While the Guitar Hero and Rock Band series’ are among my favourite games, I find the sheer number of peripherals required to be a little annoying. It would be far better if we could use just one guitar for PS2 Guitar Hero games, PS3 Guitar Hero games and for Rock Band on the PS3, instead of one (or more) for each cluttering up the place. The WarBeast accomplishes this perfectly as it supports all of these games in one, and does it in style.

The controller is a full size replica of the WarBeast guitar from B.C. Rich Guitars. It’s a striking design with sharp angles and a shiny black finish, quite different from the curved design of the classic guitars bundled with the games. When you hold it in your hands you realize just how much bigger it is, but you quickly get used to the size, and suddenly using the old guitars is not quite the same! Thankfully it isn’t quite as heavy as a real guitar as it would become uncomfortable to play after a while. You can tell that the makers intended for you to hold this guitar standing up. It comes with a very comfortable strap and doesn’t sit quite as easily on your lap because of the angled design. But play it standing up and it’s wonderfully comfortable and fits your body like a real guitar.

The standard fret buttons are similar in feel to the Rock Band guitars with their clicking action. Also similar to Rock Band guitars are the solo buttons – there is no equivalent of Guitar Hero World Tour’s sliding buttons. The solo buttons are still usable in World Tour, behaving the same as they would in Rock Band with no strumming required when they are used. The strum bar is a little longer than the standard ones and feels similar to the Guitar Hero ones with their clicking action – my preferred style. While standing I had no problem activating Star Power/Overdrive, but sitting down it was really difficult to move the guitar enough for it to register the command. The WarBeast is meant to be played standing up, preferably in rock star pose, but if you’re feeling lazy there is also a button you can press to activate star power, and fortunately on this guitar the start button is nowhere near it.

There is very little to criticize in the WarBeast. The fact that it supports Rock Band 1 and 2 (on PS2 and PS3), Guitar Hero 1, 2, 3, World Tour (on PS2 and PS3) and Rock Revolution, makes it ideal as an extra guitar for any of those games – especially if you have more than one already. Its size and design also make playing it more realistic (and cool-looking) than the half size standard controllers, so I highly recommend getting one. The one issue is the price, but what kind of guitar fan would you be if you let a little thing like money get in the way of rocking out?

The dreamGEAR WarBeast is available in stores now for R1899. Thanks to TCM Warehouse for letting us rock out in style.