The great music makes plastic guitar shredding a blast
When Harmonix left Guitar Hero to start Rock Band, Activision and Neversoft had some catching up to do. They didn't really have experience in making music games, and suddenly they had a franchise to work with that could potentially make them oodles of money. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (GHIII) is the first main series Guitar Hero game from the new companies, and it turned out to be a great game that is still the best Guitar Hero game to date, in my opinion.
For those of you who don't know, Guitar Hero's gameplay involves players using a guitar controller with a strum bar and five fret buttons, and as notes come down the on-screen highway the player needs to strum while holding the correct fret button in time with the notes. It sounds easy until you try and do it yourself, and then you realize just how fun and challenging it is. It gets even more fun as you get better at it too, and with time you can be shredding some awesome guitar riffs with that plastic controller. Guitar Hero gameplay is really fun and satisfying and doesn't really get old. GHIII doesn't add anything new to this already-proven formula, but it really doesn't need to in order to keep it fun and exciting.
GHIII does, however, add some new modes to the list, most notable of which is the battle mode. In this mode you go head to head against an opponent, both of you playing the same song. By hitting specified notes you can get a weapon to use against your opponent in an attempt to make them fail, and whoever survives the longest wins. These battle modes are pretty fun, but ultimately they are pretty gimmicky and can sometimes be a pain because getting pounded with obstacles isn't always the most fun thing when you just want to play a song.
Battles aren't central to enjoying GHIII at all though. In fact when you start the game you need to play through the career mode to unlock all the songs in the first place. Career mode basically gives you a list of four songs to play, three of which must be completed to unlock the encore song for the set, and when the encore has been beaten you can move to the next set. It's simple and very linear, but for the amount of songs in the main setlist the system works just fine. Guitar battles against rock legends are required to move on a couple times, and like I said they can be kind of fun but also can be a pain.
Once you've played career mode enough to unlock all the songs, you're left with Quickplay. Quickplay simply allows you choose a song to play from all those you have unlocked and you try and get the highest score possible. This is the mode you will probably spend most of your time on in GHIII, because the whole purpose of the game is to play the songs.
And playing the songs couldn't be more fun. Just remember how fun the core Guitar Hero gameplay is, and then stack that on top of a good-sized setlist full of awesome and extremely fun songs. Some you will recognize, such as 'Slow Ride' and 'Hit Me With Your Best Shot,' but other songs you may or may not know are even more fun to play than the aforementioned, such as 'Lay Down' and 'Even Flow.' Several are actually covers of the original songs, and for the most part these are done pretty well. Even with the covers, there are very few songs in GHIII that aren't great. All the songs have great guitar parts that are fun and satisfying to play, and this is really what makes GHIII the awesome game it is.
GHIII also includes some nice online modes to add to the mix. You can go head to head against other plastic guitarists in face-offs and battles or play cooperatively with as guitarist-bassist combo. Online play is at its best when you are playing with a friend, though, because it's simply great fun to face off against someone you know or just play songs with them.
Graphically speaking, GHIII doesn't do wonders on Wii. The quality isn't really terrible, although it isn't exactly great either. The real problem with the graphics is that the players on stage aren't very lively at all. There are a few unique animations for each one, but they really aren't particularly interesting to watch. The drummer also animates like a stiff robot. When it all comes down to it though, the graphics really aren't that important because you aren't even watching the on-stage performance as you play, so while the graphics lack any kind of appeal it really doesn't matter all that much.
When it's all said and done, nothing really matters about Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock other than that it's a really fun game. The gameplay is solid, the song list is full of great guitar riffs, and there's enough to keep you coming back for more. Even today with Rock Band 2 and other newer rhythm games out I still play GHIII occasionally because of just how fun the songs are. GHIII is a music game with great music, and that's what makes it so much fun.
Positive:
+ fun, satisfying gameplay
+ awesome song list
+ online modes are great
Negative:
- guitar battles can be a pain sometimes
- graphics aren't very appealing
LAST WORD: Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock is easily recommendable to anyone who enjoys music games, even with two other games in the main series available. The awesome song list makes GHIII totally worth owning.
9.0/10
