Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock Review

By Ned Jordan

Numerous tweaks and additions have been made to Guitar Hero during the long evolution of the franchise, but one thing has remained pretty constant – there's never been much to the game's story mode. If you've played any Guitar Hero game in the past then you know the routine; play a few songs to unlock the next tier of tracks so that you can repeat the process, with only a few comic book style panels in between to serve as a bare minimum of a pictorial narrative. With Warriors of Rock Guitar Hero finally gets a story, albeit one that feels more like the daydream of a junior high kid who's just discovered metal than a bona fide narrative.

The familiar cast of Guitar Hero characters such as Judy Nails and Johnny Napalm are the stars of the story, but rather than representing the particular genres of rock in a "A Star is Born" storyline they are awaiting transformation into "Warriors of Rock" with the ultimate goal of unleashing the "Demigod of Rock" in order to crush the ultimate rock-and-roll hating monster known as "The Beast". Remember, I already warned you about the storyline. Anyway, in order to accomplish said transformations you'll need to power-up each rocker by playing their associated tier of songs well enough to earn the requisite number of stars. Once you've earned your stars, you're rewarded with an encore song that powers the transformation of the rocker into some sort of nightmare beast or demon of the type that graced metal album covers in the 70s and 80s. In essence you're still playing tiers of tracks in order to earn the right to unlock additional tiers, but at least this time around you feel like you're accomplishing a little more in the game's story mode than simply earning the right to play more of the songs that you've paid for when you bought the game. However, you'll have to put up with a storyline that's filled with more cheese than a Wisconsin deli…

Each transformed Warrior of Rock has his or her own special power which translates into some sort of bonus for you as a player when using that warrior - higher score multipliers, note streak saves, and the like. Basically, if there's an aspect of gameplay tied to scoring or failing, there's probably a warrior with some sort of power over it. These bonuses can make it easier to get through some of the harder tracks, but at the same time they add an arcade element to the gameplay that wasn't there before. When playing Warriors of Rock, it feels less like you're playing a song simply for the fun or challenge of it and more like you're playing to beat your previous high score. The tried and true five star rating system used to measure your success on a track has expanded to allow for literally dozens of bonus stars. For those playing the tracks simply for the enjoyment of the music, it can all be somewhat distracting to see all of the extra messages and animations crammed onto the screen when you're simply trying to keep your eyes on the note track.

The basics of the gameplay remain the same as in the past – you use your guitar or drum controller to match the colors of the scrolling note icons when they reach the bottom of the screen, or attempt to match the pitch of the vocals while the lyrics scroll across the top of the screen karaoke-style. The glassy note icons that appeared last year in support of the guitar controller's new slide bar make their return, although the latest incarnation of the guitar controller is missing this particular feature. The new guitar does look more like something a warrior of rock would wield, though, and it even includes "blade" attachments to make your "axe" look more like a battleaxe. The overall song difficulty remains more challenging than the tracks in the Rock Band games, and even on medium difficulty you feel like the notes you're hitting match the music more closely than they do in Rock Band. This particular incarnation of Guitar Hero features a set list that's heavy with metal and it seems that it was put together to appeal to hardcore Guitar Hero fans looking to challenge their expert skills than to please the casual music game crowd. You can import the same set of tracks that you could for last year's Guitar Hero 5 to diversify the soundtrack, but if that's your intention from the beginning you'll probably want to think about it for a bit before buying Warriors of Rock and decide if the metal-heavy theme and soundtrack appeal to you enough to warrant the purchase.

Warriors of Rock thankfully keeps all of the nice little innovations added to the series over its past few iterations. You can start the game up and instantly jump into the song that plays at random during the beginning, players can drop in and out of a song at any time, and you don't have to fight over who gets to play lead guitar and who has to play bass since you can play a track with any combination of instruments that you'd like, including duplicates. If you're a casual player you have the entire set list at your disposal from the start without the need to unlock all of the tracks through career mode first. And if music games unlock your inner gamer, you've got the career mode to play through as well as numerous challenges to beat in the game's quick play mode – every track in the game has its set of challenges and you'll have to be proficient at multiple instruments to beat them all.

By and large, in Warriors of Rock you've got Guitar Hero 5 with a goofy story mode and a metal-heavy soundtrack. For some that will make for a very appealing iteration in the series, but for others it doesn't offer a compelling enough reason to shelve Guitar Hero 5 in favor of Warriors of Rock. I'm sure you know which camp you belong to and can make your decision on the game at this point.

Final Rating: 83%. Another evolutionary rather than revolutionary entry in the long-running series that's best for those who prefer a rock and roll world populated with demons cranking out metal.