Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Xbox 360)
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock makes its first step into true next-gen console territory, sporting impressive new graphics, a soundtrack filled with numerous master recordings, online play capabilities, and a few gameplay tweaks here and there courtesy of the newly appointed developer Neversoft. Featuring new wireless guitar controllers that feel more comfortable and offer more freedom to move about and rock, Guitar Hero III makes for a nice shiny new addition to the series despite some questionable approaches to the game.
For the most part, the transition from Harmonix to Neversoft as the key developer has not created any significant problems in the game, though at the same time, doesn’t really allow the series to try to expand itself further. The core gameplay remains the same, just with a slightly improved HUD to help identify your current multiplier and your Star Power status; also helpful for those seeking achievements is the addition of the current note streak count. All of the basic features of the game are still there: four difficulty levels, 8 tiers with a total of 42 songs in the single player career and a good number of bonus songs to unlock. There is a local co-op career mode using lead and bass or rhythm guitar that you can play with a friend, with the tracks provided in 6 rearranged tiers including 6 unique encore songs (though cheat codes can be used to unlock these if you you can’t do such).
The game introduces Battle Mode, which is similar to what Harmonix had previously done for Amplitude. As you and your competitor play, you can collect anti-power ups instead of Star Power, which you can then activate to throw off your opponent. For example, you may force your opponent to get a broken string, requiring them to push the fret repeatedly to fix it, or they may have to play the song at a higher difficulty for a short bit. These battles modes are also used in the single player game against guest boss characters of Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine) and Slash (Guns N’ Roses). The idea isn’t a bad one, and make for some variation in normal face-off play, but depending on if you’re playing the game for fun or for the music, you may find this mode somewhat annoying The game does include on-line abilities to play both quick songs competitively or co-operatively with others, the first game in the series to offer this ability, and this is definitely an added bonus for the game.
Song selection is always a tricky thing to criticize since everyone has different tastes, but the game still has a good range of songs from as far back from the 1960’s to hits from last year, covering a decent number of guitar-heavy genres. There are definitely some more notable tracks: “Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns N’ Roses, “One” by Metallica, “Cherub Rock” by the Smashing Pumpkins, “Paint It, Black” by the Rolling Stones, and a lot more. Compared to previous games, more than half the main setlist songs are master versions, and hearing the original vocalists and guitarists on some of these works really makes the setlist standout compared to the cover versions; in addition, Bret Michaels of Poison appears in the game and has helped to revoice a few songs as well. It may not be the strongest collection of great guitar solos, many already used by the previous games in the series, and there’s probably a good handful of songs that each individual will dislike, but no more than in previous games. The only complaint here is that while the songs are grouped by difficulty in tiers, they’re also grouped by styles to some extent, and you may find that an entire tier of the songlist will be disappointing to play through. It also feels like the series has exhausted songs well know for their guitar work, and are focusing on songs more for having a lot of guitar and are still popular. There’s still a good handful of true life guitar heroes that the game series has yet to bring to the game, and it would be nice to see more incorporation of these legends as well.
On the difficulty side, Guitar Hero III may not have as great a learning curve as Guitar Hero II had. While the same general rules about what each difficulty level has (Easy being only the first three frets, Medium using the first 4 and introducing some hammer-on/pull-off sequences, Hard using all 5 and more fast note sequences, and Expert being pretty much self-described), the steps between the various difficulties are much larger than previous. For example, the last tier of songs at Medium within Guitar Hero II merged quite well, beyond the 5th fret addition, to the first tier of songs on Hard; this is not the case for Guitar Hero III.
It’s also the case that the individual difficulty levels feel out of balance with previous games. The Medium levels may be too simple to established players, while the Hard levels are more intensive than previous games. There’s also points, not just in Expert but also late in the Hard tiers, where there’s just “walls of notes” that may be representative of how you’d play the song on a real guitar, but makes it near impossible to get right with the guitar controller and takes a lot of practice to get each specific sequence down well, taking some of the enjoyment out of the game. Newer players to the game may not notice some of these difficulty issues, but those expecting a certain amount of challenge may find it lacking or in excess here.
The game sports improved graphics over the previous models that, like the rest of the game, has good and bad points. The camera work and choreography is more dynamic and gives those watching the game a lot more to see than just your guitarist while you’re thrashing away, and the various venues have a lot more movement and lighting effects. However, the modeling of the various characters seems to be a haphazard mix of styles - the playable characters and some other members of the band seem outlandishly cartoon-like, but then other characters as well as Morello and Slash are near real-life representatives. While you’re playing, you’re likely not paying attention to these things, but the various changes in style, particularly against the carbon-copy crowds, really stands out and it would have been better if the style was more consistent.
Guitar Hero III still remains a worthy addition to the series, and does try to improve it on several areas without changing any of the key gameplay. Addition of co-op and online play modes, as well as the new Battle mode show that there’s still more ways the game can expand further into the mulitplayer arena, and the use of numerous master tracks really makes the quality of the game stand out. Even with some question about the game’s visuals, the game is a must-have if you’ve enjoyed any of the previous entries, and even without experience with those, it still is easy to jump in and rock out.
Primotech Rating: 
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I’M FOCK GUITAR HERO III
[red] ♥♥♥oi eu queria uma guitara guitar heos e o cd do vidio game♥♥♥