Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock

Thought i'd give everyone the heads up on this awesomeness of a game

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
The 'Guitar Hero' series has been a hit since the release of Guitar Hero in November 2005 (USA) and April 2006 (Europe) and now hits the 4th installment of series, after the most recent 'Guitar Hero Encore: Rock the 80's. Now those of you sceptical as you may have heard that Red Octane moved on to Rock Band and that it's the Neversoft division of Activision that is making Guitar Hero III may think it'll be different..or maybe not as good. Well I can tell you most certainly it doesn't disappoint, this installment is - as it should be, the best one to date and is very enjoyable. Just to give you a quick taste, here's the 8 tiers and the track listings for you.

Note: You probably have noticed, if you've played Guitar Hero II that the extreme majority of songs were covered and didn't use the originals, which isn't a bad thing, but in this one, the extreme majority are the originals, which is awesome in my opinion, and also - Sex Pistols and Living Colour re-recorded their songs for the occasion.

Tier 1
Slow Ride - Foghat
Talk Dirty To Me - Poison
Hit Me With Your Best Shot - Pat Benatar
Story Of My Life - Social Distortion
Rock And Roll All Nite - KISS

Tier 2
Mississippi Queen - Mountain
School's Out - Alice Cooper
Sunshine Of Your Love - Cream
Barracuda - Heart
Guitar Battle vs Tom Morello
Bulls On Parade - Rage Against The Machine

Tier 3
When You Were Young - The Killers
Miss Murder - AFI
The Seeker - The Who
Lay Down - Priestess
Paint It Black - The Rolling Stones

Tier 4
Paranoid - Black Sabbath
Anarchy In The U.K - Sex Pistols
Kool Thing - Sonic Youth
My Name Is Jonas - Weezer
Even Flow - Pearl Jam

Tier 5
Holiday In Cambodia - Dead Kennedys
Rock You Like A Hurricane - Scorpions
Same Old Song And Dance - Aerosmith
La Grange - ZZ Top
Guitar Battle vs Slash
Welcome To The Jungle - Guns N' Roses

Tier 6
Black Magic Woman - Santana
Cherub Rock - Smashing Pumpkins
Black Sunshine - White Zombie
The Metal - Tenacious D
Pride And Joy - Stevie Ray Vaughan

Tier 7
Before I Forget - Slipknot
Stricken - Disturbed
3's & 7's - Queens Of The Stone Age
Knights Of Cydonia - Muse
Cult Of Personality - Living Colour

Tier 8
Raining Blood - Slayer
Cliffs Of Dover - Eric Johnson
The Number Of The Beast - Iron Maiden
One - Metallica
Guitar Battle vs Lou

A very nice selection of songs ranging of some different genre's for you to play, not to mention that 25 bonus songs to buy from the in game store, and also when doing the game in the new Co-op Career mode, there are different songs on there, and some from the same, but in different tiers, giving the opportunity for bass and guitar, and for a few of them, rhythm guitar and lead guitar.

You've got all the characters from GHII, plus some more, including famous ones such as Slash, and Tom Morello, and a very wide selection of items to buy from the guitar store, and of course, as tradition - some very ridiculous, yet hilarious guitars that you can unlock.

What a relief! for all you guys who love to jump around with the guitar, move around a bit, heck its just hella convenient to be honest...yeah thats right, wireless guitars! makes it so much better and very good to use, they run on a battery, and i'm thinking the battery lasts quite a decent time, i've had mine in for quite some time now and it hasn't show any signs of depleting.

As you may know, content will be available to be downloaded, from places such as the PS store, the same for the Xbox 360, something which of course couldn't be done on the original Guitar Hero's, which is a very good addition in my opinion, they've already started putting out packs such as Foo Fighters, and Velvet Revolver. They are put at a reasonable price too so it's always nice to have some fresh songs on board.

Another great addition, which will increase the life span so much more, is the Online mode we've got. Simple to set up, and a nice variation of game modes, you've got:
Face Off - two players play the same song, but each play different parts at different times, as opposed to -
Pro Face Off - where both players play the same song at the same time. Highest score winning obviously.
Battle - a new addition, and a fun one none-the-less you play the song as you would against your opponent, but every now and then, if you streak a certain patch of notes you get a 'powerup' consisting of 'break your opponents string', 'amp overload', 'break whammy bar', 'double notes', 'difficulty up', and 'lefty flip' and you've got to be tactical so you can make your opponent fail the song, if that doesn't happen then it goes to sudden death, where the powerups are extremely lethal and match deciding.
Co-Op - the least of all tense ones I would say, one of you plays bass one plays guitar, or rhythm and lead, and just see how good of a score the both of you can pull of
In all the online mode is a very good one, you can go to the 'join ranked game' option which throws you into any open game, or if you want to do a specific game you can go to the 'search for custom game' and have a browse round. There is an in game added leaderboards as well for those pro players.

The makers did a very good job in how hard it is, as a game, as for some of the songs, especially in the last tier on expert, you might think - this is ridiculously impossible...i have to say..i thought so for raining blood on expert, until i did that. But its always good to have challenging things in games like these, because if they were so easy, then where'd the fun be? And if you thought Freebird on expert was hard? Just you wait for its successor...Through the fire and flames on expert is...the definition of hard. I think its safe to say no one..in the world. EVER! will 100% that song as some parts are absolutely insane, it's a hella fun game to play though and you'll need some practice to nail it.

In all, really I can say Guitar Hero III is a great buy, even if you don't think you'd be that good, we've got the old easy, medium, hard, and expert - all lined up, and don't be put off by the £69.99 price tag, it's worth every penny.
The great thing about Guitar Hero is you grow to like all, if not, most of the songs on there, even if you haven't heard them, hats off to the creators for choosing a very decent set of songs for us, and with the constant downloadables and addiction of online play, this game will keep many going for a long while. If you want a rating from me, as you've probably guessed from this review it's getting 10/10 on the rating score of

Presentation - 9.5 - everythings easily accessible, online lobby is set out well too.
Graphics - 10 - the best guitar hero gets, with the wacky looking characters and guitars
Sound - 10 - fantastic as it would be - it's based around sound
Gameplay - 10 - no flaws that i've found, doesn't calibrate lag either, everythings smooth
Lasting Appeal - 9.5 - would last a very long time, in guitar hero there's always time to see if you can 5 star that song, or perfect that one. the possibilities are endless!