Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock for PlayStation 2

A note for the skeptics: when I first heard about Guitar Hero I thought it looked like a cute toy for the kids. Seriously, the guitar looks like a Fisher Price my-first-guitar toy or something. I wasn't one of these high-and-mighty types that thought people who played it were dorks because they ought to be playing the real thing (if you're one of those maybe if you hold your breath long enough the rest of us will start running our entertainment choices by you to make sure you're OK with us enjoying them), I just had no interest in playing myself. I was with some friends who were playing, and they talked me into giving it a shot. It wasn't long before I was hooked. Shortly thereafter I bought my own game, and plan to eventually get most if not all the other titles in the series.

WHAT THE GAME IS:
This is essentially a glorified air guitar. The song plays and you have to mash the frets and strum the string at the right time. It takes coordination and timing.

WHAT THE GAME IS NOT:
This is not a guitar tutorial. You're dealing with one "string" and a few fret buttons as opposed to six strings and a neck full of frets. Don't think you're going to learn to play the real thing by beating this game. On the other hand, this might spark an interest in learning the real thing.

GAME PLAY:
Basically the notes appear on the screen as colored gems. You match the patterns on the guitar controller in time to the music while strumming at the appropriate time. You are scored depending on how many "notes" you hit correctly. (I put "notes" in quotes because in some cases the gems represent specific notes and sometimes hitting a single gem will result in playing multiple notes). Power-ups and bonuses are awarded for good playing. If you miss too many notes in a row you will get booed off the stage and have to try again or move on.

Battle mode is a little more complicated. The power-ups in this mode are attacks. You use them to make the game boss or the other player screw up and fail in their song while trying to play your song well and recover from their own attacks.

There are a variety of ways to get to the songs. The easiest way is to use Quick Play - a quick jump to all the available songs (meaning you have to unlock or buy them first). This is for diving right in and just getting some playing in. If you have multiple player accounts but aren't playing jointly it's a good place to log and compare high scores.

Career mode is the core. Choose a band name, then choose a character as well as their look and guitar they will play. You access the career songs in groups of 5. You must beat a certain number of those songs before advancing to the next group. At the end of each set is an encore and/or boss battle.

There are a few different multiplayer options. Since it's only me playing I haven't done anything more than look at these so I don't know much about them first-hand. The face-off modes include the battles I mentioned and playing the song at the same time to see who does better (without attacks in the mix). There is also a co-op career track where two players share the responsibility of successfully completing the songs. The bass line is available for play here which means the two players are able to play different parts of the song. There are some songs that have to be accessed via this method only, although after unlocking them they will appear in the Quick Play menu (I just used a cheat code since I don't have a player 2).

Money is awarded at the completion of songs and sets in career mode. This money can be used to buy things in the store. The store includes playable characters from intergalactic robots to real musicians, different (some highly unusual) guitars, character clothes, additional songs, and videos that show musicians working on the game. You can use this stuff to further customize the look of your guitar hero. Incidentally, it appears that anything you buy in the store is then available for all accounts. So if I bought Tom Morello then logged in under a different account I could choose Tom as my character. I've just discovered this so I do not know if there might be any caveats to it.

GRAPHICS:
There are visuals to go along with the songs. In career mode you'll go through a variety of environments from a backyard stage to prison to Hell. Stage animation enhances the look, but the focus is the band and your character. In career mode you are playing whomever you select. In quick play you get a random selection (the personalization is what makes career mode so much more fun). The musicians are impressively in sync with the songs: the singer's mouth matches the words, the drummer's strikes matches the music, etc. You'll probably be too focused on the notes to worry too much with a lot of graphic detail, but it provides some fun visuals for anybody watching you if nothing else.

The career mode includes cutscenes that tell a story about a band that makes it to the big time but finds they have unwittingly sold their souls to Satan. The style is cartoony and amusing reminding me a little of Metalocalypse (though I haven't really watched the show much so maybe you'll think I'm off on that). There isn't too much in the way of story or animation. The focus is on playing the guitar as well it should be.

SONG LIST:
There are 3 lists of songs. The focus is the career list. These are what you will play to earn money to buy things from the store as well as unlock many of the additional songs, characters, guitars, etc. These are by big-name artists. There were only a few bands I had never heard of, but I'm sure others have. They range from older groups like Alice Cooper and The Who to modern acts like Rage Against The Machine.

The styles are just as wide-ranged. Some are laid-back straight rock like "La Grange" while some are more punk like "Anarchy in the UK," and others are furiously intense like "Raining Blood." It's all guitar-driven, of course, but as long as you like guitars (and why would you play this game if you didn't?) there is something on here for everyone.

While they didn't necessarily pick the best songs by the bands they included, there are only a few that I really don't like and several that I've come to like a great deal after playing them here. That's going to be completely subjective, though, and is, I'm sure, the point of including such a wide variety of styles and dates. I'm sure you could name several songs you wish had made it to the list just as I can, but we'll just have to hope for those on other titles.
There are 39 songs plus 3 boss battles here. The boss battles are two original compositions and a hard rock remake of "Devil Went Down to Georgia."

The co-op mode includes 6 more songs. While I've heard of all these bands except Bloc Party, I don't like many of the songs here. I don't know if anybody else shares that sentiment, but maybe that's why they aren't in the main part of the game.

Then there's the bonus list. These are songs that have to be unlocked or purchased (with in-game money, not real currency). These seem to be mostly if not entirely independent and underground bands (some are actually foreign and I have no idea if they might be big in their respective countries or what). I've heard of very few of these bands myself which makes them less exciting to have; still, they provide a good deal of extra gameplay though they don't generate any cash even when played in career mode. The song of the most note is the one by Dragonforce. It's the closing theme for the game and is reportedly the hardest to play of any in the GH series. There are 25 tracks in all.

DIFFICULTY and SETTINGS:
One of the greatest design features is the level of difficulty. Easy mode will help newbies get used to the game as well as allow people that just want to play without much of a challenge jump right in and hear the songs. After spending some time learning how to play with songs I already knew I was able to blaze through easy mode playing songs I'd never heard before with 98-99% accuracy. It is also a quick and painless way to generate some cash and unlock the bosses for purchase not to mention the Dragonforce song. You will also unlock some guitars one of which, the Bat, is my current guitar of choice.

The challenge increases with 3 more difficulty levels requiring some practice to play well. I can't even begin to conquer expert mode yet, but I'm working on it. As the difficulty increases more fret buttons are used, more and increasingly complex "chords" (multiple buttons at once) appear, and the gems to hit are more numerous.

Sounds settings allow you to reduce or raise the volume of your guitar, the other music, and the sound effects. Having trouble hearing your part? Drop the rest of the volume to make yourself stand out more. I prefer more song and less sound effects.

A tutorial will help beginners gets started. Even if you're doing well as soon as you pick up the guitar there may be some gameplay elements you can learn about here particularly in the advanced techniques portion.

A practice mode allows you to control every possible variable so that you can learn the songs. Play any unlocked song on any difficulty. You can slow it down and even play only specific portions of a song. Nailing the verses but having trouble with the solo? You can practice the solo by itself. What really makes this fun is that you can play the bass line here. While I would prefer to have this available in the solo career track it's still a lot of fun to be able to play it here.

COMPARISONS:
I've only just recently picked up GH 1 & 2 so I don't know as much about them yet. There are a few things I can point out, though for players of them getting ready to check out #3. First of all, 3 seems harder to me than the others. Not that the earlier ones don't have some hard songs, but I was able to beat songs on expert in the earlier games before I was able to beat any in hard mode in the third one.

The song performances are better. Many of the earlier ones are obviously covers. #3 has more participation by the actual bands and therefore has a more authentic sound. Not that the earlier covers weren't well done, but they still sound different from the originals.

Easy mode earns money and has access to all career songs. Easy mode in 1&2 doesn't include the encores or the final song sets of the games. There are no rewards for easy mode in #1 at all. #2 at least has some guitars to unlock.

RATING:
I've heard rumors that there is cussing and nudity in the game. I have seen neither. Some of the songs do have bad language but it is removed for the game. One of the male characters it shirtless and some of the girls aren't wearing much, but none of it goes as far as nudity. The main questionable aspects of the game are the subjects of some of some songs which includes sexually suggestive themes and some dark/Satanic imagery such as battling the Devil in Hell as well as songs like "Number of the Beast" which makes direct references to Satan and "Raining Blood" which is about raining blood (go figure).

GRIPES:
There's not much I can really criticize. I've come to like the Grim Ripper character (from the earlier games) and miss him in this one. I guess the use of the Devil supplants him, but I like Ripper better. The removal of the cusswords in the songs is annoying. Not that I want the words, it just seems to me that knowing these would have to be removed for the game the designers would choose songs without such language in the first place. Fortunately it is not a problem with very many songs, and for most it is one word out of the whole song. However, with a few songs it almost sounds like the game is screwing up.

It would be fun to have the boss songs available for regular play or practice. One system (X Box 360 I think, can't remember for sure, I just know it's not my PS2) has them available in a download, but that's the only way to get them. Wouldn't it be great if they combined all of those downloads into a game supplement the rest of us could enjoy?

FINAL THOUGHTS:
The main improvement of this game is the more authentic-sounding tracks made possible largely by the participation of the actual musicians. The battle option can be fun, but I could live without it so I'm neutral on it as far as affecting my rating. The song choices are the best since #1 even though there are a few I wish could be replaced by something better. The new graphics and sense of humor make the game even more fun. For a game to be this addicting how could I give it less than 5*?