Review: Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock

Mike Bantick
Friday, 05 November 2010 13:05

Entertainment

Another couple of months and another Guitar Hero game, this time a more rock biased set list, special abilities for the on-screen rockers and a storyline confronts players of Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock.

It's difficult to really get into a review of the latest Guitar Hero.  Warriors of Rock is not taking the same leaps and bounds that Rock Band or for that matter, DJ Hero is.

Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock
	Developer	Neversoft
	Publisher	Activision
	Rating	PG
Xbox 360, Wii, Reviewed on PS3

I could do a similar lazy job as I did for the Band Hero review, referring it directly back to Guitar Hero 5 before it.  But the fact is Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock does indeed try to add something to the GH formula.  Unfortunately it isn't much, and it takes away a fundamental ingredient of the GH framework in doing so.

Warriors of Rock introduces a quest system into the Guitar Hero mix.  The story - narrated by Gene Simmons of Kiss fame - goes that modern day shredders must transform to become powerful Rock fuelled beings in order to aid the Demi-God of Rock in his quest to take down 'The Beast'.

To do this, each in-game character has a special ability, such as increased modifiers or the ability to ignore one failed note; these will aid them in achieving a high 'star' rating for songs played.  Gather enough stars, and the character will transform.

Even though each character has special abilities, it does usually boil down to the fact that you need to play as well as you can each time.  Introducing special abilities does not introduce strategy to the game-play.

The flaw with this structure is it removes the niceties of song selection.  Each character has a different bent on guitar style, meaning one minute you will be playing a series of rockabilly style songs, the next, full on hard rock.  It brings back a certain level of grind to the Guitar Hero franchise that was thrown away with GH 5 and Band Hero etc.

Whilst the party play mode is retained, and an improved drop in drop out mechanism allows the friends to pick up and play along with you, is also a feature, the fact that songs need to again be unlocked before 'the band' gets access is step backwards for the series.



Other than the newly designed stylised guitar that comes with the full pack of Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, there is not much else to say, there are new challenges to compete against your friends with, and the visuals have improved as far as syncing with the audio, but most people will simply be interested in the set - list.  Check out the following page for the full list of 90+ songs.