Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock

Author: Joe Martin
Published: 21st November 2007
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Frets of Fire

I’ll be honest; reviewing any of the Guitar Hero games is a bit tough and the main trouble is that the gameplay hasn’t fundamentally changed since the game's first inception. Sure, new songs mean new levels, but the levels are still essentially the same just with the dots appearing in different orders.

The other thing to bear in mind is that the game is all about the experience of playing as a rock star and therefore reviews in a traditional sense don’t work all that well because so much depends on the experience. Who you are playing with, when and the general mood in the room at the time – these things have a massive effect on a game like Guitar Hero III.

Thankfully, we’ve got a fairly relaxed atmosphere in bit-tech HQ and we aren’t exactly the suit-wearing types. Insults and abuse are fairly common, but all that does is add to the competitiveness.

That casual, competitive appeal is very important to Guitar Hero in my opinion – it’s not the type of game where I imagine you want to play it on your own for a few hours, but furious fretters will probably sit there until their arm drops off. I found myself dipping in and out of the game, completing a song here or there but keeping the whole experience nice and relaxed, while Tim felt that it was a test of how long his arm would last (I've progressed to completing some songs on Hard since Guitar Hero II - Ed.).

With that said, the game comes into its own is when you’ve got a group of friends together and a few bottles of beer in the room – though in my house we pass around two-litre bottles of White Lightning Cider instead. Like I said; hillbilly origins.

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock Frets of Fire Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock Frets of Fire
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For those people that want to play the game for as long as possible, there’s the campaign mode which gives players a chance to play through each and every song in order, unlocking new songs as they go and earning cash to customise their character with. The campaign mode isn’t anything new to Guitar Hero III and has appeared in each and every other game in the series, though this is the first time that the game has a vague storyline tying the levels together and new boss battles are added in too.

The story is pretty much as you’d expect, players start off as the guitarist in a local band and must ensure the success of their band by playing through the tracklist. The story is told through well-presented anime cartoons which bring some nice tongue-in-cheek humour to the game, especially when the bands record producer is revealed to be The Devil.

The boss battles meanwhile bring in a more interesting and rewarding feature, though there are only three bosses to beat in the singleplayer game which feels a touch too few for the 42-song long campaign.

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock Frets of Fire Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock Frets of Fire
Click to enlarge

Battles are fairly simple and players have to engage in contests with other guitarists, one-upping each other by performing ever more complex riffs and gathering power-ups as they go. The power-ups help to make things more interesting, doing things like inverting the controls or making the notes on-screen more difficult to read, and help inject extra panic into a match.

Truthfully though, despite the nice touches and additions the campaign mode does feel a bit hollow and the main appeal of the game lies more in the multiplayer, so it’s a good thing that there’s a co-op campaign thrown into the mix.

The co-op campaign is shorter than the singleplayer campaign for some reason and has just the six tiers instead of the usual eight. It has a slightly different story too, with players cast as lead and rhythm guitarists in a band which has a less fortunate fate to those in the singleplayer campaign.

The fact that the story is obviously just reworked in order to re-use the same venues makes the co-op campaign feel a little cheap, but that’s made up for by the fact that the encore songs are unique to the co-op mode.

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