Rush will rock Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock's story mode

Putting a story mode into a Guitar Hero game sounds like a worse idea than putting Lindsay Lohan on Sesame Street. But now that the game’s publisher Activision has announced that Rush will be at the forefront of the underlying story – in particular Rush’s beloved, futuristic concept opus 2112, maybe it won’t be so bad.

For anyone who was born in the last 25 years and has no idea who we’re talking about, Rush was a hugely popular progressive rock band in the 1970s (and well into successive decades – they still play today), with top-selling singles like The Spirit of Radio, Subdivisions and Tom Sawyer. One of the group’s most ambitious songs was 2112, a 20-minute epic which was broken up into seven parts, almost like a Beethoven symphony or something. It comprised the entire first side of the album that shares its name. And it rocked.

The song itself tells the story of a man, living in the year 2112, who escapes to a cave to find an all-important guitar and is transported to another strange planet only to find out it was just a dream. Apparently, that’s pretty much identical to the story that the Guitar Hero developers had already cooked up for the game’s “Quest Mode,” before making the Rush announcement. Coincidence? I think not.

Just a handful of the band’s songs have appeared in Rock Band or Guitar Hero, including YYZ in Guitar Hero II. This will arguably be Rush’s biggest leap into the video game world. “The music, the story and the journey of 2112 lends itself perfectly to the quest in Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock,” said Geddy Lee, the lead vocalist, keyboardist, and bassist for Rush. All parts of the song 2112 will of course also be playable in Warriors of Rock. In between songs, players can even listen to liner notes narrated by members of Rush, because nothing screams exciting rock action like 50-to-60-year-old guys reading through text snippets that appeared on a vinyl record insert from 1976.

Above: Catch the myth!

Activision describes the game’s story mode as an “epic voyage playing as eight Guitar Hero characters that transform into rock warriors who must join together to use their unique, game-changing powers to help the Demi-God of Rock take down ‘The Beast’ to save rock.” Actually, yeah, it still sounds corny. But we still can’t wait to rock Temple of Syrinx.

Jul 21, 2010