15 out of 15 people found this review helpful.
This Rocks!!
Date of Review: Jun 1, 2008
The Bottom Line: It's pricey but definitely worth it.
~~**~~* Guitar Hero III *~~**~~
Those of you who've read my Mario and Sonic for the Wii review will understand the problems I have when it comes to addiction. Once I've found something, I'm stuck with it until it's completed. Damn Guitar Hero - every spare minute I have is spent on it - Jeremy Kyle and This Morning are out the window, promoting the new business has ceased and the dog has turned into a little skeleton (only joking, I occasionally toss her a bone). For the princely sum of #70 ish, I've now lost all sense of the outside world and become completely glued to the telly.
It turns out that all those years of twanging away on my tennis racquet to S Club Juniors and Westlife in my little bedroom have done me no good and I'm actually not the rock hero I presumed myself to be. Now, I find myself armed with the Les Paul Controller Guitar thing (included in the price, luckily) and although I know I look a tit, it does indeed make me feel like a pro. The guitar is surprisingly easy to set up - remove from box, slot handle/string section onto bottom twangy section, place your wii remote inside the contraption and hey presto, you're ready to rock. (Actually, you've also got to put disc into wii machine, turn on tv and wii and put tv on correct channel but that's it). The wii remote acts as it normally does - use the power button to turn on the wii or the A button if it's gone into power saving mode. Fantastic.
Once you've got through all the sponsor screens, you come to the main one where you can opt to pursue a career. Now don't get carried away, this is merely a fictional event so don't start booking time off work in anticipation of the live tours that will follow. However, with your career now on its merry way, you can start playing. By choosing to work your way through 'beginners' you'll get to know the tunes before really attempting to play the rifs themselves.
In the beginning, not only was there light, there was also only 3 buttons to chose from - green, red and yellow. Oh how easy it was back then. You merely pressed the corresponding colour on the arm of the guitar and twanged the twang bar at the right time. Simple. However, it then becomes infuriatingly difficult once you get to 'hard' as there's 5 buttons but the flaw in god's design is that we've only got 4 fingers. Rubbish god. However, you can practice the song and slow the difficult sections down. Within the levels, there are groups of songs which must be completed before proceeding to the next group. Once the group is finished, you've either to play an encore or beat someone like Slash, in a battle. Aside from having to hold the correct coloured button with one of your left fingers, strum with your right hand at the right time and trying to maintain your dignity all at once, there are other aspects that are thrown in to liven things up:
The Rock meter in the bottom right of the screen rates you according to how well you're doing and if you reach red you die. Easy to comprehend even for me.
There are notes that have star shapes around them and when these are all played correctly you gain star power -oooooh. Not really that exciting. To use this magnificent clout you tilt the guitar upwards in hero stylee and all the notes then glow a lovely blue. This enables you to double points which ultimately gets you virtually nothing in a make-believe shop (waste of time, if you ask me but you probably didn't). Apparently whilst in star powerness, the meter which rates your rockability falls slower when you cock up but it may be an urban legend.
Some notes have a white blurry bit in the middle and these are ones that you don't have to strum for (can't remember the real name).
The Whammy bar - this is the bar thing on the guitar that you can 'wobble' which will bend the sound of the notes. It's necessary to use this in some parts of the battle and using it during star power gains you more points.
The Guitar Battles are very exciting, no really. The idea is to beat the computer by gaining battle gems (like star power) and attacking the opponent by tilting the guitar. I'll say it again, it's very exciting.
At the end of the song (providing you 'rocked') you get a results screen. Due to the fact that 'hard' is too hard, I'm now working my way through easy to see how many I can get 100% notes hit. I could go and get a life instead, but that would mean facing reality and no-one likes that.
On the downside, the songs are repeated throughout each difficulty setting, but you get to play more of the tune as you progress. I hardly knew any of the songs before I played and some I still hate as I'm an Indie kid, not a real rocker, however, testament to the playability of the game is the fact that I'm still addicted regardless of the song choices. In addition, there are multiplayer options but since I've not got any friends because I don't go out because I'm playing guitar hero all day, I've no idea if they're any good. Since making this life-changing purchase, I've also played on my little brother's xbox version - I like the wii guitar better - you get an analog stick on it which moves the arrow around the screen and I find it easy to play the blue button (I've got a bent little finger that kept missing on his guitar).
Thus, in conclusion, Guitar Hero III is fun.
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