Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock

The Good
One of the things guitar hero has on it's side is it's relative ease to pick up and play. After running through the tutorial's, few, if any, people could say they still did not understand how to play.

The graphic's have been significantly improved over those of Guitar Hero II. Gone are its bland plastic/wood feel, now replaced with vibrant graphics and better realism. O.k, they're not photo realistic, but at least you don't feel like your looking at a toy doll. The venue's themselves as well as the interface have also been significantly improved.

Add to that, the playlist is also one of the games strong points, the chances are, there will be something to most people's taste. Or in failing that, you could end up liking some of the songs featured that you had not heard before.

If you like a lot of the songs, it also has a fair amount of replayability to it, especially if you have none of the song's on your MP3 player.

The Bad
It can be a bit daunting for new comer's to the plastic instrument genre, but the tutorials can be a big help.

If you don't like a lot of the songs, then you probably won't get much replay value out of it.

Finally, one of the big let downs of the GH series is that the instruments have an unfortunately well deserved reputation when it comes to reliability, so don't be surprised of the GH controller it comes with end's up packing in on you.

The Bottom Line
You will either get a lot amount of entertainment out of this, or not very much, depending on your skill and appreciation for the music. And be aware of the possibility of your instrument dying on you.

The Good
Let me say that I compile this brief review from the perspective of having never played any other game of this type. I've never played any other GH installment, Rockband, or even DDR. For me, Guitar Hero 3 is my first experience with this type of game.

I was very hesitant to purchase this game for the PC mainly on the grounds that there are several reviews which claim that the PC version is flawed in that there is a ridiculous amount of stutter, lag, and the like making it less enjoyable than its console counterparts. Well, I did my homework and went on YouTube and found quite a few recordings of the game in action. Truth be told, there were a LOT of videos showing the lag and choppiness of the game. However, I did notice that most of these examples were played out on machines that were borderline to system requirements and such (which are themselves quite steep).

I endeavored to put off playing, until I played the xbox 360 version at a department store and decided that I had to have it. Well, being that I’ve committed to wait for a Wii (none are available right now), the only way I could play TODAY would be to buy the PC version. What the heck I took a chance.

I was delighted to see that none of the criticisms about lagginess or unplayability were present when I took my first go at the game. My machine however, is a bit above the specifications for those that drew issue with the game. Running on an Athlon 64 x2 5200+ with 2GB RAM, Windows XP sp2, and 256MB 8600GT x2 (in SLI) mode, I have zero technical issues.

The game is just plain fun, and like other guitar hero installments there are a wide variety of popular songs that are fun to jam out to. I quickly found that being completely new, any difficulty setting above “easy” was a waste of time on me. Like a real guitar hero, I needed to practice and build my skills before moving on to bigger and faster riffs. For the really serious player, you can also practice sections of songs at reduced speed, so that you can learn the proper keys and chords without having them thrown at you at light speed.

Playing the guitar actually produces an effect. If you’re hitting the notes, you can hear the guitar prominently represented in the song. Miss notes, and it sounds like crap. This gives one the feel of really playing a guitar.

The career mode is of course the meat and potatoes of the experience. You start off by picking a character, playing a few gigs, and working your way up the ladder of fame. At one point, I had Tom Morello of “Rage Against the Machine” challenge me to a guitar battle. The way to win was to get power-ups by hitting the right notes at the proper time and then tilting the neck of the guitar upwards (the controller detects being tilted) which makes you hit Tom and messes up his playing. Beat him down enough, and you can be a guitar loser and still win. Seems silly, but adds to the variety and I like it. Once he’s defeated, you can play “Bulls On Parade” with him. Nice.

Multiplayer is present, but you aren’t missing a whole lot if you pass on it. Really this is the kind of game that one can really get into all alone, or can appreciate an audience of people watching you jam out. Multiplayer just mainly allows for you to compete against another player’s skills, but so much of the game is based on competing against oneself and one’s own abilities that it seems silly to involve other people.

The PC version was a full $20 cheaper than the other versions where I live!

The Bad
Some of the flaws are inexcusable here. For example, nothing that you buy for your characters really does anything. All of the upgrades in the world won’t make you a better player, or allow you to really do anything that you can’t at the start of your career. What’s the point of allotting me cash if nothing I buy with it makes any difference?

Some of the songs are too long and just plain annoying. I understand that there are a variety of tracks in an effort to appease just about every kind of guitar fan, but it amazes me how some of these ever made it into the game. For example, why do we have “Story of My Life” from Social Distortion in there, where I can hit the same key over and over for what, 6 or 7 minutes? Not fun. Some songs just don’t translate well to Guitar Hero as they just aren’t fun to play. I was disappointed to see that some songs I really liked are absolutely no fun at all to play, while others that I don’t really care for work out much better.

I got to thinking, how does the guitar controller detect when it’s tilted? I can only think of one answer; a mercury switch. While it’s probably pretty safe under normal circumstances, a mercury switch could pose a problem should the kiddos decide to take apart their guitar, or worse even, a drunk friend smashes the toy guitar against the ground after an encore performance, potentially scattering highly toxic material over your entire house.

I must comment on the technical issues of this game even though I have experienced none, simply because there is an overwhelming crowd of highly dissatisfied gamers that experience trouble with the game running smoothly. Make sure that if you want to enjoy smooth play here that you have a high end machine. A dual core processor is required at minimum. You’ll want to be well above recommended specs and probably running SLI to avoid problems. For this reason, if you have an alternative (such as an xbox 360 or Wii), go with that and avoid the PC version.

The Bottom Line
Guitar Hero 3 is so much fun, I feel that I wasted time writing a review when I could have been playing, “Even Flow” by Pearl Jam. Go for the game on other platforms if you can, but if you do have a high end PC and no alternative, this version will work out for you.

The Good
2007 was arguably one of the best years that gaming ever saw, and it was an especially great one for rhythm games. The fall season of that year had not one, but two, new rhythm games hotly anticipated by critics and audiences worldwide: Guitar Hero III and Rock Band. The two games had an interesting development history which I won't detail here, but it only added to my anticipation of both. This was the gaming equivalent of such classic rock and roll rivalries such as the Beatles vs. the Stones. On one side, we had the game which was trying to capture the hearts of millions with incredible ambition and innovation, and on the other hand, we had the game which tried to win over audiences that relied on refining a tried-and-true formula to new levels of excellence. At least in theory. Although in the long run considered to be the inferior game, at the time GHII offered up a lot of fun if you were willing to pay the premiums of both price and learning curve.

Guitar Hero III was the first game in the series to be developed by Neversoft. Neversoft had previously broke ground in the extreme sports genre by creating the Tony Hawk games, which it would abandon after creating Guitar Hero III, which was their first attempt at a rhythm game. How did they do? Pretty good I'd say.

The most important part of any rhythm game is the soundtarck, and an admirable job was done in picking the songs available for gameplay. There are two parts to the setlist- the main setlist features tracks that average listeners would recognize, such as "Slow Ride" by Foghat, "Rock You Like a Hurricaine" by Scorpions, "Welcome to the Jungle" by Guns N' Roses, and "Pride and Joy" by Stevie Ray Vaughan, the last one being a particular favorite of mine to play in the game. The setlist was also well-liked as the majority of tracks were the original masters rather than the covers as featured in the first two games, a massive achievement in 2007 (though now it's par for the course). In the bonus setlist, all of the songs are done by lesser-known groups that you've probably never heard of. Highlights in here include An Endless Sporadic's shape-shifting "Anything", the catchy "Ruby" from the Kaiser Chiefs, and "Go That Far" from Bret Michaels, which has the dubious honor of having the series's first four-fret chord (in the rhythm part) Most of the songs are great fun to play, with some exceptions. I'm no metal fan, but Slayer's "Raining Blood" contained the deadly combination of being excruciatingly painful to listen to an painfully excruciating to play. I felt a great sigh of relief after passing it: Still, that's part of the beauty of these games: They offer something for listeners of all ages and tastes.

In addition, the game also featured cameos from two well-respected rock guitarists: Slash from Guns N' Roses, and Tom Morello, of Rage Against the Machine. While I've never really listened to either of those bands, just the fact that they were able to get these guys to do mo-cap and record new music specifically for the game was also very impressive.

The gameplay is unchanged from the first two games. You still, strum, hammer-on, and pull off notes on the guitar to follow the prompts given to you on the scrolling highway. Some of the more hardcore players were critical of the increased "timing window" which allowed for much forgiving note-hitting, but there was actually a pretty good reason for it. The songs were HARD. Nothing in the first two games even touched some of the later songs in the main setlist, and that's not even counting the bonus songs, including Dragonforce's fast and furious fantasy power-metal hit, "Through the Fire and Flames". That song was NOTORIOUS amongst the GH community, as most players, (including myself) couldn't even dream of passing it. The difficulty was good though, as it made the game incredibly fun to replay over and over and over again, trying to beat your own or someone else's highscores.

Finally, the game added an online mode, which was great fun, and it had the added bonus of being one of the first online-enabled games to really work well on the Wii. The team that helped bring Neversoft's vision to the under-powered console, Vicarious Visions, really deserves a pat on the back for this feature.

The Bad
As fun as the core gameplay was, the presentation surrounding it was pretty disappointing. It's like a package that's been scuffled up a bit in the mail, yet the product inside arrived perfectly intact.

To begin with, the graphics were HORRIBLE, both artistically, and technically. The animations were stiff, the drummer in particular looked like one of those animatronic characters you would see at Chuck-E-Cheese's. The singer looked absolutely awful. The community nick-named him "The Chin" because he had hair that covered his eyes and an extremely exaggerated chin. He was UGLY. The guitarists that you got to play as weren't much better looking either. The designers decided to "edgy" them up a bit, and they look dreadful. The venues were unremarkable, with flat lighting and once again, stiff animations, par for the course for this game. Even the font choices were terrible- it was really difficult to read what song you were going to be playing as it started because the font was so bad. The first two games, running on PS2, still looked better than this, even running on an Xbox 360, all due to the poor, poor engine and art-style.

The game also had a horrible story. Basically, your band signs a contract with a mysterious man, who, in a twist I'm sure everyone saw coming, turns out to be the devil, who drags you down to hell for a final guitar showdown ( on, fittingly enough, an awesome metal cover of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia").

Speaking of showdowns, the battle mode was very poorly balanced and based largely on luck. At major points in the story, your guitarist has to battle another guitarist (such as the two famous ones listed above) in a duel. Essentially, battle mode was a Mario-Kart style game where playing certain sequences correctly would net the player powerups, which they could use on the other player in order to hamper their playing and win the battle. Where the problems start to come in are the balancing of the powerups and the fact that you could essentially combine powerups in order to maximize the devastation. One well placed triple-attack would easily win you the battle. While a good idea on paper, they weren't as enjoyable in game. The AI that controlled the guitarists that you battled was arbitrary as to when they would use their powerups or even hit notes at all. Needless to say, this feature was scrapped pretty quickly for subsequent games.

Finally, the Wii version was hated on for all it's missing features, though these problems would be fixed in future installments. First, the game offered no option to download new songs to the system. The more powerful systems, however, did get some DLC, including a pack from a band I greatly admire, Coldplay. I unfortunately, had to miss out on these potentially enjoyable tracks and stick with what was available on the disc. Second, the game was initially shipped without stereo sound, when it was advertised as having such. While this was not a problem for me, as I played on a cruddy tv with a mono speaker, for people who wanted to blast the game through their shiny sound systems in rock and roll fasion, the Wii version only disappointed. Activision, however, was kind enough to allow people to replace their discs for new ones with the stereo sound patched in, although most people think that Activision did that to prevent a lawsuit rather than out of the goodness of their hearts and their loyalty to their customer base. Still, a fine example for other Wii developers to follow.

The Bottom Line
Guitar Hero III, however flawed it was, was a great game in 2007, and even playing through these tracks again today can still be a lot of fun. Compared to newer GH games, it feels a bit limited, but it does have arguably my favorite setlist of any game in the series, which is more than good enough for this particular game. If you see it used, and you have the equipment but not the software, you should pick it up.