Level Up: Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock

Once again, I celebrated the coming of the new year with a Guitar Hero game, but I saved myself the hang over to talk seriously about this one. Last year I talked about Guitar Hero World Tour and explained how it seemed to me like it was becoming quite bland. At the time of its release, this was a trend; a lot of games looked very gray and similar. A lot of people complained about the stagnation of the industry, and with Guitar Hero releasing similar games regularly, along with their competitor Rock Band on the market, you didn’t just need to look at first person shooter titles to see there was a problem. However, that’s where today’s game comes in: in a series that was just repeating itself to the point of monotony, the last hurrah for Guitar Hero would be something that decided to change things up a bit, but the series was STILL axed. Was it still the same or did people just not give it a shot? Let’s find out with Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, available for the PS3 and xBox 360, but I’ll be playing it on the Wii.

Once again, this game has a story, but it’s even more unique than some previous titles like Guitar Hero 3. Instead of playing as one person or one band, the game plays out as an anthology following different musicians and their paths leading up to meeting one and other. Also unlike previous titles, you’re not trying to rise to the top or anything, as some already have a fan base. So why are you playing? To transform into a monster and to help fight “The Scourge of Rock”. Let’s just let that sink in for a bit: the characters you play as turn into monsters and eventually fight basically the devil of rock music. Axel Steel turns into a mummy, Johnny Napalm looks like a Night Crawler character, people turn into frankenstein’s monsters, pig men and headless horsemen.  Quite different from a series that had been doing nothing with its story beyond just “pretend you’re in a band”. And I can’t help but feel that it’s really awesome and that it’s what the series needed. Imagine the potential: the next game we might have been fighting off aliens or nazi zombies with your guitar (as Yahtzee once suggested). If it would have stuck around, Guitar Hero could have been to Rock Band what Saints Row has become to GTA.

Surprisingly, the game play of Guitar Hero has been switched up and made almost strategic in some points. The core game play is still the same (listen to last year’s review for more on that), but this game adds something new; power ups. Each character has one that will become even more potent once they reach their monster form. One automatically generates star power, another increases your score multiplier and another can allow for a mistake every now and then without losing your streak. These let you relax and just concentrate on playing the music, instead of worrying about if you make A mistake. This is especially true after beating the game, when you can play songs with EVERY power at once.

But where does the strategy I mention come in? That’s partially two folds. First, during the final battle, your 8 band members are divided into 2 teams. Some powers work REALLY well with each other, so you’ll have to figure which 4 gives you the best chance of beating each half of the song. The other part isn’t as unique but worth mentioning. Instead of having to play every song, this game requires only that you earn a certain number of stars before being allowed to move on with the story. This means if you’re having trouble with a certain track, you can just skip it and make up for it in the ones you are good in. I say this mostly to give you guys a valid reason to ignore the Nickleback track they got in there.

Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock is one of the rare music rhythm games that I really like despite not being really wowed by the sound track. There still are a few songs I really like though, and I’m sure other people would love it. The game play changes things up a bit and rewards players with abilities to make the game easier and more fun. The plot is over the top fun ridiculousness and I love it for that reason. Sadly, at the time of its release, it was too little too late for most people. With the number of Guitar Hero games that were coming out at the time, people had already made up their mind about whether or not they were going to get it. Maybe if they had waited a year or two, more people would have seen this as the breath of fresh air that I see it as. If you liked the Guitar Hero series but skipped on the last game cause you grew tired of it, maybe my review let you know what you’re missing out on. I give Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock 9.5 levels out of 10.