Guitar Hero 3: Burn, Burn, Burns To The Wick

There are good games, there are bad games, and then there are revolutionary games; for their technical proficiency or their acceptance into pop culture. For better or worse, Harmonix/Red Octane's Guitar Hero franchise has earned itself a place in the "revolutionary" category, if only for the fact that more kids know "Carry On Wayward Son" by color scheme than by actual notation. While the series certainly has its share of downsides in the real world, aka legions of woefully bad guitar players who will only perform botched versions of "Frankenstein", there's no denying it's impact on the gaming world. Guaranteed to take over a party or make an addict out of even the most casual gamer, the Guitar Hero franchise is easily one of the most popular series in contemporary gaming.

The first Guitar Hero busted on to the scene without warning and caught on fire almost immediately. With its pick up and play quality, its simple yet effective illusion of actually playing the music, and its solid soundtrack, the game became a phenomenon amongst all kinds of gamers. However, the series reached its full realization with Guitar Hero II. Offering up many more songs in various genres, more punishing solos, and a cooperative mode, GHII really cemented the Guitar Hero franchise as one of the biggest moneymakers in contemporary videogames.

With one of the hottest, most lucrative franchises on the market, the wolves were at the door. Activision purchased RedOctane and the Guitar Hero franchise for $100 million. However, developer Harmonix was purchased by MTV, which meant that the new rendition of games under the 'Guitar Hero' moniker would not be developed by originals.

Harmonix went on to create Rock Band, while Activision pushed Guitar Hero III. While it's certainly not fair to compare either game, the contrast between the two still reveals why one game is wildly entertaining, and the other just a shadow of its former self.

The Good, The Bad, and The Mediocre

While there is nothing glaringly wrong about Guitar Hero III, there's nothing incredibly amazing about it either. And that's the biggest shame. Mediocrity is something that was never synonymous with Harmonix creations (we'll just skip over the cash-in Rocks the 80's...sweep that one under the rug); Rock Band further proves this aesthetic, once again capturing the spirit and intensity of rock and metal. GHIII, on the other hand, can't hide it's corporate ambitions and shortcomings. Sure, it's still a fun game with the core elements intact, but the heart and soul of the game are missing. It looks like Guitar Hero. It feels like Guitar Hero. It might even smell like Guitar Hero (or that could be the Xbox on fire), but what made the series so great is gone and missing.

It's hard to explain why GHIII is such a disappointment without resorting to the abstract and incomprehensible. But there was a quality in the first two that just isn't here anymore. No song ever gets close to the finger-snapping intensity of "Jordan", or the anticipation of "Carry On Wayward Son". None of the songs put the same pressure on you that "Hangar 18" did. None of them come close.

And that's my first complaint. The setlist. I'm not arguing with the quality of the songs here. "Barracuda" is one of the best rock tunes ever written, "La Grange" is a great blues track, and "Black Magic Woman" is just plain cool. The fact that a lot of these are actual master tracks as opposed to covers is a bonus too. But what Activision misses out on is the fact that while these might be fun songs to listen to, it's Guitar Hero we're talking about. GHII could have opted to use Thin Lizzy's "The Boys are Back In Town" as opposed to the more obscure "Bad Reputation". However, Bad Reputation is full of insane high flying solos, crashing drums, and pounding bass; it really feels like an intense rock song. It makes you feel like an actual guitar god. Many of the song choices in GHIII seem uninspired; they are fun to play, but none of them really come close to making you feel as godly at the axe as the previous games did. Sure, the Rolling Stones' "Paint It Black" is a master version and great song, but its nowhere near as fun to play as "Can't You Hear Me Knocking?" from GHII.

Also, the middle-of-the-road difficulty songs are all but absent. Sure, there are a few, but more often than not, GHIII's songs are either a snooze for how easy they are, or are so impossibly difficult that it's a joke they even bothered designing it.

The game stinks of corporate meddling as well. The problems start at the tracklist level. Songs like The Killers' "Sam's Town" seem a little suspicious. Never mind the fact that when I think "guitar hero", I don't dream about rocking out to Sam's Town (what? do I powerslide after the weak solo (if you can call it that)?). The song is also so downbeat that it's no fun to play at parties, unless you want all your drunken friends to start crying about how they "don't look a thing like Jesus". Continuing on, even more questionable choices appear. Slipknot? I understand the GH series wants the metalheads, but how many units of GH is Slipknot really going to sell? Disturbed?? Are you serious? What's next, Coldplay? Whether or not you like these bands, there's something fishy about their inclusion into the GH series. It seems like the bands that Red Octane and Harmonix smartly said no to, Activision was all too happy to accept.

By far the worst offense though, is the dreaded "Axe Guitar", sponsored by, you guessed it, AXE body spray. Never mind that it's the cause for classroom pollution for anyone under the age of 18, there's no need for it anywhere near the game, much less on a guitar. So maybe the advertising can be ignored, but it still clues you in to where Activision's loyalties lie.

On A Lighter Note...

But enough with the complaints. There's still a game, and a pretty playable one here. Guitar Hero III takes the GHII format and adds a few tweaks to the gameplay.

The first difference is the re-done career mode, complete with added animatics and flashier offerings. And truth be told, it's actually pretty cool. Although the career mode is still not as cool and immersive as it has the potential to be, GHIII certainly makes it the most interesting out of the three offerings. The cinematics are well-animated and pretty funny, despite not really having much to do with anything. It's still a nice touch that showed that GHIII was designed with at least a little bit of care.

Also new to the series are boss battles, where you must compete against a guitar legend in the new "battle mode". It's an idea that's cool in theory, but pretty lame in execution. Basically, you battle Tom Morello and Slash, and you have to outdo the CPU before you can continue to a new setlist. However, instead of an actual guitar battle, it makes use of the really weak "battle mode" GHIII added on, which means that you don't even need to complete the song to win.

Battle Mode is almost like a Mario Kart-esque duel, where you pick up various traps to put your opponent in by hitting certain strings of notes. Unleashing these traps makes hitting notes harder for your opponent. I guess it sounds ok on paper, but it just doesn't work for Guitar Hero. It's a game where people compete to see who can win on the same playing field, so making the field uneven doesn't add to the gameplay. Anyone who tries battle mode will either be bored, or rather annoyed after a few tries. The thing is that you can be done in by someone with half the skill as you, just because they hit a certain string of notes first. It's a failed experiment, and sadly one that you'll have to experience to complete the game.

However, on a more positive note, the co-op career mode has been given more of a touch-up, in addition to co-op in general. In GHII, it felt more tacked-on, as you could barely hear the supporting instrument in the background in certain songs, and even on expert the backing instruments were way too easy to play. The levels of the bass/rhythym sections have been upped, so you really feel like you're contributing to the song. Also, in defense of some of the song selections, the supporting parts are more prominent, so you won't get bored going through co-op. Finally, the co-op career mode has been revamped, with a re-ordered tracklist. There are certain songs that you can only unlock through co-op mode.

Guitar God

The gameplay of GHIII has also been slightly tweaked. The key issue of the GH series has always been the difficult of pulling off the all too important hammer-on/pull-off techniques. In the first game, it took solid timing and was generally a difficult practice, but it became a little bit easier in Guitar Hero II. In GHIII, the hammer-ons and pull-offs are even easier to do. However, this is another strike against the game. Although it's a minor addition that entices younger gamers and lowers the learning curve, it also strips away more of the "guitar hero" illusion. Certain songs require almost no sense of timing to accomplish the tougher note strings, and this makes the game feel less like playing guitar. You don't get the same feeling that you did when you could actually time the technique right. It's not the fact that its easy; it's way too easy.

In it's defense, the ease of the hammer/pulls is somewhat counteracted by the added difficulty of hitting singular notes and chords. GHIII requires you to be dead on with your timing, which adds to the challenge. However, this approach to Guitar Hero also seems a bit counterintuitive. Why make the riffs harder to play than the solos? For example, Barracuda on Expert is much more difficult for the timing it takes to play the main riff than any of the solo sections. It's a very minor complaint to be sure, but once again adds to the lack of zeal in the title as compared to the previous ones.

However, once you reach the higher tier songs, the ease of the hammer/pull techniques becomes a necessity. GHIII offers by far the hardest songs ever seen on the franchise. Metallica's "One", the insane metal version of "The Devil Went Down To George", and Eric Johnson's "Cliffs Of Dover" are all wildly hard to conquer, and require seemingly endless strings of hammer-ons and pull-offs, double switch flipping, and every other trick in the book to conquer on the higher difficulties. If you thought Jordan was bad, GHIII is a sucker-punch of a game. I understand wanting a challenge, but at points, this gets completely ridiculous. And don't get me started on Dragonforce's "Through The Fire and the Flames". The song is so incredibly hard to play that it takes all the fun out of it. You'd score higher slamming your guitar Kurt Cobain style against the wall, which you'll want to do anyway.

Conclusion

Guitar Hero III isn't all bad. At the core, it's still a Guitar Hero game, and many people will find it fun and entertaining. However, in comparison to the rest of the series, GHIII is a turn for the worse. It's not a cash-in, but at certain points it feels like the series is moving that way. With the questionable tracks in play, ease of techniques and insane difficulty of some songs, the game is a mixed bag, and removes some of the better elements of GHII. A game that should have improved on its predecessor, GHIII is a tale of quantity over quality. There's a ton of extras, unlockables, characters, and levels to choose from, but the essence of the series is missing.

If you've got the money, Rock Band is far better offering. GHIII is acceptable, but it's simply riding the coattails of a series that was done better by it's predecessors.