Xbox 360 PS3

Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock

Music

Time to beat: about 7 hours

Overview

Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock is a 2010 rhythm game developed by Neversoft and published by Activision. It is the sixth main installment, the eleventh overall installment in the Guitar Hero series and the final title in the Guitar Hero series to be developed by Neversoft. The game was released in September 2010 for PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360. Like the previous entries in the series, it is geared towards playing in a four-person band experience, including lead and bass guitar, drums, and vocals. The game is available as a standalone title, allowing players to use existing compatible instrument controllers, and as a bundle that provides these controllers.

Warriors of Rock shares core gameplay elements with its predecessors, but introduced a new story mode in which the player must recruit eight characters: each with a unique ability that modifies the mechanics of the game: to help defeat an antagonist known as "The Beast". The storyline also incorporated Rush's seven-part "2112", as well as "Sudden Death", a new song performed by Megadeth to serve as its culmination (the song would later be included in Megadeth's following album, TH1RT3EN). Warriors of Rock carried over core gameplay and multiplayer functionality introduced by Guitar Hero 5, including per-song bonus challenges and the ability to use power-ups from the story mode in standard gameplay.

Warriors of Rock received mixed to positive reviews from gaming journalists: while critics felt that Warriors of Rock would appeal best to long-time fans of the Guitar Hero franchise, some felt that the overall soundtrack was weaker than that of past installments due to its lack of focus and use of lesser-known songs and artists. The game's "Quest Mode" was met with a similarly mixed reaction, with some critics considering it a notable change over the career modes of previous Guitar Hero games and praising certain highlights, such as the "2112" segment, but criticizing the pacing of the storyline and how its songs were organized.