Guitar Hero III

We’ve heard all kinds of excuses for not enjoying the greatest rhythm action franchise of our time, from it being nothing like playing a real guitar, to the music being rubbish. Usually, though, it just comes down to the fact that these are reserved people afraid of making idiots of themselves through their incompetence in front of people that – heaven forbid – might be better at something than they are. Basically, if you don’t like Guitar Hero, you’re pretty much wrong. That’s all there is to it.

And from the eclectic new track list to the fancy new wireless guitar, Neversoft is clearly trying to reach out to those non-believers, while at the same time ensuring series fanatics have plenty to keep them occupied. From the outset, it appears as though GHIII has less tunes than its predecessor – career mode now sports but 42 songs (three of which are boss battle tunes) to II’s 48, although by digging a little deeper, you soon find there’s just as many tracks on offer.

Co-op career hides six of them, the encore of each multiplayer set being a song that doesn’t appear in the single player game (although it is unlocked in quick play after you clear it) and better still, the bonus tracks are now largely from recognised artists. As well as a full quota of proper tunes in your career set list, the likes of Stone Roses, Lacuna Coil, Killswitch Engage and indeed Dragonforce all crop up in the bonus category. Although with development now in Neversoft’s hands, there’s no sign of a Freezepop song, which is a little upsetting.

Tucked away in the depths of the songs’ main track listings are a world of joys spanning all manner of genres. From mellow blues to balls-to-the-wall metal, there’s more or less something for everyone but as is always the case, you don’t even have to necessarily like the tunes to enjoy playing along with them. Highlights include ‘Cherub Rock’ by Smashing Pumpkins, Metallica’s ‘One’, the epic ‘Knights Of Cydonia’ by Muse and Tenacious D’s rather amusing ditty about metal simply entitled ‘The Metal’. Then there’s the selection of tunes you might not know yet but will soon grow to love: in our case headed up by Eric Johnson’s over-the-top pop noodlefest ‘Cliffs Of Dover’ and the retro chuggery of Priestess’ awesome ‘Lay Down’. And with the likes of ‘Number Of The Beast’, ‘Welcome To The Jungle’, ‘Bulls On Parade’, ‘School’s Out’, ‘Even Flow’ and ‘Paint It Black’ present for classic rock fans everywhere, you have to hand it to Neversoft for picking out an impressive selection.

But far from making the game easier, as early reports might have had us believe, Neversoft has decreed that things needed to be made tougher instead. As such, that chasm between Medium and Hard modes grows further still, with some of the later tunes on Hard asking things of you that GHII wouldn’t have thrown up until part-way through Expert mode.

Similarly, experts will have to look forward to whole new ways of stretching as new three-button chords and evil new ways of having to switch between them are introduced. Solos come as somewhat less of an issue this time around, though – the flatter buttons on the new guitar make sliding your fingers up and down the fretboard that much easier and so obviously, you’ll find some beastly patterns thrown in there to compensate. Songs like One and Cult of Personality feature crazy and lengthy stretches of such widdling and Through The Fire And Flames, the unlockable Dragonforce song, is pretty much nothing but quick strumming and fast fret work for seven minutes. Make it through this monster on Expert and you’ll truly earn the right to call yourself a real Guitar Hero.

The two main additions are both slightly double-edged affairs and while we welcome both with open arms, neither is without its faults. Co-op career is probably the most niggling - shortcomings here quickly become evident. For starters, there are six songs tucked away that aren’t available anywhere else in the game, meaning that if you’ve not got anyone else to play with, you’ll never get to see them.

Secondly, this inclusion has seemingly given Neversoft the right to remove one-off co-op play from the multiplayer menu (except in online Player matches). This means that if people want to play together on difficulty levels you haven’t played through yet, they’ll only have the first set and the bonus songs to choose from, which is rather poor. Other than that, the reworked set ordering to take into account both parts and the general experience of working through something like this with a friend is superb, even if the lack of any individual stats at the end of each song is slightly disheartening. We know it’s about how the unit performs as opposed to individuals but it’s still useful to know who let who down and where.

The other introduction is one that we’re still very much in two minds about. Battle mode is a new addition to the multiplayer roster (as well as popping up a couple of times in career mode) and sees Star Power note runs replaced with power-ups for hitting the streak. With no score or multiplier to worry about, this is all about trying to make the other player fail with the rather nasty selection of attacks on offer, which are allocated at random when you hit a sequence just right. These can add extra notes for your rival, bump up their difficulty, force them to play left-handed or make them whammy or go crazy on a fret button before they can do anything else. With two people, these battles are vaguely entertaining, even if they do largely detract from the skill element of the game that makes it so strong. Should you both finish a song in one piece, it goes to sudden death, which in our experience seems broken. The song restarts with all power-ups being replaced with the Death Drain attack and seeing as how the first ones are usually dead easy to get, this tends to lead to both players activating at once and a random player picking up the win. First to miss a note would have been a better way of doing things.

And don’t even get us started on the final battle with Lou. Three minutes of intro followed by him getting to attack you first, means that if you don’t pull through whatever he throws at you, you’re on a one-way donkey ride to hell. It just comes down to luck here as you will him to get a power-up that won’t cripple you too much – being hit with Double Notes for your first solo makes it nigh impossible to scrape through, and even if you do, you’ll miss your bonus and he’ll fire another one your way seconds later.

Ending the game on such an evident display of luck over skill isn’t exactly the way we’d have liked it to close but hey. In all of the single player boss battles, reaching the end of the song will just see your rival go into a Death Drain solo from which you can’t escape, which makes it so that you’ll need to save up two or three attacks and use them in quick succession if you’re ever going to take down Tom Morello, Slash or indeed that bastard Devil.

But considering we’ve spent a good few paragraphs venting bile about the negative aspects of the game, you’ll probably be glad to hear that when GHIII hits the right notes, it sings even more sweetly than the second game. Extra strum notes have been thrown into some long sequences to prevent players from abusing hammer-ons, song patterns are as near perfect as ever and with most of the songs being original recordings now, the whole thing just feels more authentic.

You’ll even find yourself being distracted by the band’s singer from time to time, his gurning face lip-syncing perfectly with the vocal line in such a convincing manner that it puts most other games to shame. There’s loads more to pick up in the game’s store now too, boasting even more guitars, finishes, costumes and variations than ever before and forcing you to go through multiple difficulties of career if you ever want a shot at unlocking the lot.

So yeah, Guitar Hero III is, to all intents and purposes, the best music game you can buy. But thanks only to a few minor let-downs, Legends Of Rock can’t be seen as the same kind of amazing improvement over the last game as that was over the first. The track list is brilliant, online play is a welcome inclusion and the new guitar is nothing short of lovely, even if the odd button recognition issue does rear its ugly head from time to time. We can’t help but think, though, that this is a series that could easily fall into bad habits if the mistakes made here are repeated, or worse yet built upon, in coming iterations. And that would be a horrible shame. Ditch the Battle mode and we’ll talk again about that lofty 10/10 score. Until then, GHIII will just have to settle for being pretty damn amazing, which is more than most games get to do. Now go forth and rock.