Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock
The final Neversoft Guitar Hero entry with a story-driven Quest Mode.
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, a 2010 rhythm game from Neversoft and Activision, is the sixth main series entry and eleventh overall, and the last Neversoft developed. It launched on PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360.
Quick Facts
- Publisher
- Activision
- Series
- Guitar Hero
- Platforms
- PlayStation 3
- Wii
- Xbox 360
- Released
- September 24, 2010 (EU)
- September 28, 2010 (NA)
- September 29, 2010 (AU)
- Genre
- Rhythm
- Modes
- Single-player, multiplayer
Facts from the source article.
Gameplay
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock is a rhythm game that allows up to four people to play in a band on vocals, lead and bass/rhythm guitar, and drums, using special instrument controllers to simulate playing rock music. The goal for each player is to match scrolling note gems corresponding to their instrument's part in the song to score points. Guitar and bass players hold down colored buttons and use the strum bar as notes pass over a marked zone; drummers strike matching drum pads; vocalists match the relative pitch of lyrics guided by phrase markers. Successfully striking notes earns points and boosts the performance meter, while missing notes causes it to drop. If playing alone and the meter empties, the song ends and must be restarted; in a band, remaining members can revive a fallen player within a limited time, or the whole band fails. Before a song, each player selects one of five difficulty levels—Beginner, Easy, Medium, Hard, Expert—with a sixth Expert+ difficulty available for some drum songs that introduces a double bass pedal. Harder difficulties feature higher note densities and more difficult techniques.
Development
After weak sales of several Guitar Hero titles in 2009, Activision made changes to its internal development teams. The company dissolved RedOctane, bringing some staff directly into Activision, and shuttered Neversoft's Guitar Hero division pending completion of Warriors of Rock, with further series development to be handled by some former Neversoft members and Vicarious Visions. Former Neversoft member and project lead Brian Bright noted that part of the poor sales in 2009 resulted from a loss of focus with Guitar Hero 5, stating that "we were trying to please everyone out there and I think in the end you end up not pleasing any one person a lot." With Warriors of Rock, Bright aimed to bring the game back to please fans of earlier Guitar Hero games, specifically Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. The team developed a soundtrack "more focused on rock 'n' roll" than the variety of genres in Guitar Hero 5, with songs more guitar-centric, as that was the most popular instrument choice based on Guitar Hero 5. Bright noted they used player statistics from previous games; for example, within a month of release, 40% of Guitar Hero 5 players were playing on Expert mode, and he felt this was the audience to cater to. Bright stated the aim was to create a game with "its own identity" from both previous Guitar Hero titles and other rhythm games.
Soundtrack
Warriors of Rock comes with 93 songs built in. The developers, as Bright explained, chose them from a tight range of genres—punk, alternative rock, and classic rock—so the game wouldn't feel scattered. Still, he said there was enough variety to keep longtime fans happy. The team looked at each song's structure to see if it would be fun to play. Bright described a good fit as having a memorable riff that didn't get boring, plenty of chord changes, and ideally a guitar solo that added difficulty. Two tracks, Alice Cooper's "No More Mr. Nice Guy" and The Runaways' "Cherry Bomb," were recorded fresh for the game. Megadeth's "Sudden Death" was written specifically as the final song in the setlist. Its polyrhythms and tough passages make it one of the hardest songs to complete. That track earned a Grammy nomination for Best Metal Performance at the 53rd awards, though it didn't win. Along with "Baba Yetu" from Civilization IV and "Video Games Live," it marked the first time a song made for a video game got a Grammy nod. Players could buy extra songs as downloadable content from their console's store. Any DLC that worked with Guitar Hero 5, including content from Guitar Hero World Tour, Guitar Hero: Smash Hits, and Band Hero, also worked here. More than 500 tracks were ready at launch. On top of that, 39 songs from Guitar Hero: Metallica could be imported when the game came out. In February 2011, Activision shut down its Guitar Hero development and said no more DLC would be released.
Reception
Critics were split on Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, with many agreeing it tried to break away from the Rock Band series and get back to what made the original Guitar Hero games special. But some reviewers argued it didn’t quite pull that off. IGN’s Arthur Gies called the game “aimless” and wondered why it even existed. Tyler Cocke from 1UP.com said it seemed to forget that music games should be fun. Ben Kurchera of Ars Technica felt the series was just “treading water” with no real progress, and that the looser timing windows were a step backward. Others pointed out that while fans of the series might enjoy it, the game wasn’t for newcomers or casual players. G4’s Abbie Heppe praised how well it served the hardcore audience but told casual fans to “move along.” Matt Helgeson of Game Informer thought the game might have jumped the shark with its “often stupid and frequently silly” gameplay and visuals, though he still had fun playing through it.
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