Review: Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock (PS2)

You can't really blame Harmonix for not wanting to make Guitar Hero games for the rest of their lives. After laying the groundwork and refining it in a sequel, they've gone off to tackle more ambitious projects, and we wish them the best of luck. But a brand as big as Guitar Hero won't die, and Activision have enlisted Neversoft to make the franchise their own, starting with Legends of Rock.

They've kept things familiar, with the same sort of art style and sense of humour throughout. Some of the same characters are present (as well as the new 'legends') and you can perform at a range of venues like before, through a career, quick play or a selection of multiplayer events. So far, so Guitar Hero. It's the graphics that let it down; despite the vocally-varied singer now believably mouthing all the lyrics and the guitarists strumming in the right places, the band members and venues look visually flat, and the lighting and depth of field effects that looked so good in the previous PS2 outings are virtually gone. The PlayStation 2 version of Guitar Hero III has been converted from next-generation code by Budcat (who? Yeah, exactly), rather than playing to the host machine's strengths from the outset. To add further insult, no online play has survived the trip, despite being present on every other format. Loading and saving is also noticeably slower and more frequent than before.

Cosmetic deficiencies aside, the crux of the game has survived just fine. Guitar Hero III continues the fine tradition of pressing coloured buttons in time with music and is a deceptively rewarding and long-lasting game. Beginners are catered for with an easy mode that only requires you to use three of the five fret buttons, but it scales all the way up to expert, where all five are needed and advanced techniques, like up-and-down strumming and three-button chords, are the only way to finish songs. Such techniques are no longer optional on the higher settings, as songs are riddled with devilish twiddly bits and insanely fast riffs. This is actually a blessing, as you're forced to improve and will appreciate the style and feel of the button layouts a lot more. A great selection of songs (half of which are now original master recordings) span multiple decades of rock, with more potential long-term favourites than ever before. It feels really, really amazing to play and to experience your skills, reactions and hand movements improving - the synergy of music, graphics and posing is empowering. The timings are loose enough to not feel frustrated at missing a note by a split second, particularly when performing hammer-ons and pull-offs. It's much like Guitar Hero II in that respect; refined and absolutely spot on.

There were only really two problems with Guitar Hero II: too many long songs without much musical range, and the need to unlock songs in the career mode, even for multiplayer. Neversoft haven't addressed either and they've made the latter even worse; the amount of 'locked away' content is higher than ever before. This diminishes its appeal as a party game straight out of the box, as completing the career can take around four hours and most of the really good tracks are towards the end. Further, a few tracks are not available at all until you've played through a co-operative career (a new take on the basic co-op mode from GHII), even though they're perfectly playable solo songs. This is just unsporting behaviour.

Neversoft's ultimate daft addition is the 'boss battles' (*sigh*), which crop up throughout the solo career. These guitar duels pit you against famous rock icons and completely change how you'd go about playing normally as you try to make them mess up their solo. Star power becomes battle power and the note sequences can change at the drop of a hat, making practice impossible. If you miss your first chance to pick up some battle power (overloading amps, broken strings, reversed controls - you get the idea), you'll not be able to stop the boss from hammering you with theirs and you might as well give up. These encounters are such a huge difficulty spike in an otherwise balanced game that it's no wonder you get the option to 'wuss out' if you fail a few times (missing out on the unlockable character as a result). Guitar battles are better against a real friend, because at least they make mistakes and keep things unpredictable. The regular multiplayer modes are also still here, which is always good.

Despite bringing Gamestyle many hours of joyous giddy pleasure and drooling, Guitar Hero III is a teensy bit of a letdown. Our verdict of the full-phat next generation version (complete with online play and some tantalising downloads) might swing things further into the green, but for now, this PS2 edition feels a bit rough around the edges. Generally, some areas for improvement have been overlooked while Neversoft's new additions detract from the purity of the music game beneath. While the genre moves forward with Rock Band, Guitar Hero III starts to feel like just another videogame. The tracklist on the whole is excellent, but there's still plenty unexplored in the world of rock, and beyond. And no Stairway? Denied.

Rating: 8 / 10

Words by Daniel James