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Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock Review

While most of you probably don’t care to hear my opinion when it comes to games… I really don’t care. I’m going to write this review anyways because our Games forum needs more goings on in it. So… Here goes my first review of a game ever, even if it may only be to myself.

So, Guitar Hero III has finally made its grand debut into the “next-gen” world (Guitar Hero II for the 360 doesn’t count since that was more of port than anything) and I have to say… For the most part the third installment doesn’t deliver. Guitar Hero II was pretty good for what it was, and I’m sure the port to the 360 was good… But obviously after Guitar Hero II for the 360 the ball was dropped somewhere along the way.

Don’t get my wrong, Guitar Hero III is definitely a step up compared to Guitar Hero II on the PS2… Kind of… Well… The more I think of it… It’s not really a step up. It’s just another installment. In terms of graphics, it looks like the developers were only concerned with two things, the guitarist (of course) and the lead singer. Every thing else in the game is pretty unimpressive. The drummer and bassist are pretty robotic when it comes to their movements… The lead singer, while he looks good, only does about 4 different scripted movements… Depending on the song he does have a few random movements, for that song of course. The crowd is absolutely atrocious looking… They are all rough and only consist of about 3-4 different textures… And in terms of crowd size… It’s pretty sad… I thought this was about becoming “legends of rock” and while you progress the crowd size is never big… It kind of makes me depressed seeing the crowd because it makes me feel even more like I suck… I know I’m bad, but god… You could try boosting my confidence a little. If Fall Out Boy can pull a huge crowd, why can’t I? One last thing with graphics… Since we are into the “Next-Gen revolution” with games being pushed to the limit… Why are we still using cartoon-like graphics? I understand for something like a cartoon, but Guitar Hero? It just cheapens the experience. Just had to throw that in.

My second issue with the game is the Boss Battles… It’s a great idea, but it just doesn’t get pulled off. I think down the line it potentially could be, but with the career mode being so short and only have 3 boss battles, which really aren’t that exciting or hard, it’s really nothing exciting. But like I said, it is definitely something that could become really awesome in later installments.

My last issue… The hardware. The hardware feels really cheap and the amount of issues that have come from them is amazing. Whoever came up with the idea of the detachable neck should be punched in the throat. Why, I ask you? Why? Where people really all that upset that the guitar couldn’t broken down and “easily transported”. Because I was pretty sure I had no issues carrying around a 2lb, 3 foot guitar. I’ve already heard people complaining about how when they attached the neck the first time it bent pins and made buttons stop working. And that wasn’t the only issue; there have been more concerning the guitar. They are cheap! They were plagued with issues from the start. So disappointing when the biggest issue with past guitars was the whammy bar breaking after a lot of use.

Now, for the pros… The parts that the developers actually spent time on graphically look really good. The guitarists look amazing. If they can get that kind of quality all around, the next game should be amazing all around, not just in one spot.

Another pro would have to be the soundtrack in this one. It instantly one in this category when I heard they were going to have a Smashing Pumpkins song in it… Then when I played it, it also had a Muse song in it. Two of my favorite bands in one game, what more could I ask for? Three bands, that what I could ask for. But I won’t, because I’m trying to be a better person. In all though, the soundtrack is pretty kickin’, and with downloadable content on the way… It can only get better.

Out of 10, I would give this game a 6. Seems low for some people probably… But trust me that is me being nice, because this game has a lot of issues in my eyes. Granted, it was Activision and Neversoft’s first go at the franchise… But they could have done a lot better. And the reason I am saying the 6 is me being nice is simply because what they did work at in the game is really good; the soundtrack, the little bit of pretty graphics we did get, the very limited boss battles in the way to short career mode. Everything that was kind of let down this time, can also be easily improved.

So, there you have it. My first game review that I did out of complete boredom because I’m to mad at Guitar Hero III to continue… But I assure you that me being mad at Guitar Hero III influenced this review at all… I’ve been playing and looking at things to review it… Also take note this review is filled with my opinion, not necessarily yours. Feel free to have your own opinion. And feel free to bash my opinion because I really won’t care about your opinion like you clearly don’t care about mine.

I actually really like Guitar Hero II... I thought it was a fairly solid game. Then Activision took over the franchise and even with the fact that it would be an instant hit and easily make up all the money they put into it... They freakin' cut corners and give us a piece of s**t game... From what I have read... If you're going to get it on the 360... You might as well get GHII. Unless you want the online and different songs and a wireless/piece of s**t controller...

But again... Activision has never really been known for visually stunning games... They are known for pretty crappy looking games. And in all honesty... I don't know why because they have some fairly successful game franchises out there. Yet, they are always giving a lack-luster performance in their developing process... *sigh* Oh well...