Muddy Waters

It should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the Guitar Hero franchise for the last few years that the most recognizable franchise in music gaming has an identity crisis. Publisher Activision, developer Neversoft and even the series own fans do not know what the purpose of the long running music franchise is anymore. Is it an arcade game with a focus on blazing guitar parts? Is it a single player game with a strong single player component? Is it a full band game trying to appeal to a mass market public like its primary rival Rock Band? These are questions that the series needed to answer with its sixth core entry into the franchise, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock. Unfortunately all the latest title does for the franchise is muddy the waters further for its loyal, albeit shrinking, fanbase.

At its base level this game is just like its predecessors in the fact that colored gems (notes) stream down the screen and players are tasked with hitting the gems in the proper sequence using their arsenal of plastic instrument controllers. If you have played a Guitar Hero or Rock Band game in the last five years, you know how to play Warriors of Rock. This stagnant formula is both the appeal and the drawback of the genre. It is easy for new players to pick up and play but it is also the exact same gameplay mechanics that have been used since the series’ inception.

Guitar Centric

For the past two games the Guitar Hero franchise has languished while trying to compete with Harmonix’s (co-creators of Guitar Hero) Rock Band series. It moved away from the strong guitar songs to more band centric set lists and in doing so lost a large chunk of its identity. It also moved away from the style, personality and presentation of the first few games in the series. Warriors of Rock is a return to form in a manner of speaking as the set list is very guitar focused and in at least some ways the classic style and personality has returned.

The set list of a music game is one of the main selling points for the genre and Warriors of Rock shifts, somewhat, from the all encompassing approach of the last two entries to a more hard rock, guitar centric set list. Warriors of Rock includes Metallica, Megadeth, Muse, Def Leppard, Avenged Sevenfold, and a lot of other great rock acts. As with all music games, one’s appreciation of the set list is going to come down purely to personal preferences and some are going to enjoy certain songs more than others.

Characters like Judy Nails, Axel Steele, Johnny Napalm, Lars Umlaut, amongst others were creative and helped infuse the style and personality the series built its foundation on. While Warriors of Rock still allows for creation of a personalized avatar, the single player campaign focuses on the pre-created characters journeying on a quest to save the world of rock. At first glance quest mode may seem drastically different from previous Guitar Hero games, unfortunately it is all just a cosmetic look and the mode simply boils down to character oriented set lists.

Quest Mode

The big difference in quest mode from previous campaigns is that each of the characters has a special ability to help gain additional stars. For instance Johnny Napalm has a meter that rises as you maintain a certain multiplier and when it reaches the max a star is granted. Multiple stars can be earned this way but being as the objective is to always play the song as well as you can the special abilities seem somewhat unnecessary. These powers also pose a large problem during the end game as the on screen indicators get very cluttered with stars exploding out of all parts of the screen making it quite distracting to follow.