After the phenomenal success of the first two Guitar Hero games, gamers have
been eagerly anticipating the release of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. With
high anticipation comes high expectations and there’s a lot of pressure on the
game to meet those expectations, especially since this is the first Guitar Hero
game in the hands of a new developer. After playing the game extensively and
suffering through several bouts of “Guitar Hero arm”, I can safely say that most
people will be happy with Guitar Hero III. However at the same time there are
some things about the game that are a bit disappointing.
The basic gameplay has wisely been left untouched in Guitar Hero III. You
still play guitar by hitting the fret buttons that match the colored notes that
come down the screen toward you while strumming the flipper paddle that serves
as the guitar controller’s strings. Hitting special starred notes in sequence
will build your Star Power which can be unleashed to double your score for a
short time by tilting the guitar. Your score for a song is based on the number
of notes that you hit, with consecutive note streaks earning you bonus score
multipliers. Miss too many notes, though, and your virtual audience will boo you
off of the stage.
If you played the first two games you’ll notice some enhancements to the
basic game, all of which are pretty welcome. The hammer-on notes, those that can
be played without hitting the strum bar, are a lot easier to identify and can be
easily seen from across the room (where any self-respecting Guitar Hero player
eventually finds him or herself during solos). The game has also added a
consecutive note counter which while a nice addition is impossible to look at
while you’re concentrating on the approaching notes. The counter will inform you
when you hit milestone streaks such as fifty or one hundred notes in a row,
which is a cool addition to the game despite the fact that it makes me start to
think too much about my streak and inevitably blow it a couple of notes later.
As for the track list the game has stayed true to the series by providing a
mix of songs from classic rock to punk to alternative. Song selection is always
a hot topic of debate among the Guitar Hero faithful, but I think it’s a
testament to the variety of the track list that no one is happy with the entire
list (personally I can’t believe that anyone would consider the Beastie Boys to
be guitar heroes). However when you look at the overall difficulty of the tracks
it’s a different matter. This version of Guitar Hero is the most challenging
yet, and the tracks towards the end of the career mode will result in some
aching fingers for those who like to play the game at the hard or expert level.
The game also really needs to add a level of difficulty between medium and hard,
as the jump between the two is quite significant. Players who are making the
move up to hard not only have to contend with the addition of notes for the
fifth fret button, but with a greater number of notes that come along at a much
faster rate. Part of Guitar Hero’s magic is that it has such a strong appeal to
those who don’t really play games at all. If it can become the object of
obsession for my sister-in-law and girlfriend, then you know that it has a
strong universal appeal. The game is decidedly slanted in favor of the hardcore
player, though, and more than half of the game will effectively be out of reach
to those just looking to have some fun playing some music.
The game has added a few modes, one of which is a godsend. Co-op career
finally lets two players play through a career and unlock all of the game’s
songs. In prior versions of the game one person had to power through the career
before all of the songs would be opened up for co-op play. There is also a new
two-player battle mode which is kind of fun. Star Power is replaced with
power-ups that you can use to “attack” the other player. You can change the
difficulty on your opponent, disable one of his or her fret buttons, or double
up all of the notes, to name a few. It’s too bad that this mode has also been
used to add a new feature to the game’s career modes that’s not nearly as
welcome: the boss battles.
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