Battle of the Band Games: Part 1 - Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock
Guitar Hero. It's a name most all of us now, and some of us love. For the musically challenged, or people like me who just can't manage the fandangle of so many strings and frets, its a way to feel like your a rocker, without ever having to leave the house. For people that love music and games, its an excuse to hear some of your enjoyed songs while playing a game with reason.
The general format to Guitar Hero hasn't changed much over the years. Notes (circles) come down from the top of the screen, and you hit them in time. If you do well on the "star notes", you build up "star power" that when used enhances your score modifier (or even saves you from an untimely loss). In the case of singing, various formats are available, but most often used is the scrolling style, which displays an actual graph-style bar that you can use to judge if you have to raise or lower your pitch.
Star power is deployed through either a tilt of the controller (guitar), a double cymbal hit (GH 6-part drums), or a simple button press on the controller (vocals). Notes are as simple as hitting whats displayed when it lines up with the bar on the bottom.
The character customization is nearly entirely open from the start, although there are plenty of accessories and outfits to unlock through playing either the story mode or quickplay mode. All instruments can be customized to a righteous amount, although when it comes to the guitars I can see a lot of people going with the more...outlandish 'hero' guitars (such as the bat wing, the battle axe, or even the Frostmourne from World of Warcraft) after they are unlocked.
The story mode goes along the lines of the Deity of rock being beat by some big techno-looking robot, and the characters (many from previous GH games - such as Judy Nails, Pandora, and Axel) must go about reaching enough "power stars" (the measurement of how good you did) to become their inner warrior (pandora turns into a dark elf, judy a winged demon, Axel a mummy) and quest for the Axe of power, to return the Deity to power and defeat the techno-monster. Its cheesy, but plays out exactly like an old metal video, especially the set piece in the background during the final three-song set list, where they battle (lasers from instruments and all) the monster, releasing the Deity who battles it with his axe to the dramatic and awesome sounds of Megadeth.
Each warrior has a special power associated with them as well, from earning 4x star power off of the star power notes, to instant revives should you fail out. These become unlocked for use in some of the quickplay + challenges - a new way of adding replay-ability to the song list. The more stars you get, the higher your "rank", the more stuff you unlock through playing quickplay alone. Challenges range from "get a high score using powers" to "shake the guitar while rocking out in the designated sections".
Multiplayer is there, from quest mode, to competitive showdowns, from a mano a mano all the way up to full band duels. Although I haven't gotten a large chance to check into it, I believe the band fail out has been changed to a format where upon failing, a gauge appears that instructs the player to "win back the crowd!" What this means is you keep playing, and do good, and then you don't fail. It's honestly much more forgiving then the Rock Band 3 strikes your band fails entirely gimmick.
The track list, DLC excluded, comes at a whopping 90 tracks on disc, mostly all of which are new to the genre. Classic hits like Renegade by Styx, or heavy tv style with Bloodlines by Dethklok, or even just stunning hits people have almost been afraid to see such as Steve Vai. With 90 songs, its pretty easy for everyone to find a song they like.
In the battle of the bands, I would say this one wins. Simply put, it's easier to jump into and have fun without buying anything extra (beyond the main set of instruments you need to play of course).