The multiplayer mode gives new reasons to play head-to-head with another friend in the same room. Gamers can face off with the basic whoever gets the most points wins mode but where things really get exciting is the new battle mode. Much like the boss battles from career mode two players use power-up attacks to throw off their opponents during the song. A few examples of these power ups are: whammy bar, amp overload, cut string, and up the difficulty. When one player gets one of these power-ups (hit a few notes in a row) just turn your guitar up into the air and the attack hits the other player. The whammy bar attack causes the receiver to slam on the whammy bar for a few seconds, amp overload causes all the notes to blink, cut string forces the receiver to press a specific key multiple times, and if the up the difficulty power-up is pretty self explanatory. There are a number of other attacks that show up and you can hold up to three at one time. This is where some small amount of strategy comes in because to win you must cause your opponent to completely fail the song. Stringing a few attacks together can be the only way to beat a good player. While battle mode is not the most revolutionary thing since sliced bread it does add a whole new level of skill to versus mode and I can’t wait to see what the developers do with it next.
Lastly is online mode where guitar freaks can go onto Xbox Live and play any one of the multiplayer modes against friends and strangers alike. The online setup on the 360 is so easy to access and this makes playing online a breeze. Guitar Hero III features a really detailed leader board that players can check at anytime. Graphically the developers took GH3 in a bit of a different direction and added some new cut scenes that try and explain the storyline in the career mode. The backgrounds all look fantastic, as do the special effects and lighting. All is not well though as the animations are very robotic and dull. Overall the game just does not feel next-gen enough where much of the graphics could easily be done on the Nintendo Wii or even Playstation 2. Don’t get me wrong I would much rather be playing this on the Xbox 360 but I just wish the developers would have taken a few more chances with the look of the game.
Because this is a music game it obviously features a great soundtrack, the best of any Guitar Hero game to date. Everything blasts perfectly with a surround sound setup and the outlook of downloadable content (songs) only excites me more. At the end of the day Neversoft took a multi-million dollar franchise and added enough new features to warrant a full purchase but left enough stuff alone to keep the game the same as the last ones. If someone did not tell me I doubt I could have told you that a different developer than the first two games did Guitar Hero III. The new wireless Les Paul guitar alone is reason enough to shell out the money for this game; it can also be used when replaying a little GH2. An amazing track list, new boss battles, characters, and an entirely new online mode just keep the list going of reasons to buy this game. Everyone wants to know whether to get Neversoft’s Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock or Harmonix’s Rock Band this holiday season. For now GH3 is the clear winner because I have played it in it’s entirety and the third one in the franchise is almost perfect. Everything is so polished and clean it is obvious that the developers had a good grasp on the genre. There is no doubt that Rock Band will add something completely new to the genre but Guitar Hero III does enough of the old stuff right that I have to recommend it to any fan of the genre. Pick it up, choose Slash as your avatar, and rock out with the new badass wireless guitar.
