Review: Guitar Hero III (Xbox 360)
Guitar Hero is the story of a franchise in the process of being brutally milked for all its worth. It's what they call a phenomenon, reaching official meme status now with its appearance on South Park, and tournaments now being held in Hot Topic stores around the nation. The original two titles in the series were much loved, and then when the third game was announced without stellar developer Harmonix attached, we got a bit worried. Harmonix moved on to bigger and better things (Rock Band being at the very least bigger) and left Activision's Neversoft studios at the reins. Neversoft is better known as the Tony Hawk developer, which caused even more worry. Were they going to water down Guitar Hero and make it as stale as the Tony Hawk series is now? Neversoft even had to remake the game engine since Harmonix owned the rights. Lucky for us, all our fears were completely unfounded: Guitar Hero III is the best in the series, and some of the most fun you can ever have with a fake plastic guitar. The strange pseudo-rivalry going on between Guitar Hero and Rock Band is even starting to feel a bit silly; the games are completely different. They are no longer trodding on the same territory, and the avid gamer can feel good about owning both games, and getting value out of each.
Guitar Hero III, in my opinion, has the best song selection in the series yet. In what I assume was an effort to match the quality of the song list in Rock Band, Activision has really stepped up the licensing to bring tons of master tracks and really high quality songs to Guitar Hero. Not only are tracks like Guns n Roses' Welcome to the Jungle and Muse's Knights of Cydonia completely rad, but all the songs feel more fun to play somehow. It's like they perfected the art of mapping the buttons in a manner that makes you feel more like you are actually influencing the course of the song. Hitting the notes is slightly more forgiving than previous titles in the series as well, with hammer-ons and pull-offs simplified. Don't let that fool you, however. This game is hard. Guitar Hero III has a serious vendetta against your wrists, and after playing a couple songs even on medium difficulty you'll know what I mean.
One of the new additions to the series is boss battles. Guitar Hero III has brought in a couple big names to help sell the game (as if it needed help): Slash from Guns n Roses, Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine (we don't discuss Audioslave. Never.) and Brett Michaels from whatever the hell he is doing these days. Brett doesn't battle, he just shows up during an early song where you are performing at some backyard party, which I would imagine is completely on par with his current level of venue. The songs that Slash and Morello wrote for the boss battles are incredibly generic, but they didn't have to be that amazing to begin with. The battles consist of you trading riffs back and forth with the boss, gaining powerups like the ability to cut a string or overload an amp or increase difficulty. Powerups are very satisfyingly activated by doing the star power activation motion, but unfortunately every single boss can be beaten by just saving up two random power ups and using them in quick succession. I'd like to see how they expand this feature with the next version, because it definitely shows promise. It's all part of how Neversoft has honed this game into a true arcade-style game. It's just fun to play. I would venture to say even more fun to play than previous GH games. Whereas Rock Band is going to give you a very precise simulation of being in a rock band and playing songs with friends, Guitar Hero is all about rocking the hell out and feeling like a badass.
The interface and menus are incredibly well-done. The redesigned rock meter and notes hit indicator are a definite improvement, and I really enjoy the interstitial animations. Unfortunately all that cool art design stops when you actually play a song and have to see what horrible freaks your band is made up of. GH3 is a game that suffers from a complete lack of art style in the 3d department. I have never really felt that the characters I choose to play as in a GH game are really avatars, they just sort of do their thing and you don't pay attention to them because you are too busy watching the notes on the board. Unlocking guitars and costumes is completely superfluous, and it's made even more so in GH3 by removing stuff like star power animations. Why not just have a music video playing in the background for each song? How about some sort of visualizer? I don't need to see poorly animated models on stage pretending to plod through a song I am also pretending to play. The drummer's animation is particularly horrible with him moving back and forth like some sort of malfunctioning Muppet. Just because you can render things in 3d doesn't mean you should, and the implementation in GH3 just feels schizophrenic and lazy next to the excellent 2d work.
When it comes down to it, any comment about the graphics or art direction in a rhythm game is going to be futile. It doesn't matter because the game is about the music, man. Guitar Hero III is the best game in the series and a must-own game for anyone who is a fan of the previous titles, or anyone new to the series looking to get in on the fun. Just watch out for that downloadable content, as they are selling them in packs of 3 again just like in GHII, which is a complete rip off. The DLC will rape you. Don't let it rape you!
Score: 4/5 Buy it!
