Developer: RedOctane
Publisher: Neversoft Ent.
Genre: Rhythm / Music
Rating: T (Teen)
Number of Players: 1-2
Release: Oct 28, 2007
Guitar Hero 3 Gallery

Over a year in the making, one of the most innovative gaming series has stepped it up a notch for the next generation consoles of our time, and it fails to disappoint. Although having its quirks and occasional problems, this game is still high quality and holds the values for one of the best sequel's for any series so far.

 

In order to truly understand the complexity of this game, we took an XBox 360 veteran (MuRRaY) and a professional guitarist from NY local band Zero Frequency (Lou). Don't get this Lou mixed up with the final boss of Guitar Hero III (Lou the Devil) as they are totally different people. Having over 13 years experience of playing and being the lead vocalist of a band that has garnered attention by rock icons like Chris Cornell, you know you have talent in the music business. Destroying him in Guitar Hero is rather fun considering his anger, but playing the actual guitar is no joke to him. He schools me to say the least.

Okay now, enough of this mumbo jumbo, let's jump into the flesh of the game by figuring out what works and what doesn't.

Being quite a Guitar Hero junkie, I anticipated this game's release for some time. Playing out Guitar Hero II a bit, I wasn't the best at the game but I loved it. Spending days sitting there and trying to five star all of the expert songs would take it's toll on me as I came into Guitar Hero III with no stamina left and callouses from playing too much (INSERT DRAMA). I was able to get some sleep just before getting the game, so I was not totally in a daze as I played the game, making it possible to pay attention to all of the songs.

Layout

Jumping headfirst into the Expert career, I found myself with my trusty Guitar Hero II controller (which had signs of wear on it) ready to take on the world! The first song I chose was none other than "Slow Ride" by Foghat. Nostalgic to the max, the first thing I noticed was the very, very short loading times. From selecting my song, it took at MOST two seconds to be in the middle of the solo. The familiar scene of a punk rock crowd can be seen as my traditional character Lars Ümlaüt took the reigns of his Les Paul classic. New fretboard designs are one of the new features along with a grittier looking score meter and a new design for the star power meter. As you gain star power, the lightbulbs above the rock meter illuminate brighter and brighter. Another small thing that may catch people's eyes would be the fact that the song title now includes the recording date at the beginning of every song.

Obviously being Guitar Hero, the graphics are not what really matters, what about sound?!

Sound

 

If we are really worried about how the sound itself comes along, RedOctane knows what they are doing as they have optimized every track to sound great on Guitar Hero III. Later in the career I was able to jump into "One" by Metallica. Being an original recording, the introduction filled with gunfighting and the sounds of war filled the speakers as I waited for the opening riff. Just as crisp as the original version, "One" did not disappoint much like other songs. The syncing to master tracks is rather spot on, as you can tell a lot of time was put into matching the tone of each song perfectly with the guitar hero "tab". The only thing I can really complain about is the fact that the sound effects can sometimes drown out parts of an amazing solo or riff. Turning down sound effects would be your best bet if you want to hear the songs as they are. For "One" in co-op, a friend and I turned down all sound except for the music track, then rocking out and enjoying every bit of the song.

 

Did you say there's a new guitar? Let's check everything else out!