It's been a long time since my hands hurt from a good session of shredding. Hard fought victories against falling gems, well placed, perfectly timed, damn near tactical in fact, Star Power activations, these just aren't as common for me as they once were. In fact I think the last time I felt a music game of be a legend soccer hack really challenge me was the glory days of Guitar Hero II. Songs comprised of both gem cramming and precision skill were littered all over that tracklist. Especially once you dipped into the bonus songs.Then Guitar Hero III came along and nothing has really been the same since.
Between Neversoft having taken the wheel from Harmonix, Rock Band's success both in software and in digital distribution, Guitar Hero has tried to be many things. From Guitar Hero III to Guitar Hero 5 the franchise has surprisingly worn many faces with a lot of help from the spin-offs in between.
However with Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock Neversoft is ready to take the franchise back into the days of old with a particularly impressive setlist composed of rock, metal, punk, and classic rock favorites. If you're into rock it's almost impossible not to find a single track you track you enjoy. It's not all throwback however. The latest entry includes character specific power-ups, challenges, and even a mostly fleshed out plot driven story in place of the typical tier-by-tier or world tour progression. While the demo didn't let us see very much of this new progression we were shown some of how the game will handle the plot, where the plot's headed, and enough to decide whether it works.As you progress you will inch ever closer to the final boss which, in classic Guitar Hero I-III style, must be unlocked.
Short answer? Kinda. It certainly isn't going to sit beside the likes of Mass Effect or Final Fantasy in terms of presentation or story telling but it doesn't feel entirely tacked on either. The story is these two great deities are pissed off, because that's just what deities do, and the bad one locks away the good one. He sends out some signal thingy that I guess impregnates everyone with powers or something and by progressing through their individual setlist, which each reflect their own style, you transform the characters in creature whatevers and you get these power-ups as you play as well. It has a certain Saturday morning cartoon feel that wasn't teeth grinding. Whether it will actually be enjoyable or not remains to be seen but it looks difficult to screw up honestly.Okay so, it sounds bad on paper but I promise it presents itself way better and not nearly as seriously as you'd think. You can basically compact it all into "Rock out, beat evil dude." You know like Heavy Metal or Crossroads. With...transforming. So...think Animorphs meets Crossroads. Yeah.
Obviously though you're not playing Guitar Hero for the story. You're playing for the tunes and the tunes in the demo were decent to amazing. As Johnny Napalm (playing in the famed real life CBGB venue which I just loved by the way) the tracks you're tasked to play through are No Way Back by Foo Fighters, Ghost by Slash (feat. Ian Astbury), Bloodlines by Dethklok, and Children of the Grave by Black Sabbath. Now Neversoft's attempt was to recreate the feeling of GH3 but without the overbloated charts and from what I played I think they deserve some praise here. The guitar and bass tracks felt spot on but were actually quite the challenge. Unlike GH3 it was the songs that made playing each track challenging and not the charts. By that I mean it sounded just as hard as it felt. It was challenging and not punishing.
The tracks presented in the demo however did definitely rely a lot on those lateral sweeps across the screen that Neversoft seems so fond of but it never felt schticky. The drum tracks also were really fun and challenging. I think this will be the Guitar Hero that perfectly marries the drumming brutality of Guitar Hero: Metallica with the variety of World Tour and then makes it fun to boot.While only Johnny Napalm is playable in the demo I can confirm Pandora is the best. Because she's always the best.
I do have one particular gripe about Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock that I feel I have to express. Hopefully this issue is unique to the demo but the sound quality for these songs was absolutely terrible. Neversoft has always compressed their tracks to fit them on disc but it's never been as obvious as it is this time around. These songs sounded borderline passable. They were extremely soft and lacked any real bass or treble at all. It was really irritating, especially when during the cutscenes you can suddenly hear Gene Simmons, who narrates, booming and clear as day.Otherwise what is playable of Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock was promising. A return to just good ol' rock, metal, and punk with challenging guitar charts and impressive drum tracks does well to separate Guitar Hero from that music game across the aisle that tries to cater to everyone (that's a compliment by the way). It's that attitude that will definitely alienate some and reinvigorate others but nonetheless what it does it's on track to doing well. Check back in three weeks for our full review!
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