The newest release in the "Guitar Hero" series, "Guitar Hero III," is developed by a new team: Neversoft. Now, many gamers might find this news distressing. Did Neversoft change a game formula everyone already loves, or did the company manage to mess it up?
The answer is no to both questions. Neversoft played it safe, keeping many of the same elements from the series. Still, there are quite a few new additions to the game and an equal number of accompanying mistakes.
By building "Guitar Hero III" from the ground up on the newest consoles, Neversoft has made several aesthetic improvements. The animation in the game is much cleaner compared to the previous games in the series.
Little touches, like specific character animations when using the star power, add more variety behind the fret board, making the experience more visually enticing. The new addition of using animated cut scenes to provide story between each song tier is a nice touch as well. However, the sequences are short, leaving the viewer wanting more.
A major addition to the "Guitar Hero" series is boss battles. You will be able to face off against famous guitarists, such as Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and Slash of Guns N' Roses. Gamers play guitar riffs created by the artists themselves in the battles.
The difficulty level of "Guitar Hero III" has positive and negative aspects. Newcomers to the series may find it particularly difficult to dive into the new game. Songs cater more to the seasoned player.
If you are not up to snuff with the Expert level setting, the first levels will be a pain to go through. The songs earlier on in the game, with some exceptions, consist of many repetitive chord segments with small solo sections. On Expert, this is less of a problem since the chord sections are difficult, requiring much more hand movement than on the lower difficulty settings.
For non-Expert players, this issue does clear up - but not until several tiers into the game. The songs in the final tiers are picked out extremely well. The engineers at Neversoft clearly understand that the appeal of the "Guitar Hero" series is the guitar in songs, and not just the songs themselves. However, there are songs later on that frustratingly jump dramatically in difficulty.
The increased difficulty has a positive aspect, though. It is more challenging than the rest of the series, increasing repeated play time for all levels of players.
There are other minor issues that plague this game. One issue affects those using basic television speakers. There are a few sections throughout the game that rely on high-quality speakers. When such speakers are not present, no sound comes from the television. When trying to figure out the beat to a song, this can be very frustrating. Another minor problem occurs when using your star power: There are occasional, though only slight, slowdowns, but this only occurs for a couple of seconds.
The online modes - playing ranked and unranked modes of Face Off, Pro-Face Off and Battle - are a welcome addition, but the ranked matches come across as a problem. The difficulty setting is chosen separately between the two players, meaning that your opponent could be playing on Easy, Medium, Hard or Expert. This makes random matches online vary from too easy to too hard, making the encounters less fun.
Overall, "Guitar Hero III" stays the course with a few improvements and slipups along the way. While this provides a challenge to veteran players, those new to the series should consider getting "Guitar Hero II" instead, which is more consistent in increasing difficulty and in picking fun songs to play.
Gamers may wish to wait to purchase "Guitar Hero III." "Rock Band," a game that allows players to control not only guitar but also bass, drums and vocals, will be in stores next month. Perhaps that game will find the balance between player accessibility and entertaining experience that "Guitar Hero III" doesn't seem to have.
