Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock

Rating Teen Genre music Publisher Activision/Neversoft External Links Official Guitar Hero III Website

It is once again time to put on your leather pants, grow out your hair, and gather some roadies. Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock is here. Armed with a newly designed wireless guitar, better graphics, online play, and over 70 songs, Guitar Hero 3 hits you like a drunken mosher. Those familiar with the other Guitar Hero games will see all the familiar aspects of the game return. You can play through Career mode on the different difficulties as in the other games, and now there is a co-op career mode that allows two to play through the sets, where you can play songs not found in the solo career. Online play is now offered and allows players to go head to head in Face-Off, Pro-Face-Off, and Battle Mode, a new mode where you used dirty tricks to hamper your opponents thrashing.

A nice new addition to the game is the impressive amount of licensed songs. More than half of them are the original tracks everyone fell in love with. The hammer-on and hammer-off play style has been greatly improved. The hammerable notes are much easier to spot and many songs are built more around them, allowing for more diverse game play. The game is notably more difficult than the last incarnations of the series. In fact there is a song, “Through Fire and Flames” by the band Dragonforce, that is nearly impossible to beat, though trying is always good for a laugh.

The Battle modes offer a unique twist as you play off against some notable rock legends, most notably Slash and Tom Morello. These guitar duels are tracks recorded specifically for Guitar Hero 3 by the artists. The only downside to them is that you can’t play through the tracks without playing them as a duel, which means you never get to hear the full song. I have just a few complaints about the game beyond that. The wireless guitar, while much better in feel that the older models, have difficulty registering button presses. This is due to the detachable neck, which seems to be a little loose even when in its locked position. Personally I don’t care for the song selection as much as before, but that is a minor complaint.

It would have been nice to see some more contemporary artists than what was included, and a few more customizable options wouldn’t hurt. It would have been nice to let players create their own characters, guitars, even stages. I suppose something like that can be hoped for in later editions of the game, though. Regardless of these little nitpicks, Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock is a solid music game that wont disappoint fans of the series and has the potential to draw in more to the fandom of electronic air guitar madness.