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Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Wii)

Manufacturer: Activision Part number: Guitar Hero III

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CNET Editor rating:
4.0 stars Excellent
Average user rating: 4.5 stars out of 7 reviews

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Gamespot editors' review

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Wii)

price range: $69.99 - $189.99

Reviewed by: Alex Navarro
Reviewed on: 10/29/2007
Updated on:10/30/2007
Released on: 10/28/2007

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You wouldn't have been wrong to come into Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock with some sense of trepidation. With original Guitar Hero developer Harmonix off the project and Tony Hawk creators Neversoft now on board, it would be fair to wonder if anything that made the wildly popular rhythm game franchise so awesome would be lost in the shuffle. The good news is that Guitar Hero III is Guitar Hero through and through. The core gameplay that fans love hasn't changed outside of some basic tweaks, and the long and varied tracklist is the best of any game in the series to date. If there are any chinks in the armor of this sequel, it's that some of the newer mode additions and a few odd design decisions do more to get in the way of the fun than anything else. Likewise, the extreme difficulty of some of the game's more severe songs might end up turning off newer players. Those issues aside, it's hard to argue with what Guitar Hero III offers from a content perspective, especially if you're a longtime fan of the franchise.

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rockscreenshot

Say hello to the return of the shred.

We won't spend a great deal of time trying to educate you on the ways of Guitar Hero if you've never played one of these games before. The quick and dirty explanation is that you have a guitar controller with five fret buttons and a strummer. Notes appear on the screen, you hit the matching buttons, and rock is made. In Guitar Hero III, you'll be making the rock with one of the best soundtracks to be found in any rhythm game. The soundtrack spans multiple eras and genres. Classic rock is represented with songs such as Santana's "Black Magic Woman," the Rolling Stones' "Paint it Black," and ZZ Top's "La Grange." Alternative rock from the '90s is present in a big way with tracks such as The Smashing Pumpkins' "Cherub Rock," Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Suck My Kiss" and Pearl Jam's "Evenflow" on-hand. Classic punk fans will dig being able to play the Dead Kennedys' "Holiday in Cambodia," Social Distortion's "Story of My Life," and the Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the UK." Modern rock hits such as Bloc Party's "Helicopter," The Killers' "When You Were Young" and Queens of the Stone Age's "3's and 7's" are also available. And for all the metalheads, you get major classics such as Slayer's "Raining Blood," Iron Maiden's "Number of the Beast" and Metallica's "One." It's an all-around fantastic list with only a few blemishes here and there. It's easily a much higher ratio of quality over crap than what Guitar Hero II had.

It's worth noting the number of original tracks added into this year's game. Well over half of the songs in Guitar Hero III are the original songs by the artists, as opposed to covers created for the purposes of the game. A couple of bands, including the Sex Pistols and early '90s funk-metal outfit Living Colour, actually went into the studio and rerecorded their songs for the game, which is pretty cool. The one downside to having so many master tracks in this game is that it does make the songs that are still covers stick out all the more. It doesn't help that the general quality of the covers has also been downgraded a good bit since the last sequel. The woman covering Pat Benatar's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" doesn't really sound anything like the '80s songstress; the version of Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" in the game features a uniformly unimpressive Ozzy Osbourne impersonator; and the entire cover of "Holiday in Cambodia" has been pretty badly butchered with some weird structuring changes, badly edited lyrics, and a guy who sounds more like someone trying to parody Jello Biafra than anyone remotely authentic. Of course, the guitar parts in these covers don't suffer much and in fact do a fine job of emulating the real-life songs. It's just the surrounding pieces that rob the tracks of authenticity.

Of note as well is the fact that Guitar Hero II's focus on extreme shredding over simple yet memorable riffs is even more intense in this sequel. The easy and medium difficulties are as good a starting point as they've ever been (though even they are a smidge more difficult than previous installments), but the curve definitely takes a steep incline when you bump up to hard and expert. The jump in expertise required for each setting is far greater than ever before, and at times it comes across as just too much. As awesome as songs like "One" and "Raining Blood" are, they're so intense that it's unlikely that anyone who didn't get all the way through expert in Guitar Hero II will have a blessed clue what to do with these songs. And then there's that pesky song from extreme power metal group DragonForce, "Through the Fire and Flames." It sounds a little bit like a Dungeons & Dragons dork singing over a tape of the Contra soundtrack that's been thrown in a blender and set to "liquefy," and it is so excruciatingly, arthritis-inflictingly difficult that you'll be thanking your lucky stars it's a bonus song and not something you're required to complete to advance. Regardless, there are enough songs that do require completion that aren't terribly far behind in difficulty level that it might just be enough to scare some people off from finishing expert altogether. There's an old adage along the lines of "You win more friends with accessible fun than you do by breaking people's fingers with a fake guitar." Or something like that. Whatever. The point is that Guitar Hero III feels decidedly geared toward the hardcore Guitar Hero fan, and less for the newcomer.

Painful difficulty aside, the game is still lots and lots of fun. The core gameplay hasn't been altered much, save for a few minor adjustments here and there. Hammer-ons and pull-offs, the techniques used to hit crazy streaks of tightly packed single notes, are now easier than ever before (possibly to offset some of the extreme extremeness of the harder songs), and the notes that can be hammered on or pulled off now glow brightly to signify as such. While playing, you'll notice that the game also keeps track of your note streaks both with a counter and with periodic exclamatory text messages on the screen that notify you when you've hit certain streak milestones. There are also some changes to the way your star-power meter is displayed, as well as your score tracker, though these are mostly just aesthetic changes.

If RedOctane were a band, Guitar Hero III would be that album that they made 'for the fans.'

You progress through Guitar Hero III much as you would any of the previous games. The career mode uses the same tiered-unlocking system as its predecessors, with encores at the end of each tier. One wrinkle to this year's mode is the addition of animated cutscenes that sketch a minimal story about your band's meteoric rise and eventual fall (literally) into hell. It's not much of a tale, but there are a few moments of amusement here and there. One particularly interesting addition to this year's game is a co-op career mode. This works much like the single-player career mode, but you can play through with a friend who you can divvy up either lead or rhythm guitar/bass duties with. Co-op play hasn't changed much since last year's game, but this new career progression is a neat idea.

Unfortunately, it's a neat idea that's overly restrictive in practice. For one thing, there are six songs you can unlock only in co-op career, which means that if you don't have a buddy with a second guitar that can come over and spend an afternoon playing, you won't get those songs (at least until someone eventually digs up the "unlock all songs" code for the game). Also, no version of the game ships with a co-op quick-play option. The only way to play cooperatively on a single console is to play in the co-op career mode, and you have to unlock six tiers' worth of songs before you unlock all the available songs. Interestingly enough, there is a launch-day patch for the Xbox 360 version of the game that adds a co-op quick-play option. However, if your 360 isn't connected to Xbox Live, or you happen to buy any other version of the game, you're out of luck at the moment.

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User reviews

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Average user rating: 4.5 stars out of 7 reviews
My rating: 0 stars

Showing opinion 1 to 7 out of 7

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9 stars

Amazing game, easy to start out

by needspeed355 on December 13, 2007

Pros: Easy for new players to start out, great user interface and integration with wii remote

Cons: some songs are too lengthy

Summary: This is an amazing game, period. I have never played the first two editions of the game, yet I still had no difficulty starting out. Had to search far and ...

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Summary: This is an amazing game, period. I have never played the first two editions of the game, yet I still had no difficulty starting out. Had to search far and wide to find it in a store, but eventually found it in blockbuster. Well worth the 90 bucks and an excellent gift idea.

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1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
9 stars

Highly Addictive

by pmart4 on June 22, 2008

Pros: Easy to pick up and a huge challenge to master

Cons: I'd like to see more songs and certain songs that should belong here aren't included.

Summary: Over 70 songs and easy to learn. The real fun comes in mastering them. I can't wait for the day I master "Rain of Blood" by Slayer! The buzz ...

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Summary: Over 70 songs and easy to learn. The real fun comes in mastering them. I can't wait for the day I master "Rain of Blood" by Slayer! The buzz of hitting a note perfect guitar solo in this game is incredible and the soundtrack reminds me of my school days! More Led Zepplin, Guns & Roses, Faith No More, Motorhead etc... but they can't include them all I guess. If you have a Wii and you're vaguely interested in music then this is a must have. I bought it for the lads to play on when they were out on our poker nights. Within an hours all eleven of us were glued and rocjkin away until 4 in the morning. Completely addictive and except the kacky graphics this game is near perfect!

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8 stars

Even with the cons, this is the best game I have for the Wii!

by creu007 on April 22, 2008

Pros: Very addicting & progress rate for newbies keeps you "hooked".

Cons: Strum bar on the guitar generates an extra strum when you strum downwards as the bar springs back into place creating an unwanted upward strum. Bad for sustained notes... Graphics a bit lame.

Summary: I am new to this Game, as I have only played GH II on the Xbox once before. But as a newbie, I am always wanting to play one more ...

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Summary: I am new to this Game, as I have only played GH II on the Xbox once before. But as a newbie, I am always wanting to play one more tune! I have no idea how to play a real guitar, but this makes me a superstar!

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9 stars

this game is so awesome

by chrisemcleod on February 16, 2008

Pros: super fun to play and you get to hear cool music

Cons: can be difficult to get started

Summary: This game is so great because it really gets you involved in the songs you already love. It is really great for rhythm. I'm sure it doesnt teach very ...

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Summary: This game is so great because it really gets you involved in the songs you already love. It is really great for rhythm. I'm sure it doesnt teach very much about notes, but it definitely gets you into rhythm.

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10 stars

INSANELY... WELL... INSANE!

by superdupercridic on January 1, 2008

Pros: An outstanding sequel to guitar hero 1 and 2. Avalable for all popular consoles

Cons: Imposible to find any

Summary: I ordered this game, and i must say, this IS THE MOST FUN GAME TAHT CAME OUT FOR THE WII! The Wii has not come out with many popular games ...

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Summary: I ordered this game, and i must say, this IS THE MOST FUN GAME TAHT CAME OUT FOR THE WII! The Wii has not come out with many popular games sence it's release in 2006, but this game is a revilution. If you have played or own any previous guitar heros, i recommend buying the third.

YOU WONT REGRET IT!
Matt

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9 stars

Great Game, no real problems

by dran129 on December 31, 2007

Pros: Popular song selection, great controller, many songs to play

Cons: can not buy 2nd controller right now, a couple bad covers

Summary: I was lucky enough to get this game, even though it is hard to find at the time, and I have already played through it on medium to unlock all ...

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Summary: I was lucky enough to get this game, even though it is hard to find at the time, and I have already played through it on medium to unlock all the songs. All the songs, except for 3 I believe, are done by cover bands, which is understandable since they must rerecord the songs to make them playable on the game. Most of the covers sound good (Dragon Force, Pat Benatar) but two had really bad cover singers (Ozzy Osborne "Paranoid" and Alice Cooper "Schools Out"). I know those are two singers hard to imitate, but they are really bad.

The controller they have come up with for the Wii really is great. The joystick was a bit hard to control at first, but after turning the game on 3 or 4 times, I got used to controlling it. I put in about 30 hours of nonconsecutive playing time on the guitar, and the batteries still have not needed to be changed which is one thing I was worried about. The guitar does not make the wimote burn through the batteries much faster. The only downside I have feel was a major oversight by the company was that they are not releasing spare guitars until mid to late January. This has made it boring to play against people since using just a wiimote to play the game makes it a much less fun game.

Over all, this game was really well thought out. I love the song selection and the new controller. Once Nintendo starts selling spare guitars this game will be even better.

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9 stars

Rock n Roll is alive and well!

by KentKtbj on December 12, 2007

Pros: FUN!, Mostly good songs, mostly original artists

Cons: No Zepplin or Satriani, few covers don't sound too good, 2nd guitar not available

Summary: First off, my wife & kids bought me this for my 43rd birthday. I'm not a big video gamer, but have been enjoying the kids Wii ocassionaly.

This game

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Summary: First off, my wife & kids bought me this for my 43rd birthday. I'm not a big video gamer, but have been enjoying the kids Wii ocassionaly.

This game is more fun that I would have thought a video game could be. There are many great songs available to play. Since I'm new to this Guitar Hero craze, I find the Easy level to be fairly challenging on most songs. I'm just now starting to get through a few songs on Medium.

I like the little storyline concept in career mode, but would have liked to have seen even a little more. One or two more guest appearences would've been nice too.

The graphics are fine, but since you don't really look at them much, it doesn't really matter.

I'm amazed at how fast and accurate the controller and the game work together. It is great having the wireless guitar. Maybe I will get good enough to add more flair to my performances.

I've tried playing with just the wii remote and it's very awkward and difficult. I'd like a second controller, but they won't be available until the end of January, and will go for at least $60. I think co-op mode would be a blast. Contrary to the review on cnet, there is a multi-player quick start option, at least now on mine.

I'm hoping it will be possible to download additional songs in the future.

Bottom line - I'm having a blast with this game and can't stop playing it. My wife is threatening to hide the guitar. ROCK ON!!

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Specifications

Manufacturer: Activision
Part number: Guitar Hero III

Product Basic Spec
Platform Wii
ESRB rating Teen - Mild Lyrics
Genre Music
Number of players 1-2 Players
Difficulty Medium
Learning curve About 1 and a half hours
Offline modes Competitive

Game
Developer Vicarious Visions
ESRB Teen
ESRB descriptors Mild Lyrics
Release date 2007-10-28

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Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Wii)

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