Guitar Hero III

So despite the game being released almost a month later here in the UK, I managed to cough over my precious pounds to get my hands on the latest Xbox 360 hit, Guitar Hero III, and as a treat, I’m even going to review it for you all, because I am that nice, and nobody else has done one. Oh hoho.

Yes, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, the next installment of the wonderful Guitar Hero series. If you have not yet played either Guitar Hero II, or Guitar Hero, then you are either physically impaired enough to be unable to hold a guitar, a fan of Westlife, or you have just recently got out of a coma and it is all completely new to you. If you are option three, there is still time to get in on the act and really find out what all the wonderful people have been locking themselves indoors for. Though you must know straight away that Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock is pretty much exactly the same as its predecessors, except that they actually added online play to this one, and to make you hate your competitor even more, they even added Guitar Battle to the mix in multiplayer. Of course, unlike Guitar Hero I and II, Harmonix did not have this one on their heads, it was down to Neversoft to dish out the goods this time around. Even though many Guitar Hero lovers were worried about this switch in developers, Neversoft have not failed on this one, quite frankly, I think they hit all the right buttons which Harmonix didn’t quite do.

Like the previous games, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock is still highly addictive, and great fun for all your hard-rocking amigos, and even family. They have also thought about how much you really want to unleash your inner rock, and have upgraded your hand held peripheral to be wireless, so now you are sure to rock out as hard as you like, without being restricted by that blasted cable. Of course, with experience, this is definitely an instant win, but if you really want to show off, you can simply keep on playing as you walk to the top of the stairs to shout down to your mother what you want for your dinner tonight. Wireless technology is great. Also, to really get those rockers into an even greater and blissful afterglow, let me say that this time, the guitar is a Gibson Les Paul. Yes, clean up your drool now.

Of course, you can’t just strum and play to whatever you feel like, after all, this is a game, and if you want your song to sound great, you must obey its commands and meet its goals, and if you do not, you are sure to get pointed and laughed at by your friends. If you want to avoid this, I suggest playing alone. The controls are simple, imagine that you are playing a real guitar. On the neck of the controller, you have 5 buttons, Green, Red, Yellow, Blue and Orange (Green being the lowest note, while Orange is the highest). Now, on your screen, you are faced with a screen full of pretty colours that head your way. The simple idea of this game is to simply hold down the button (or buttons, sounds hard already huh?) and using the strum bar, you strum up or down to play that note, but no, it’s not that simple, you have to strum when the pretty coloured circles hit the targets at the end of the fret board on screen. If you time this right, your note will wail out in perfect harmony, while the alternative (a miss) would result in a situation that you would find similarly if you were to strangle a cat.

The guitar controller does have its minor setbacks from being completely perfect. Sure, the wireless ability is an answer from God, but that also raised questions to its responsiveness and the fact it needs to run on batteries. Through experience with the controller, I have noticed that when battery life gets lower, it becomes less responsive to what you want to play. Example being that when you hold the Red fret button to play a long note, it suddenly cuts the sound off halfway through, and even though your finger is still pressed firmly onto it, it is not registering. It could be lack of battery life, or it could be an affect due to interference, but all the same, if you want to look awesome, it doesn’t help. I also found issues with its tilt sensitivity, it was an issue with the previous X-Plorer model, since it didn’t register your tilt as much as you wanted it to. Neversoft seemed to have took this into consideration, but.. maybe a little too much. You’ll be stood playing your song, gaining that star power, and you want to save it for a section which will rack you up with more points, but as soon as you acquire enough star power, it activates, yet you did not do your fancy tilt. This is obviously because nobody holds their guitar in a more diagonal position when playing, no no, they think we play guitars horizontally. Apart from those issues, you do look awesome with that shiny guitar, and the whammy bar is a huge improvement over the last.

As a real guitarist would say, practice makes perfect. This is why they include a Tutorial mode, and for those who really do want to perfect their techniques, there is even a Practice mode, and you can pick any section of a song where you think needs perfecting. This is ideal if there is that one section that really is getting on your wick. The techniques remain the same, you have your Chords, you have your Hammer-ons, and you have your Pull-Offs, which any veteran Guitar Hero player will have, at least, gotten to grips with by now. You’re gonna need both modes and all the techniques if you’re to tackle the songs in the later stages this time around, because believe me, they did not go easy on the song selection for you all this time.

The difficulty modes remain as they are. You have Easy to Expert. Easy sets you up with only using the Green, Red and Yellow fret buttons, plus there are far less notes to play, nor is it as realistic, but this is the perfect starter for those who are new to the series. Medium puts you in with an extra button to play, the Blue fret button. The notes come at you faster, and it requires a bit more experience with the 4 buttons to be able to nail those songs with a decent result. Hard throws all 5 buttons at you with the fret board coming at you faster. This should not be tackled without a bit of practice, it’s all fair when you have 4 buttons to play on Medium, but you only have 4 fingers to work 5 buttons on Hard.. remember that. Finally, you have the difficulty that separates the boys/girls from the men/ladies. Similar to Hard, but unlike Hard, every note counts, since Expert literally throws you the actual song piece at your face. The fret board comes at you even faster, it’s like they want to make you suffer just that little more.

Though sadly, Guitar Hero III does have its set backs with the difficulty of the songs. Now, I’m not saying this because I’m finding Expert level to be utterly insane, but even when playing through bonus tracks that you buy with in-game dollars, it just sparks so many strange signals. For instance, some of the songs throw so many inhumanely impossible hammer-ons and pull-offs that your brain seems to switch off temporarily as you stare with fear at the amount of notes it throws at you, then as it slaps “SONG FAILED” in your face, your brain suddenly regains its conscious, and you wail to what you have just experienced. It makes me wonder how Herman Li remains sane to this day. Yes, OK, this does add a new level of challenge to those who spend their daily lives living on their games consoles, but sometimes people do want to complete their games and receive the awards for doing so.

However, due to this complexity in the difficulty, it’s good news for those who like to rock with a friend in Co-op mode. Neversoft have taken this and basically beefed it up a lot more. Now when you play Co-op, you are not standing aside watching your friend suck up to 3 or 5 minutes of hell as you’re playing simple one-note riffs on Bass or Rhythm, but now they’ve evened it out so that both players can engage in a more fulfilling experience. It’s still has its errors, but compared to Guitar Hero II, a far better improvement.

Co-op mode is a nice added feature since now you and a friend can pick up your guitars (or standard controllers, ew) and rock side by side, earning cash to help you unlock those bonus features in the game. The sad thing about Career mode is, if you have played and completed Solo Career, you have to do it all again with a friend, and what’s worse? If you started on Expert and Easy, and then the next day, your friend decides that he’s ready for Medium, you’re put all the way back to your first set list, and you have to play it all again. Tedious considering that Expert players don’t receive a worthy reward for working their heads off to complete a song, since in-game money is rewarded depending on what the lowest difficulty is being played by one of the players. So, for example, if you are playing Expert, and your friend is on Easy, and you just beaten a set list 8 tune that you have had to retry over and over again because it was that frickin’ hard, you’re only awarded with a mere $100 out of a max earning of $1800, which you get for 5 starring a song on Expert level. That hard work doesn’t really pay off in the end after all. Still, this just means that you don’t have to choose a high difficulty if your friend is on Easy.. unless you take the high scoring system seriously, like me.

Though those are not the only modes you get to play with another player, they have included Face-Off and Pro Face-Off like previous, but now there is a new mode, as mentioned at the beginning, Battle. Unlike Co-op Career, the unlocked songs are dependent upon the songs you have unlocked in Solo Career, except for Co-op specific tracks which you can ony play through Co-op anyway, so really, you need to play through both modes if you want them all, but nobody really cares much for the extra few songs on Co-op Career.. do they? Face-Off and Pro Face-Off are similar, but with different hats. Let me explain. It’s a head-to-head frenzy which determines who is more godly, however, Face-Off lets you pick a difficulty each, therefore give one an easier experience, but this leads to a great advantage to more experienced players, since if your friend can only play on Easy, you can easily own him on Expert by playing just one section, even if your friend 100%’s his side of the song, so provides an unfair advantage in one way. As well as that, you play alternatively, so you will play one part of a solo, then it will cut you off and your friend will probably continue it, giving you a rest for when your next part approaches. Pro Face-Off is different. Unlike Face-Off, both players have to play on the same difficulty set, and just like single player, you play the song as normal, getting the highest score possible over your opponent to win the game. Battle is a great new addition which brings a lot of sweat and panic to you both. Similar to Face-Off, except there is no star power, except, there is battle power. Sounds fancy, doesn’t it? Like star power, you accumulate it by nailing the section, and you are awarded with an attack power up. The power ups could be anything from Double Notes, which turns notes into chords, to the dreaded Lefty, in which you need to be Hendrix or Kurt Cobain. The idea is to force a fail upon your opponent before the song is out, however, if you fail, it turns to sudden death, where the power ups change to Death Drain only, which simply brings down your rock meter gradually, even faster with the more mistakes you do, so you better know your songs well. This mode brings all kinds of fun to your Guitar Hero experience.. or fights, just pick someone you can easily beat down.

The track listing for this game is somewhat of an interesting selection. There are more recognisable bands such as The Who, Stone Roses, The Strokes, and even Metallica. The listing for this time around are not as memorable as those you played on your Guitar Hero II copy, but then again, Guitar Hero III tracks are not flunks compared to it. Guitar Hero III have a more popular song list compared to its older brother, featuring songs like “Before I Forget” by Slipknot, “Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns & Roses and, of course, “Knights of Cydonia” by Muse. You can guarantee that the music list will attract anyone.

The atmosphere in-game can really make things out to be like you’re “there”, but these effects can really kill the music that you’re playing, especially with star power during master recorded tracks. Most of that music is really lost out by the sound effects of the audience clapping during your star power moment, not only is it harder to hear the song, it can put you off and make you miss a note, which results in you wanting to throw your precious axe onto the screen. Still, it’s not all a bad thing in the end, just a nuisance mainly.

Anyway, I should finish writing this now since I’ve babbled on long enough. Guitar Hero III is a title that needs to be tried at least, if you do not try it out, you won’t understand what the fuss is about. The game does have its perks that can make a players experience somewhat of a
funny one, but regardless, it is worthy of your money if you’re one of those who love their rock music and have previously enjoyed the last Guitar Hero games. Online play increases its longetivity tenfold, and the difficulty is insane which will bring challenge to players of all abilities, but if you do not even have Xbox Live, you will find that it bores quickly, and the money you cough over for it wasn’t really worth it, but if you do have Guitar Hero II with the X-Plorer, you can take the cheap option and pick up a copy without the controller.

Rating this one is tough, since 9 is too high, and 8 is too low, so it gets an 8.5/10. It loses points due to the mentioned issues above, but the game is wonderful, it looks great, it plays well, and online does give it that extra piece of awesomeness to make it a title worthy enough to sit on your rack.