs get better because it’s a fun way to practice and push yourself.
The new party mode is cooler than a polar bear’s toenails, and we all know that’s pretty cool… Whenever I have people over, I normally start jamming and then folks always say “Hey, I wanna play the drums!” Well, with party mode, they can jump right in at any time by hitting a button. Then they can select what difficulty they want, etc. If it’s too hard, they can hit start, their particular fret string will pause and they can change it without interrupting anyone else. That’s pure awesomeness.
Overall, the game play remains mostly the same. I’ve liked the game play since GH3, but now they’ve gone old school and made the Hammer-Ons/Pull-Offs like GH2, which means you can’t hit the fret button before the note, or you’ll whiff. It totally makes the game more technical and not QUITE as fun. Especially for spazzes.
Ultimately, if you like Guitar Hero, go purchase this one stat. Downloadable content is backwards compatible, you can still create your own characters, and you can even use your XBL avatar. And if you do decide to buy the game, drop the extra $40 and get the cool new guitar. It’s a nice piece of hardware. (That’s what she said.) Then leave a nice note on your neighbor’s doors, say you’ll be testing high end stereo equipment and rock out like Freddy Mercury back in the day!!