From a Guitar Hero Rookie

I don't have the privilege of owning an X-Box 360 or a PS2 or PS3. My experience with Guitar Hero has been limited to in-store displays and watching my friends play. So I was very pleased to hear that Guitar Hero III would be released on the Wii and I would finally get a chance to try it out.

I've had the game for two days now, and I can see what all the fuss is about. The game is simply a ton of fun, simple enough to play out of the box and have a good time. I was a little concerned starting out. The easy mode is EASY. Within a day I had finished all 42 of the career songs and was a little disappointed that I did it so quickly. However, it is not until you get to medium mode that the game really starts to shine. Just like in real life, learning this guitar will take a lot of practice sessions before you are ready to go out and perform them in the career mode. That is the fun of it, going back on your mistakes over and over. It seems tedious, but once you get started, you really feel like you are learning to play a lead guitar in a real rock band.

The graphics are fine for the Wii. I'm not huge on graphics anyway, as long as the game is fun. I'd rather play the original Super Mario than some of the crap they put out today. Guitar Hero is fun in spades and I've not even reached the levels where you have to play all five frets and complex chords yet. For people who have played GH 1 and 2, that can probably jump right into the harder modes, but as a total noob, it's from the ground up.

The Les Paul guitar is stylish and the added weight of the Wii remote (which fits snugly into the guitar controller) gives it some real weight and makes you feel as if you are holding something substantial. Having no wires means I can rock out all over the room and the remote sensor still picks it up.

So far my real excitement in the game comes from tackling the killer solos in Metallica's "One" and playing the long soulful guitar riffs in Santana's "Black Magic Woman." They've even gone on to include some classics from my generation, The Who, Guns and Roses (Slash makes an appearance in game) and Pat Benetar. With 70 songs, an online mode, and a co-op mode, there is plenty to do and plenty of reasons to keep playing.

I have bought only a handful of games for the Wii since I got it. Most of them found their way back to the stores as buy backs or trade-ins. This one is a keeper!