Guitar Hero III

"Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock" in layman terms, rocks!!! With over 70 big time songs that span over 5 decades, featuring artists such as Aerosmith, Pearl Jam, Weezer, The Killers, AFI, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Black Sabbath, Weezer, White Zombie, Slipknot, Alice Cooper, and Rage Against the Machine. Believe me, the list goes on and on. It was especially exciting that while there were a few cover songs, most of the music were in its original dub version.

"Guitar Hero III" has a lot going for it, so I'll start with accessories. The Les Paul guitar wireless controller is an awesome addition. The guitar has great response times with the 5 fret buttons and the strum bar the whammy bar is a nice feature, and the actual construction is done well as far as comfort, style, and accessibility goes. The tilt sensor also responds quite well, giving much freedom to the player to rock in their own style. As for personalization, the GHIII bundle pack comes with 2 sheets of stickers and let's not forget the removable face plate. The Xbox 360 and PS3 faceplates are interchangeable. However, the Wii version will, unsurprisingly, not fit with on the Xbox 360 and PS3 controllers. There have been some complaints over the performance of the Xbox Les Paul controller. It has been confirmed that Red Octane purposely made some minor changes for a more comfortable and realistic experience. And just for the record, I had no problems with the PS3 wireless controller.

Gameplay is easy enough to jump right in. There are 4 difficulty settings: Easy, Medium, Hard, and Expert. In career mode and co-op mode, you create your band name, choose a character, and start rocking. Sound quality, no doubt, is done well, but I wish I could say the same for the graphics. The cinematic animation sequences were appealing enough, but gameplay character movement fell a little short. Graphics were by far not horrible, but for a next-gen game, it really doesn't win awards in that area. The storyline behind career mode was a nice treat and sort of reminded me of Daft Punk's japanese animated musical film, "Interstella 5555."

GHIII represents the first game of the franchise to feature online gaming. Unlike the other, more high quailty, online games such as "Resistance," GHIII's online system seems to be in "tweak mode" right now. The "Quick Match" feature did not work, and after probably my 15th attempt, I finally connected with someone. We may have to wait until all the kinks are taken care of. Nevertheless, "Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock" is a great game with lasting appeal.