Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock First Impressions

In the interest of complete disclosure:

1. I suck at music games.  I can handle medium, anything faster, I melt.  I don't know all the nuances, and just like to have fun with them.  as such, these thoughts will probably offer nothing of value to the guys and gals who can master the dreaded orange button.
2. I'm partial to Rock Band over Guitar Hero
3. I have played through three of the heros so far - I'm not terribly far into the game
4. I've only played guitar. I can offer no insight into singing, drums or bass

Okay, that out of the way, I have to say, I'm pleasantly surprised with Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock so far. Seems to me, Guitar Hero has had crappy note charts in the past.  Many times, it didn't feel like I was playing the song, just mashing buttons when prompted.  This go-round, this seems to be better.  Now, per my number 1 disclosure, I may not be too up to speed on note charts, but to me, I feel like I'm playing the game more in this iteration than in the past.  This was evident from the start, but really came through in Rockin' In The Free World.  I was getting into the song (which is a song I love) because I felt like I was actually playing it.  This didn't happen with GH5, where I was so stoked to finally get Johnny Cash in a game, and felt terrible. 

The characters are less cartoonish this time around.  Gone are the caricature proportions, and the band members actually look realistic.  I can't be certain, but it seems some of them also have World Of Warcraft influences, which is kind of cool.  The characters get special abilities.  It's kind of hokey, but does add a little thrill when you get 7 stars instead of 5, or when your star power (or whatever it's called in Guitar Hero) fills up much quicker.  It's a nice gimmick without coming across as a tacked on gimmick.

The presentation seems to be improved.  In previous GH games, I literally felt like my eyes were bleeding and I'd be tearing up like Tim Tebow after a loss.  When I stopped playing, my vision looked like a low grade acid trip.  This would happen after only 2-3 songs (granted, it was really bad in GHIII, got a little better in GH:WT and a little better still in GH5).  Tonight, I played maybe 15-20 songs, and felt fine.  Definite improvement.

The song selection.  Overall, out of the song list, I'm thrilled with some and not too thrilled with others.  I hate speed metal or death metal or whatever it is the kids listen to these days.  I like my classic rock, 80's and 90's rock and some newer stuff if it's fun to play.  Metal to me (not Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, but this "RAWR RAWR RAWR, ANGEL OF DEATH!!!!" type stuff is just beyond me.  Now, please, get off my lawn.  Actually, so far, the selection has been very good.  They usually save the really hard stuff until later levels, and that will probably where I tap out of the quest mode and maybe continue with the songs I like in quick play mode.

It seems that in the past, Guitar Hero games were stagnating.  Sure, they were offering new features, but in the end, they felt like retreads and yearly cash grabs.  I think an honest try has been made to push the genre forward and step up with some competition to the Rock Band platform.  All in all, so far, it's coming close.  However, I don't know if I'll become a Guitar Hero convert.  Even if Rock Band 3 is an incremental update to Rock Band 2, I'll stick with that, as I have hundreds of songs on that platform.  I'm not against buying Guitar Hero tracks, but if they're available on both, I'm going RB.  In fact, they've got to be pretty damned good for me to buy GH (I think I've purchased less than 10 GH tracks).

Anyway, at this point, I don't feel like a complete tard for buying a GH at launch, as I thought I would.  It seems there is enough here to keep me entertained for a while, and get me back to the Strat.  With a month to go until Rock Band 3, this is a nice opening act.