ReviewGuitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
Wii, Xbox 360, PS3, PS2
Rating: 5/5
The clock has hit 1.30am and I’m tired. My body says stop and go to bed – but anyone who has played Guitar Hero I or II knows that the guitar-shaped controller has a magnetic charm that makes it difficult to cease shredding metal.
So using the strummer on the Gibson Les Paul-styled guitar provided with the game, I scroll down the song list and decide I’ll play lead guitar for the Rolling Stones on their 1967 hit Paint It Black.
The song starts rolling and soon enough coloured circles representing buttons on the guitar fret board require me to push a combination of them and strum along when each dot reaches a line at the bottom of the screen.
Simultaneously, the virtual crowd of prisoners – humorously animated – is screaming for my electric guitar prowess, cheering my every move and booing if I miss a note.
It’s hard – sometimes I pull off a solo and feel like Keith Richards, minus the drugs.
But other times I miss notes and the game produces an aurally displeasing clunking noise to make sure I know how bad I sound.
And yet, despite barely progressing on my previous score, I keep playing – not just one more time, but a second, third and even fourth time, until I finally master the song and smash the previous top score by about 10,000 points.
Welcome to Guitar Hero III. Some would describe it as a game, but I would like to think it is an addiction. Guitar Hero III capitalises on the successes of its two predecessors and for the first time appears on Nintendo’s Wii and Sony’s PlayStation 3 consoles in addition to Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 2.
Players use the supplied guitar peripheral to play tunes in time with the song. The measure of one’s performance is gauged by how accurately they play.
Progressing through the career mode unlocks the 70-plus rock songs available from artists such as Guns’n’Roses, Pearl Jam, Santana, Aerosmith and even Tenacious D.
A cooperative mode allows two gamers to play songs together – one on lead guitar, the other on bass.
This time around, Guitar Hero introduces online play, including an arcade Battle Mode. Battle Mode is best described as Guitar Hero meets Mario Kart, with each player gaining powerups to be thrown at the other’s screen, each interfering with the gameplay in a different way.
If players miss enough notes they bomb out, and the survivor wins.
Guitar Hero III comes with the Gibson Les Paul design guitar, and on the Wii has a slot for the Wii remote to fit into, making it wireless.
It is also wireless on the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360.
Guitar Hero III hands down the most fun I’ve had with a video game in yonkers, but it can take time and practice to master it. I consider that to be the game’s strong point – it has longevity that not many rhythm games – or any other genre for that matter – possess. It’s always tempting to have just one more go at your favourite song to trump your top score.
And now that scores are uploaded to online leaderboards, there’s yet more incentive to keep going and become the ultimate Guitar Hero.
