Metareview: Guitar Hero III (Xbox 360, PS2, PS3, Wii)

I don't know about you guys, but I LOVE playing knights of Cydonia by The Muse... one of the best songs on the list.

How about you guys?

I'd never played it before getting the Wii version. I figured it would be a decent party game and not much else. But I'm really surprised how much I enjoy it. I like deep games more, but there's a lot to be said for games where you can squeeze in five minutes of playtime before leaving for work.

The lack of Deep Purple is a serious flaw, though. But the original artist recordings of "Paint it Black" and "Welcome to the Jungle" almost make up for it.

It's a good game. More of the same, but it's not a bad thing.

I'm just waiting for Mario Galaxy. =(

My main gripe with Guitar Hero 3 is the mostly awful choice of music in there. Not much of it sounds particularly interesting to play in a guitar centric game. Sure there's some good stuff in there too, but not enough to warrant a purchase for me (atleast not at that price). I just hope that modders get quick to work when the PC version comes out (if it ever does), so I can customize the tracks to something geared more towards my taste in music :)

the main problem is the faulty guitars, the connectors between the 2 pieces are causing missed notes randomly to pretty much everyone who has this game

if they'd just kept it as one solid guitar it would've been great


and I love the tracklist for the most part, it's my favorite of the GH games so far (and better than rock band too)

I haven't had any issues with the controllers so far, my only disappointment is that I couldn't buy more wireless controllers without buying a bundle. Also, I pretty much hate Holiday In Cambodia right now.

I have GH3 for the PS3, and I have to disagree with this review. If you ask me, GH3 plays like a copy of GH, instead of like the real thing.

I appreciate the short load times and such, and I like the cartoons between the levels. But it just feels like Neversoft doesn't know as much about making a rhythm game as Harmonix does.

I'm betting Rock Band feels a lot more like GH2 than GH3 does.

I figured the one thing they could get right is the guitars, but nope, they are poorly made, my friend's green button doesn't work because of the poor design of the detachable neck.

boss battles ruin it for me. I hate em. they aren't fun.
I hope rockband is better

GH3 stinks compared to 2. Many songs don't deserve to be on this game.

Often times while playing along I ask myself, Is this a keyboard part, or a turntable, or a frequency generator that I'm pretending to play guitar to?

Out of all the great music that actually has real rock guitar on it they put many shitty synth and other songs on here. Obviously a case of someone who shouldn't have been picking the list doing so.

Also it seems like there are some notations that are just plain off.

I give this version a 65 out of 100. 90s and 80s are only there cause the magazines know its gonna be a hit seller reguardless.

Battles are a horrible idea. It's like having the controller unplugged every 15 seconds. They are more annoying than anything and they shouldn't be part of the main game.

And the difficulty jumps up incredibly fast. I had no problems with any of the songs, until I got to Cult of Personality. I hear the next tier is more of the same.

I don't care for most of the bonus songs. And overall, I'm not that impressed with anything in the store.

The change in developer is definitely noticable even if you haven't been paying attention. The visual style is a lot different for one (worse, IMO, but to each their own).

Another thing is the battle mode/boss battles are a step in the wrong direction. When I'd first heard of battle mode it sounded like a fun little mode to mess around with a couple of times before ignoring, but that fact that it's forced on you in career is awful. Not being able to play the songs outside of battle is a big misstep as well. Putting real guitarists in the game just doesn't feel right. It takes the focus off of the player and part of the appeal is that the player is the star. Having Slash or Tom Morello steal the spotlight plays against that.

The venues don't feel nearly as creative or interesting and all of the ads make it even worse. I realize that the other games had ads too, but they were WAY more subtle. I couldn't help but feel turned off when I first saw the Axe body spray guitar. And the go-go dancers feel EXTREMELY out of place. Same goes for Judy Nails' new look (and bounce). There's no need to sexualize a game like guitar hero. It doesn't help and, in fact may even hurt. A lot of people play guitar hero (you'd be surprised to find out how many house wives and young girls play) and that kind of thing might steer them away.

I also don't care for the way they try to nickel and dime you. Havign to buy the soundtrack for 3 extra songs. The overpriced DLC. THe guitar lockout, etc. Of course all of this would happen (and has with GH2 360) with or without Harmonix; RedOctane and Activision are to blame, not Neversoft.

There's also some things that Harmonix changed going from GH1 to GH2 that Neversoft reverted. For example, getting 5 stars on every song on expert doesn't give you enough money to buy everything in the store. Meaning that you have to either play every difficulty or play through multiple careers to unlock everything. Either way it's pointlessly annoying. Then there's also the high score charts. In GH1 playing career didn't affect the high score charts at all. In GH2 they fixed that by automatically applying scores in teh career mode to the high sore list. In GH3 they reverted back to career mode NOT affecting the list. And, probably the worst reversion, is the lack of co-op quickplay. I realize they released a patch for the 360 version, but the other versions are still SOL for the time being. It boggles the mind that they'd leave out what is probably the most popular mode.

The songlist also isn't very good. I know it has a lot of songs that are good to listen to, but that doesn't neccesarily make them fun to play. And there's not a lot of variety in the setlist compared to the firs two games. It's especially noticable in the bonus songs. I remember quite a few intervews right before GH2 came out when the guys from Harmonix mentioned that they were trying to fit as many genres as possible into the setlist and it definitely shows.

But most of that stuff is nitpicking that doesn't affect the actual gameplay too much, if at all. The real problems come in the form of noticable differences in when actually playing the game. The hammer-ons are ridiculously easier to the point where it almost feels like cheating. Not to mention there are a lot of hammer-ons that just don't make sense, gameplaywise, like RY -> Y. You don't even need to let go of the fret buttons or strum. It's ridiculous.

And there are a lot of segments that, under Harmonix, would be a string of hammer-ons, but Neversoft felt the need to add notes that need to be strummed in the middle. Signs point to them doing thing to be more accurate to the way the song is actually played ona real guitar, but exchanging realism for fun is bad form. Cliffs of Dover is great fun, but it'd be 10x MORE fun if you didn't need to strum every other note.

And the note charts definitely feel different from the other games. I can only speak of expert because that's the level I play, but there's a huge over reliance on three note chords. Now, I don't have a probem with a couple of songs having lots of three-notes (I'm one of the few people that seems to actually like playing What I Like About You in 80's), but when half the songs are like that it just gets tiresome.

And the biggest problem is the difficulty. The difficulty curve is WAY too steep. The first six tiers are very easy and then the seventh tier ramps up the difficulty A LOT and then the 8th shoots it through the roof. The first two games did a good job of settling you in and gradual increasing the difficulty (the first game did this the best, IMO) but GH3 does a terrible job at it. And don't think I am against challenging songs; a good challenge is pretty much the only thing that draws me to Guitar Hero. The problem is that GH3's challenging sections aren't good. They're pretty much difficult just for the sake of being difficult. They don't make sense musically (i.e. adding extra notes; making whammied sustains trills, etc) and they're also not very interesting or fun to play.

Overall, I'd say it's just a bit better than Rock the 80's (which was pretty terrible other than the last tier), pales in comparision to the first two games. That's not to say that it's a bad game. I like the new guitar better than any of the others before it (I haven't had any hardware problems), though, having used the rock band guitar on the demo I do prefer that, if only because it's bigger. They've got The Who and Santana in there; two of my favorites (though I would've prefered Europa rather than Black Magic Woman) and even if it's not AS fun as GH2 it's still lots of fun.

I just wish the songs were better... Honestly, I'm not enjoying 3 as much as I did with 2... The Les Paul is great though.

I'd have to say after getting some time trying out the demo unit today at the local Best Buy that my money's on Rock Band. For some reason, GH3 just seems off compared to GH2, and in the 15-20 minutes I got to play Rock Band (with a couple other random people in the store to be in the store) that it's a lot more entertaining.

I will never be coordinated enough to beat this game on expert...

GH3 is definitely the best out of the series so far, heres hoping those foo fighters songs come soon!

I beat Freebird and Jordan in GH2.

I failed TTFAF on my first try at 4%, which was almost impressive.

But I also got an insta-fail glitch on Knights of Cydonia where I failed it at 96%.

The Wii version is just disgusting. The graphics are god-awful, though the Les Paul is nice. My money is also on Rock Band, due to the heaping pile of problems with GH3.

So, has anyone (including Activision) figured out what the hell is going on with online tournaments yet?

I think the reason the song selection isn't as good as GH2 is because most people will be playing the game on the 360, or the PS3. They probably figured that they should just vamp up the graphics and the like, and let people download the songs they want later.

Thing is, they did a horrible job with this. Okay so the crowd doesn't look like a mob of clones, and Judy nails has a little more "bounce." I don't care about that. Sure a game should look good, but After a certain point, I don't care anymore. I don't care about stage effects because when I'm playing TTFAF, I AM NOT LOOKING AT ANYTHING other than the fretboard. And as far as Judy Nails' Makeover, If I want bounce I'll play DOA. And the difficulty curve is RIDICULOUS. I personally congradulate anyone who can beat "Before I Forget, or "Striken" on expert.

I'm not saying that GH3 is a bad game. It just seems like they took all of the good stuff out in order to fix minor complaints from the first two. I love Guitar Hero(Beat bark at the moon, and Jordan. 71% on TTFAF:D) but I certainly hope that the downloadable content makes up for it. Otherwise I might have to find a new hobby.

Reading thru the above comments, one thing became blatently obvious, almost everyone is speaking from an upgrade from GH point of view.
Having only been introduced to GH via the 3rd incarnation, I am VERY impressed.
Normally, games like GH (or DDR or other "match the coloured dots" type games) just dont do it for me. I'd safely say that I'm, at least, twice as old as anyone above and that might be the reason.
I didnt even touch the game for the first week after bringing it home (its actually for my teenage son) but when I finally did, I couldnt put it down. The way that the Wii remote is integrated into the guitar body is well thought out. The guitar is a good size and weight (although it wouldnt want to be much smaller) and the controls are very intuitive. Theres nothing I hate more than having to think about the controller when I just want to concentrate on the game play.

I can definately see why the reviewers are raving about GH3 but maybe the Wii version, with its subtle differences to other versions, is just that bit better . The reviewers seem to think so, as the Wii version seems to be the most commonly reviewed.

Oh, and I'd never come across Judy Nails before GH3 and didnt even know she had a name until reading the comments above. But, for the record, and bearing in mind that she is just a bunch of pixels, I must say that she's hot. Extra 'bounce', or not. More "Suicide Girls" in games cant be a bad thing.