Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock for PlayStation 2

I've heard about the Guitar Hero franchise since it was released. The first time I played a guitar simulation was Konami's Guitar Freaks and it was definitely addicting even back then. The game was only available at the arcade at the time, so I couldn't justify spending more quarters. Long story short, Guitar Hero brought the arcade experience home and with a much better song selection.

Guitar Hero 3 picks up where the last two left off. If you've never played these games before basically they are a guitar playing simulation where buttons on the controller acts like strings and a "strum bar" acts like the regular pick area of a real guitar. Just like the Dance Dance Revolution franchise you match strumming notes to corresponding buttons on screen. So for example as a red note indicator passes your screen you hold down the red fret button and press the strum bar. As simple as that may sound its quite addicting and a really great party game!

This new iteration of Guitar Hero you a track listing of over a whooping 60+ songs and the majority of them are from the original bands, not cover songs like the previous two games.

Career Mode allows you to unlock new songs as you beat the ones already unlocked. You are given a rating based on accuracy and your score. You must get at least 3 stars to beat a song and that rating is based off of points...not the accuracy percentage. You start off as a "garage band" playing to your friends at a house party and at the peak of your career you end up playing in...well, I won't spoil it for you. Video vignettes, anime-style, play as you beat different venues. They reminded me of the videos from "Three Dirty Dwarves."

Along the way you will face guitar battles, ala Mario Kart with real life guitar players. Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine/Audioslave and Slash of Guns N Roses/Velvet Revolver will challenge you in a slick split screen guitar duel. It adds a little variety to a game which needed some after years of the same old same old. It's definitely much cooler to play with friends though than against the computer!

Co-op career mode allows you to team up with one of your buddies and unlock even more songs. This has been a complaint with some people (if you don't have a second guitar or friend who likes Guitar Hero then you'll be lacking a few unlockable songs) but I feel it gives you an incentive/more replay value to the game. To each their own though.

If you've never played the games before the Tutorial mode will get you started nicely. Unfortunately it doesn't go into detail about how to handle the guitar and other nuances but it will get you on the right foot fast. I HIGHLY recommend it for newbies.

You can purchase Guitar Hero with the new wireless guitar. It's a bit heavier than Guitar Hero II's pack-in and perhaps a bit longer. Some people have had connection issues with the neck being separated from the body of the guitar. I did initially until I made sure it was locked...oops! I do think the idea of having two parts was dumb though since it did not make the game box any smaller and because gig bags are available for those who transport their controllers a lot.

Another gripe I have with the new guitar is that its interface is a little clunky. It took too long for the receiver and transmitter to find one another. I shut off my cell phone, portable phone, computer. Anything that could've given it problems. I must have reset the PS2 20 or so times before they finally "found" each other. From then on it worked without a hitch but it was definitely frustrating thinking that it may have been broken.

Load times in Guitar Hero III seem to be bit longer than GH2. When you browse the track listing in GH2 the songs start almost instantly. But when you do the same in GH3 they take a second or so and the game menu freezes so you can't move it. When restarting a song it also has to reload itself. Not fully from the game menus but not instantly like in GH2.

Finally...my biggest gripe. And a lot of mainstream video game sites are not hitting on this heavily for whatever reason ($$$) so I'll give it to you straight. It seems as if Activision concentrated more on the background performances of the virtual characters with their perfect instrument/lip synch than they did on maintaining audio quality and a good playing interface. Compare GH2 and GH3 side by side and ear to ear and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

Everything about the new graphic interface is smaller. The fretboard/notes are smaller. They actually seem a little more blurry too, perhaps due to Activision's attempt to twart jaggies? So for players with less than 20/20 vision you're gonna feel it and have to get used to it. The Rock Meter and the counter are also smaller which I don't like at all. And when you activate Star Power it is sometimes real hard to see. I've become accustomed to this over time but it's a fault that should have not have been touched.

And the second part of my major gripe with Guitar Hero 3...sound quality. What happened here guys? Guitar Hero II had AWESOME sound. The bass thumped through my subwoofer, the guitar parts purred out of my tweeters...GH 3 sounds like a muddy 96kbps mp3 file. It just lacks that pristine quality and I'm not sure why. Did they pack too many tracks into the game? I can't imagine that they couldn't fit AUDIO, one of the easiest mediums to compress into a DVD! A game that's mostly about the audio experience should not have hindered track quality.

Seriously, the first time my friend played this song she was like "I can barely hear the guitar" so she turned the rest of the band audio down so the guitar part was louder. In GH2 the mix was perfect and that setup was unnecessary. And again, my subwoofer is barely thumping. Grr...

All in all though GH3 is a welcome addition to the franchise.