God of Rock

Go back about fifteen years, and rhythm based games were all the rage. People loved to try and take on tracks new and famous and try to play them as best they could via their games consoles. It was a fun period, but the cost of the peripherals meant that many of these kinds of games soon died out. However, with upcoming Modus Studios release God of Rock, that might be about to change.

This interesting game has a pretty intriguing premise: the most famous musicians in all of the land come together for a musical battle. The aim? To determine who sis the best musician of them all. In this 2D fighter, you fight to the beat of the track and try to release harmonic warfare on one another – can you come out on top?

An interesting premise, with some caveats

So, rhythm-based fighting games have become more and more common in the last few years. Games like Crypt of the Necrodancer have done a lot to help make rhythm gaming more appreciable and approachable without having to pay hundreds of bucks for fake guitars and the like. With God of Rock, you are going to be fighting in a Street Fighter style battle environment.

The difference between this and other fighters, though, is the fact that you will be fighting to the rhythm. The game packages its fights in a gorgeous 2.5D style, and he main aim will be to use the harmony of the beat to create powerful attacks and combos. By combining fighting games and rhythm games, though, God of Rock does good job of pairing together two genres that, when you look below the surface, are a match made in heaven.

With 12 original musicians to pick from – though clearly all based on musicians from the real world – the combat looks smooth and fluid. The rhythm system looks interesting, and it seems each character is going to be unique enough to keep things fresh.

A concept that definitely should have been done before (7/10)

While God of Rock is not out yet, the content available about the game paints a very interesting concept that should work well when finished. With 40 original songs to work through, too, the rhythm element of the game should not be getting stale anytime soon. Players can go through the story mode, or they can just face off in normal exhibition battles. The main gimmick here is pairing up fighting with the rhythm side of things, which is sure to be quite different to most other fighters. It is hard to find a direct comparison here, but if you were to pair something like Guitar Hero with Street Fighter you might get a rough approximation of what God of Rock offers.

Pros

• Interesting and unique gameplay style that should keep things unique
• Great variety of characters and music should ensure replayability
• Fast and frenetic pacing should be useful for both genres to work together

Cons

• Hard to tell how well the systems work in tandem going from the content available