I was not originally expecting to ever get that much time with Guitar Hero III other than what I played with my friend who got it. He brought it over earlier in the week, we finished almost all of co-op in one go. Speaking of which, all the co-op Achievements are glitched, so you can only get them if you’re player one, meaning you’ll have to do everything over twice with your friend unless team Not Harmonix gets their act together. If you know what I’ve been saying about Guitar Hero III, you’ll know that last statement isn’t fair. I’ve decided that Rock Band will be better long ago. I have to say, the more time I’m putting into the latest installment of the Guitar Hero franchise, though, I’m finding new things I like and new thing I don’t. Regardless, it is nice to get to play it. My sister had gotten so into Guitar Hero II that she basically decided she was going to get it as soon as I said I was taking the Harmonix path. At first I didn’t really care, but I found myself getting excited as the weekend drew close. Sarah picked up the game Friday and we’ve both spent some time rocking out on career and co-op. More impressions follow.

Co-op was my starting point in the game. I’ve played almost every co-op career song, and a number of the extras, too. This game is still a lot of fun without Achievementa, but they are a big part of every 360 game, so it’s really annoying to not only get stuck with playing bass (which, normally, wouldn’t be that bad, but once you see how boring some of the bass lines are, you’d probably agree with me) but know you don’t get any award when you both got that 500 note streak. Co-op works a little differently than the main career. There are only six sets and they try to create a new story for the mode by putting the same cartoon cut scenes in a different order, which doesn’t work that well. There are also no boss battles, obviously, but you do get one new song after each set of songs which can only be unlocked for single player play by beating it on co-op. This is much more reasonable than how I originally understood these songs to work; I thought you could only play them co-op, but that is not the case. Unfortunately, some of said songs are not as fun as I would have expected. Having a Bloc Party song in Guitar Hero is awesome, but Helicopter is a pretty bad choice. The lead guitar is too easy and the rhythm guitar part is one of those songs where you’re just constantly strumming up and down. So, it’s not terrible, but it is too bad that Helicopter was chosen when there are many other Bloc Party songs that would have been far better suited to the game.

Speaking of the songs, the track list is awesome. I’m imagining things, but the bonus track list seems way shorter than it was in Guitar Hero II. I think there are just more career songs this time, I’m not willing to go count them up. Some of the songs, just like Helicopter, are cool songs, but not as fun to play as one might have expected. And, now that both Guitar Hero and Rock Band have gone fairly mainstream in their track selection, it’s upsetting that there won’t be all those great bonus songs that most people hadn’t heard of before the game. That said, overall the song selection is really good and there seems to be something for everyone. I’m sure there are those who would say that is a problem, however.

Seeing as I was following Rock Band, I never watched videos or anything like that for Guitar Hero III. The demo was really the first time I experienced the new look of the game. It’s growing on me even thought I don’t really understand the semi-realistic design choice. The main problem is that it’s not realistic or cartoon, and the half and half split doesn’t work for me. Some of the characters are realistic, like Slash, while some are cartoons, like The God of Rock. In the venues you play, there is a mix, too. For example, the crowd us supposed to look real (even though after three editions there are only a couple of different attendees tiled across the place, which is really lame) but the majority of the background elements have a cel-shaded and have a big, black outline. I had always assumed that the entire game would get less realistic and become more like a interactive, cel-shaded version of the Xbox 360 Guitar Hero II commercial. In the end, the graphics aren’t really critical in a game like this (though their importance becomes more apparent after playing Frets on Fire…) as the player doesn’t have that much time to look at them.

The difficulty is a little odd. I’ve only completed Hard so far, and up until the last ten songs, not one of them was a challenge for me. Maybe it’s just because I’ve gotten a lot better at the game than I thought, but the difficulty really seems to spike at the end rather than slope towards it. Some songs seem to be a lot harder or easier than other songs in their sets, but that may just be a personal thing.

If you’re a 360 gamer and have a thing for Achievement completion, this game is like Forza Motorsport 2. You’ll put in a ton of time and probably not get a whole lot of Achievements out. These awards are supposed to be attainable challenges, with a few that are really hard unless you’re great at the game. GH III kinda mixed up the order. The real problem seems to be that the Achievements need you to have mastered Guitar Hero II before even touching this installment. Many of the Achievements aren’t thought out, either. Apparently (emphasis on that word) you need to really buy all the guitars to get the award for doing so. Problem is, you need to 5-star every difficulty to have the ability to buy every single guitar. There are plenty of other Achievement overlaps and stupid challenges like that.

Achievements are just a side element, and are no reason not to enjoy the game. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock really is a fun game. Maybe it’s not as much of an improvement as Guitar Hero I to II, and Battle mode is not an improvement, but it is still one of the best times you can have playing local multiplayer. I still believe Rock Band will be able to top the game as a whole, I have to admit. Whether it’ll be able to take on its massive fan base and sales is another matter.

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