[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht7Jn55kzUI&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Remember when the Guitar Hero franchise was fresh and exciting? Activision does too, which is why the recently-announced Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, is the only GH game they’re releasing this year. In prior years, they’ve flooded the market, and by the time the awful Guitar Hero: Van Halen was released last year, no one cared and the rhythm-based music game was at its low point. It looks like they’re at least beginning to make amends with this one, which will be released in September (and you can pre-order here).

This time, they’ve added a story-based “Quest Mode” (wait, aren’t all of them kind of quests?) that begins in CBGB’s. Hey, wev’e been there, and as long as it doesn’t begin in the toilet in the basement, we’re ok with it. Gene Simmons in the narrator of the game, and also serves the the voice for the “Demi-God or Rock,” who needs to take down “The Beast” to save rock and Roll. Whatever, as long as the music’s good, we’ll give it a show. And among the impressive 90 tracks is a brand new Megadeth song and the previously-unreleased live version of Metallica and Ozzy Osbourne playing “Paranoid” at the Rock Hall of Fame show last year. Hit the jump for some of the songs included:

AFI                                         “Dancing Through Sunday”
Anthrax                                “Indians”
Avenged Sevenfold         “Bat Country”
Black Sabbath                    “Children of the Grave”
Buzzcocks                            “What Do I Get?”
Children of Bodom           “If You Want Peace… Prepare For War”
The Cure                               “Fascination Street”
Def Leppard                         “Pour Some Sugar On Me (Live)”
Dethklok                               “Bloodlines”
Dragonforce                        “Fury of the Storm”
Drowning Pool                   “Bodies”
Foo Fighters                       “No Way Back”
Foreigner                              “Feels Like the First Time”
Jane’s Addiction                “Been Caught Stealing”
Jethro Tull                           “Aqualung”
KISS                                        “Love Gun”
Linkin Park                          “Bleed It Out”
Megadeth                              “Sudden Death”
Metallica & Ozzy                 “Paranoid (Live)”
Muse                                        “Uprising”
My Chemical Romance    “I’m Not Okay (I Promise)”
Night Ranger                        “(You Can Still) Rock In America”
Nine Inch Nails                    “Wish”
Queen                                      “Bohemian Rhapsody”
Rammstein                            “Waidmann’s Heil”
The Rolling Stones             “Stray Cat Blues”
Silversun Pickups               “There’s No Secrets This Year”
Slipknot                                   “Psychosocial”
Slayer                                      “Chemical Warfare”
Tesla                                         “Modern Day Cowboy”
ZZ Top                                     “Sharp Dressed Man (Live)”