Third Time's Not So Charming
Yeah, this review of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock is late. Rock star late!
Published: August 31, 2008
A bit of backstory into why you're seeing a review for a game that came out last effing year appearing on TPS now, and right on the back of not-quite-sequel Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (which you'll see the review for if you click on that game name there). Thanks to some rather unscrupulous FedEx/UPS delivery guys (not our regulars, we're guessing, since they're cool), our original GHIII game/guitar bundle went missing. Obviously, with the release of Aerosmith, we couldn't wait anymore to get one, so, hey, GHIII bundle! Why not review it too?!
So here it is, our ultra-late verdict on the game. Not surprisingly, it's going to pretty much line up exactly with what people said months ago: Guitar Hero III doesn't quite have the touch that Harmonix Music Systems' first two games did (though it's instantly better than Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s). This is partly to be expected, though; this is, after all, Neversoft first attempt at the formula (and yes, we mean the same Neversoft that made 800 billion Tony Hawk games).
They definitely got the core bits right. Guitar Hero III at least nails the basic feeling of playing on a little plastic guitar, which is the idea, I suppose, but whether because of unfamiliarity with building note charts or helping to transition players from one area to the next, the note charts just aren't nearly as good. At multiple points along the Career Mode path, you'll likely hit a plateau or a flat-out impasse -- and there's a damn good chance it'll happen when you run into one of the game's oft-beleaguered boss battles.
It's funny, because during the two-player battles (one of us demonstrating our swank FreQuency/Amplitude skills), the power-ups that went into the boss battles -- stuff like a broken string where you have to hammer on the button to fix it or a whammy bar toggle that makes you jiggle it to get back into things -- those are actually rather entertaining against another person. Against an AI opponent who will quite literally never mess up unless you make them -- repeatedly -- through the use of power-ups is just plain lame.
Both of these things, the somewhat sub-par note charts and the boss battles have been bitched about already long before I ever put finger to key, so I'll leave it at that. In fact, most of this review is really just fluff (though it'll be nice to say we finally have a review for the game in the database), and if for some reason you're still reading this, feel free to read on, though we're just going to skim along in the usual A/V segments and deliver the final score.
Those A/V bits would encompass, as you'd expect, the visuals, which do a great job of duplicating the angles, on-stage personae and visual feel of the original games, but does so in HD and the audio, which is summarily delivered in 5.1. Hooray! It's not all perfect, mind you; stuff like close-up crowds being obviously revealed as sprites when the camera starts out near them isn't the smartest of visual decisions, but they're minor little quibbles with a game that doesn't exactly do a whole lot to graduate to next-gen (understandable considering there's still a very popular last-gen system on the market).
In all, Guitar Hero III serves as a nice little high water mark for Neversoft. It's hardly all that high, but proves that, yes, they can actually make a Guitar Hero game without trashing the series in one fell swoop and, as evidenced by the stuff seen in the Aerosmith expansion, they can clearly learn from their mistakes. If you were like us and got caught up in all the Rock Band hype (c'mon, man it has drums!), then it's worth it to pick up a copy and guitar on the cheap. The song selection is decent, the game sounds fantastic, and the controller, depending on your taste, will serve you well going into the next round of instrument-driven games, since all of 'em will be supported.
And now we have a review in our database, wheee!
So here it is, our ultra-late verdict on the game. Not surprisingly, it's going to pretty much line up exactly with what people said months ago: Guitar Hero III doesn't quite have the touch that Harmonix Music Systems' first two games did (though it's instantly better than Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s). This is partly to be expected, though; this is, after all, Neversoft first attempt at the formula (and yes, we mean the same Neversoft that made 800 billion Tony Hawk games).
They definitely got the core bits right. Guitar Hero III at least nails the basic feeling of playing on a little plastic guitar, which is the idea, I suppose, but whether because of unfamiliarity with building note charts or helping to transition players from one area to the next, the note charts just aren't nearly as good. At multiple points along the Career Mode path, you'll likely hit a plateau or a flat-out impasse -- and there's a damn good chance it'll happen when you run into one of the game's oft-beleaguered boss battles.
It's funny, because during the two-player battles (one of us demonstrating our swank FreQuency/Amplitude skills), the power-ups that went into the boss battles -- stuff like a broken string where you have to hammer on the button to fix it or a whammy bar toggle that makes you jiggle it to get back into things -- those are actually rather entertaining against another person. Against an AI opponent who will quite literally never mess up unless you make them -- repeatedly -- through the use of power-ups is just plain lame.
Both of these things, the somewhat sub-par note charts and the boss battles have been bitched about already long before I ever put finger to key, so I'll leave it at that. In fact, most of this review is really just fluff (though it'll be nice to say we finally have a review for the game in the database), and if for some reason you're still reading this, feel free to read on, though we're just going to skim along in the usual A/V segments and deliver the final score.
Those A/V bits would encompass, as you'd expect, the visuals, which do a great job of duplicating the angles, on-stage personae and visual feel of the original games, but does so in HD and the audio, which is summarily delivered in 5.1. Hooray! It's not all perfect, mind you; stuff like close-up crowds being obviously revealed as sprites when the camera starts out near them isn't the smartest of visual decisions, but they're minor little quibbles with a game that doesn't exactly do a whole lot to graduate to next-gen (understandable considering there's still a very popular last-gen system on the market).
In all, Guitar Hero III serves as a nice little high water mark for Neversoft. It's hardly all that high, but proves that, yes, they can actually make a Guitar Hero game without trashing the series in one fell swoop and, as evidenced by the stuff seen in the Aerosmith expansion, they can clearly learn from their mistakes. If you were like us and got caught up in all the Rock Band hype (c'mon, man it has drums!), then it's worth it to pick up a copy and guitar on the cheap. The song selection is decent, the game sounds fantastic, and the controller, depending on your taste, will serve you well going into the next round of instrument-driven games, since all of 'em will be supported.
And now we have a review in our database, wheee!
