How To Rock, Lesson 3
I felt the familiar rush flow through me. Adrenaline infused with pure rock and roll. My hand was starting to cramp, but it didn’t matter. The crowd’s cheering reinforced my conclusion that Tongue and Groove had yet another five-star performance. I prepared myself for an encore, the energy from the audience deceived me. No—they were cheering for the top-hatted character that was approaching the front of the stage, coming forth to steal my thunder. With a strange combination of awe and annoyance, Slash from Guns N’ Roses came forward in an attempt to upstage me at my own concert. I gritted my teeth, steeled my nerve, and accepted his challenge. I knew my career could not continue unless I bested this legend, and to do it, I would have to play dirty.
“Guitar Hero 3” is the first of the series to be produced without Red Octane. With this loss came several changes.
The basic controls remain the same, requiring Nintendo thumbs and Atari fingers to compensate for rampant stupid hands. Hammer drops and pull-offs (changing notes by adding or removing fingers on a single strum, making the game a little closer to actually playing the guitar) continue to be necessary for certain songs, but seem more random than in previous versions. On higher difficulty levels, songs appear to be artificially harder by seemingly random uses of these techniques, and adding fast notes where none exist in the song.
The song list remains impressive and engaging, while sets are put together with very appropriate backgrounds. Cartoon-like segments between sets create a loose storyline that is light and amusing, with a definite similarity to Gorillaz video styling.
The biggest difference between this incarnation of the game and previous versions are the introduction of boss battles, in which single players are pitted against well-known musicians in a new battle mode. Power-ups are used in conjunction with standard game play to allow players to interrupt the other. It feels more like playing Mario Kart than air guitar on crack. These battles throw off game play and seem ill fitted with a franchise that had done so well on making players feel like guitar heroes.
A slightly smaller difference is the inclusion of online multiplayer gaming. This feature simply allows the multiplayer modes to be extended over your next gen system’s online network. You’ll find yourself playing against people with both remarkable and “so unremarkable as to be remarkable” skills, as well as the possibility of being able to beat the developers at their own game.
Overall, I give “Guitar Hero 3” a 7 out of 10. It’s amusing and fun, but really, it’s just a time killer until Rock Band comes out.
