Despite the lack of innovative new gameplay changes, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock puts the rock back in the Guitar Hero world. To help bring rock back, RedOctane has put together a new Guitar Hero controller. How well does this new piece of art work? iGG is here to let you know.

The Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock guitar is the first major change in the guitar peripheral since Guitar Hero World Tour. It was definitely worth the wait. For starters, the guitar looks amazing. The design is beautiful and the material was a fine choice. It is also much more lighter, making it easy to bring around with you. Sadly though, they got rid of the ability to separate it into two pieces. The buttons are greatly improved as well. I found it much easier to hit hammer-ons with the new guitar than I did with the World Tour guitar. The strum bar is a nice piece of work as well. It was purposely made smaller to allow for quicker strumming, something necessary when playing a game like Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock. However, although the strum bar is a tad smaller, the grips on it are great. It’s very hard to lose your grip when strumming the guitar. Also made obvious is the removal of the useless slider bar. It was a rarely used piece of the guitar, and only took up space. Now that it is removed, the neck is made much more smaller which could be a negative effect or a positive one. The dongle for the guitar, if it can be called that, is a lot smaller. It is more like a micro-Flash Drive. It is barely noticeable and is much better than the recent huge dongles.

As noted by many of the advertisements, the guitar allows for a new level of customization. The body of the guitar is made up of two “wings” that can easily be removed and replaced with any custom wings you can find. GameStop gave away Battle Axe wings to anybody who preordered the game. I have received the wings, and, although I like the stock wings better, the idea of changing the look of the entire guitar wows me. Whether it be third party or first party, the kind of body wings we might be able to see are endless. We can get recreations of the Les Paul, or even a nice Flying V guitar. Who knows what to expect? Also, the head of the guitar can be removed. This wasn’t advertised, so it is still unknown if this can also be replaced with different heads to add to even more in-depth customization.

One problem myself and many others have experienced is a squeak coming from the strum bar as it moves back up when strummed. This doesn’t affect the actual guitar in any negative form, but it can add to the annoyance of players if it is loud enough. Luckily, mine isn’t that bad and it doesn’t really bother me. Some other people, however, have experienced really loud squeaks. It all depends on your luck. However, if you aren’t easily annoyed, it shouldn’t really bother you. Another con of the guitar is its whammy bar. For starters, it is too close to the strum bar and get in the way if playing a fast paced song. Its also relatively small compared to the World Tour guitar. The Star Power button, however, is also closer to the strum bar, contributing in a positive mater. The sensitivity of the guitar’s motion activated Star Power seemed to have dropped greatly. I find myself lifting the guitar up past my head sometimes to activate star power. It would be nice if we can somehow adjust this. Until then, the Star Power works as an easy replacement.

• Nice, new design
• Great strum bar and great button layout
• Removal of touch strip
• Lighter and smaller than ever before
• Best customization of a plastic instrument to date
• Star Power button moved closer to strum bar
• Smaller dongle

2009: Guitar Hero Metallica, Guitar Hero Smash Hits, Guitar Hero Van Halen, Guitar Hero 5, Band Hero

2010: Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, and umm, no more

Clearly, the constant release of new Guitar Hero games will be slowed down this year, the only title released being Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock. With that, is Warriors of Rock good enough to keep us rocking until 2011?

Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock puts players in an epic quest to save the Demigod of Rock from the Beast, who metaphorically appears to represent electronic based music. The new Quest Mode is separated into 8 chapters, excluding the Battle with the Beast and the 2112 chapter. In each chapter, you recruit a new warrior for the journey to save rock. Each warrior comes equipped with some pretty nice, gameplay changing power ups. Some power ups might turn the max multiplier to 6x, while others might earn you 10% Star Power for every ten note streak. All in all, the powers are pretty neat and get even more fun when you are in Domination mode. In Domination mode you must go back at every chapter, including the now-unlocked Demigod of Rock chapter, and earn forty stars in each song. Although it sounds intense and difficult, you now have all eight power up at once, making it much easier than usual. The Quest Mode is narrated by KISS frontman, Gene Simmons. Gene’s voice acting is easily forgettable and, at some times, is pretty bland and boring. The game’s visuals haven’t changed too much. The cutscenes, if you may call it that, certainly look nice. The transformation scenes are also particularly stunning. There isn’t too much worth getting excited about, graphically, but it does look really nice. All in all, the Quest Mode is certainly a move in the positive direction, shifting away from the overused, Career progression.

The chapter based around Rush’s 2112 song is where Warriors of Rock’s Quest Mode shines. In this chapter, you play along to the story being told by Rush’s 20 minute song 2112, separated into seven unique parts. The band narrates the story being told but, like Gene Simmons, the voice acting is bland and boring. The story, however, is interesting and fits perfectly in this Guitar Hero game. Along with the story in 2112, the venue for it looks amazing. Varying from each part, the visuals only gets better, and in the end (as seen above) becomes a beautiful venue. The ending battle also proves to be an epic game sequence for a music game. While playing through some of the game’s hardest Megadeth songs, you get to see the Beast and the Demigod of Rock battling it out. It was nice to take a look at it, if you aren’t too busy strumming it out on the difficult songs.

The game’s other strong point is its setlist. Despite what most critics might say, the setlist goes back to the roots of Guitar Hero. Warriors of Rock’s setlist is on the level of Guitar Hero II’s and Guitar Hero III’s. Although the game still supports full band gameplay, it clearly shows the Neversoft wanted to go out with a bang, and they succeeded. The setlist is completely guitar centered and brings the return of some bands we haven’t seen in a Guitar Hero game in a while, such as Aerosmith and Dragonforce. Along with that we have some amazing newcomers, such as Neil Young and Orianthi. The setlist is great, and the charts are a blast. I haven’t had this much fun playing a Guitar Hero game since Guitar Hero III. Besides the amazing 93 song setlist, the game also allows import options from Guitar Hero World Tour, Smash Hits, Band Hero and now Metallica. It is also backwards compatible with previous DLC. My setlist right now is at 387 songs, including the stock GHTracks songs, and it is only growing more and more. The setlist is great, but of course it isn’t perfect. There are some questionable choices, and some songs that don’t fit my personal taste, namely the Dethklok song.

Unlike Rock Band 3, there wasn’t many great changes done to the gameplay. However, it doesn’t mean it is sub par to Rock Band 3. The game packs some pretty nice new social features. Party Play has returned, except this time it doesn’t start as soon as you pop the disc in. In a way, I am actually happy to see this change. The loading time to start the game was already slow in Guitar Hero 5. In most cases, I just wanted to get into the main menu and didn’t want to be bothered with the Party Play right on start up. I do like Party Play, and do use it, but not right away. Quickplay has also evolved into something much more worthwhile-Quickplay+. Rather than just let you choose what song you want to play and get it over with, you now have a set of challenges for each song, even downloadable songs. There is a number of challenges for each instrument, including standard and non-standard bands. You can also choose two power ups unlocked from Quest Mode to earn an incredibly high score and excessive stars. A good plus to this is that it does not interfere with the leaderboards, as it has its own section in the Quickplay+ menus. Another nice new Quickplay+ feature is the ability to target a score of one of your friends or yourself, in any challenge and try and outdo them. You can then share this with your friend via PlayStation Network or Xbox Live. You can also share your scores with all of Facebook and Twitter, as the game now supports social network integration. The Rewards Tracker feature is also a nice plus. Giving more reason to Quickplay+, it keeps track of everything you unlock from playing along to your favorite songs, as you level up with stars you earn. Quickplay+ only helped Guitar Hero evolve into a much more social experience.

• Quest Mode
• 2112 Chapter
• Most of the setlist
• Quickplay+
• Facebook and Twitter Integration
• Option to target your friend’s score

The Bad:

• Lars Umlaut’s setlist (IMHO)
• Lack of great gameplay changes
• Gene Simmons and Rush’s voice acting

Guitar parts feature simple yet fun, rhythmic chords. Rarely are there sections with tons of hammer-ons or pull offs. So, yes its simple, but with the punk flow, it plays along very well. Drum parts are extraordinarily fun. The patterns are a blast and the sound is amazing. Tre’s Greatest Hits (drum trainer) is incredibly difficult, but could be worth trying if you’re a drum freak up for the challenge. Bass is the usual, although there actually are some bass charts that are a blast to play. This was the first time I got to toy around with Harmony Vocals, and I must say they are a blast. Two parts or three parts, its a lot of fun to gather around and learn two seperate, completely different vocal parts. Not to mention adding it helped improve the singing system a whole lot. Look forward to seeing more of it in Rock Band 3.

The graphics and animations look great, and judging by some videos, it looks almost exactly like a Green Day performance with some amazing stage recreations. One complaint I do have is the art of the characters during certain songs. Dookie era has its own design, American Idiot has it own and so does 21st Century Breakdown. Everything in between usually falls into the American Idiot category. I mean, they even show Billie Joe with his blonde hair on the cover of the game. Harmonix should have incorporated each unique style to the rightful era of Green Day’s songs. This could have helped give a feeling like we were playing the same concert, the same way Green Day was (except with plastic).

Collectables do make a return and they are earned by completing challenges, which can range from a three song setlist to the entirety of American Idiot. Challenges are fun and the collectables are even better. Collectables can range from either band photo shoots, interviews or live performances (my favorite). However, one collectable remains locked unless you own all DLC compatible with Green Day: Rock Band. Harmonix shouldn’t leave a group out, especially if say they have no internet connection. Luckily, they have a hard copy version that includes all the DLC. Also packed in the Plus Copy is a voucher to transfer the songs over into Rock Band 2 and eventually Rock Band 3. It was a smart decision by Harmonix, since many people were disappointed that The Beatles: Rock Band couldn’t transfer over.

Green Day: Rock Band is just a Green Day-skinned Rock Band. Nothing changes and nothing new was added. This isn’t necessarily bad, as the Rock Band formula is great, it isn’t something worth boasting over. While it could have been better as a band-only title, it serves perfect as a track pack. However, it’ll only keep us music gamers waiting for the release of the new music games so we finally have something new to do with the genre.