Guitar Hero 3: Reviews and Impressions

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I'll kick this off - for me, Guitar Hero 3 takes a step away from real music towards video game, which depending on your point of view either rocks or defeats the whole purpose. However, it captures the Guitar Hero spirit. It's a good game (yet does not eclipse GH2). Harmonix's spirit is almost entirely gone from the game, with Neversoft imprinting their style on everything - characters, graphics, menus, loading screens, all of it. I'm over it. I don't care anymore. The game's story won me over with it's crazy scope. I haven't touch the boss battles yet (playing co-op career) so I can't comment on them.

For a game that focuses so much attention on the "notes" I thought GH3 was more gamey and less musicy. I'm not a pro-guitarist, but I'll lay money down that GH3's fingering isn't as "accurate" as GH2's. I wonder if I spend a lot of time in this game that I will lose my GH2 skills. However, the Hammer-Ons, Pull-Offs are a ton more fun, and the things the game does with the HOPOs is absolutely crazy. Oh, and the wammy effects are awesome! Real sound processing and not just frequency modulation.

There are some awesome songs and some duds, although the duds surprised me as they were usually the most famous songs. I wasn't impressed by Sabatoge, for example. Meh. Barracuda? Let down. Welcome to the Jungle is epic but can't match Sweet Child of Mine from GH2. However, songs that blew me away included: Reptilla, My Name is Jonah, The Seeker, Suck My Kiss, Bulls on Parade, One (One-mutha-f*ckin-One, muthf*cker!), Black Magic Woman, 3s & 7s, Helicopter (that one came out of nowhere). I even clicked with The Metal after I absolutely hated it in the demo. As I listen to my roommate play, there are a lot more songs I'm hearing that I want to dive into. That's a lot of songs to like. I don't like the new mix of sound levels, guitar, mistakes, and crowd are soft, everything else is too loud.

Shout out to polypusher - you were right, Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll is the best song on the disc.

The guitar is one of the best you can buy. I highly recommend getting it if you plan on spending any time with this game. Some people have said it's a better guitar than Rock Band's ... they just might be right. I haven't played with RB's controller but GH3's is the best one I've touched so far. God Bless competition.

If you can't tell, the game is warming up to me. Change is difficult, but this is an excellent start for Neversoft.

Its a shame that Cities on Flame is only unlockable through Co-op. If you have to threaten someone with bodily harm and sit them on easy with a standard controller to get some co-op done, do it, at least through Cities on Flame, but the final song, Monsters, is pretty good too.

I beat the career on medium, and I think it's a good game. I like the note work on GH 2 better, but I think the hammer ons and pull offs on GH 3 are much closer to the real thing. Not saying I'm any sort of guitar pro, but I find myself being able to play a little more naturally on the controller. While the game has definitely moved more into the "game" category away form the music sim, the mechanics behind it are still very good. This one will have as much play time as GH 2, I'm sure.

I've just decided to be one of those "medium" people even though I can prattle through some of the songs on hard, medium is just where the fun is at for me right now.

Anyway, introspective admittance aside, this game f*cking rocks. The new guitar feels good (and looks awesome). I like this playlist better than GH2, and the customization options for the characters are hilarious.

The co-op was kind of finicky when Danjo and I tried it but was still fun.

The battles are the only part of the game are thing are goofy.

All in all I've played about 5 or 6 hours today, off and on, and I'm really loving this game.

Oh, and Lay Down is still the best song in the game so far. I might be a new Priestess fan.

I really wish I didn't crack open that damned walmart box.. Now I'm stuck with another fricken 360 guitar shaped anchor.

Also, I fully endorse the above.. And In Flames... Is good too.

I'm enjoying to game. My brother and I got to (what I assume is) the final tier in the coop campaign on expert before we hit the difficulty wall. The solo one 'One' is just murdering us.

We encountered the star power stutter a couple times. For a game like this it is pretty inexcusable that this bug made it into the final game. Cut back on special effects or whatever, I don't care, but a game based on precises timing should never stutter. Hopefully it is something that can be fixed in a patch.

Cons:
* The game feels more "sterile" than the previous games. It has that "Corporate touch" vibe.

* The note charts are definitely "made harder" for some songs than they would be on guitar. Not all, most songs feel sort of right. They are easier to do, however. Really forgiving.

* The stupid design change on the Rock Meter is just awful. You can't see it as easily as in the previous ones. The background changes hue from green to red, but it's somehow harder to see. It's like they placed it precisely in your blind spot or something.

* The Battle Mode, as I expected - useless, gimmicky, and on expert difficulty, frustrating and just not fun. On 2 player mode could be fun, but we didn't play it, we stuck to co-op. The Tom Morello fight is just awful...

Pros:
* It's guitar Hero. Hard to screw up the concept. Looks better than the previous game, more venues and a better song selection than 2, but still not up to #1.

* There's a new hidden character, sort of like a Robot. He's pretty funny. And you can play as Slash!

It's been a pretty good experience for me so far but I'm wondering, is anyone experiencing what seems like a bit of lag? I've only been playing on easy so far and I've been missing notes that I'm 100% positive I hit properly. I ran the little HDTV lag calibration tool but it says my plasma is causing no lag. It could be just me, I'm just wondering if anyone else has seen this. Also, has anyone else experienced a sometimes short drop on frame rate on the 360 after activating Star Power? That's happened to me several times and also caused missed notes. Basically, right after activating it (sometimes but not always), the frame rate will stutter for about half a second and then stabilize.

Yeah, the timing is a little bit different from Guitar Hero 2. I have the PS2 version so I can't say about the frame rate drop.

All bets are off, because I would have paid 50 bucks just for the guitar so I could play GH2 on the 360. The wireless guitar is AWESOME. Feels better, plays better.

I'm just past the first boss battle (yawn) -- but at it's core, this is still guitar hero, and I see this as just having paid for 70 extra tracks for the low low price of 90 bucks, with a free guitar to boot. I'm not blown away. I got exactly what I expected to get, no more, no less. And you know what? I'm really happy with that.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

It's been a pretty good experience for me so far but I'm wondering, is anyone experiencing what seems like a bit of lag? I've only been playing on easy so far and I've been missing notes that I'm 100% positive I hit properly. I ran the little HDTV lag calibration tool but it says my plasma is causing no lag. It could be just me, I'm just wondering if anyone else has seen this. Also, has anyone else experienced a sometimes short drop on frame rate on the 360 after activating Star Power? That's happened to me several times and also caused missed notes. Basically, right after activating it (sometimes but not always), the frame rate will stutter for about half a second and then stabilize.

Many of us are noticing the lurching problem when activating Star Power (other GH3 thread). Definitely have to agree with DFKQ, there's zero excuse for shipping a game that's all about timing with a stuttering/lurching problem. I mean seriously, nobody noticed that in testing and thought it was a show stopper? Dur.

Mex wrote:

Cons:* The game feels more "sterile" than the previous games. It has that "Corporate touch" vibe.

I've only played GH2, but I'll agree the charm is missing in GH3.

In Easy mode on GH2 there's some fairly catchy tracks that people can learn on and really get into the coolness of the game. Not so in GH3, the tracks are much harder to play and none of them make me go "OMG I'm a rock star!". At the moment, I couldn't see getting someone into the series if they started on GH3, it's probably be a big meh for those who aren't already converted. I sure as hell won't be starting guests on GH3!

How do you turn off the strippers? They sometimes stand right on top of the left fret board and are damn distracting. I either want them gone or I want every fan in the audience to morph into one.

Chiggie Von Richthofen wrote:

Oh, and Lay Down is still the best song in the game so far. I might be a new Priestess fan.

Lay Down and Cities in Flames are both 100% better in Hard than Medium. The HOPOs are crazy fun.

Mex wrote:

The game feels more "sterile" than the previous games.

QFT. Sadly, Rock Band has that same feeling, from what I can tell.

souldaddy wrote:
Mex wrote:

The game feels more "sterile" than the previous games.

QFT. Sadly, Rock Band has that same feeling, from what I can tell.

It doesn't surprise me that much. Once a group of people who actually use Focus Groups for actual input (generalizing here) get a hold of it, it's going to lose a lot of that unique touch. One kind of wonders if there are memos out there from EA telling Harmonix what is and is not, apparently "Fun" and "Cool".

Dear god, who the f*ck thought these guitar battles would be fun? I'm playing on expert and am breezing through getting four and five stars, but then *WHAM* the boss battles stop me in my tracks. Seems like you have to game it, save up your power-ups to release in chains, and just hope your opponent doesn't get a Scissors or Whammy power up.

Everything else seems solid, however - except maybe Bulls on Parade and Sabatoge. Anyone else notice parts where there's nothing playing, but you're still hitting notes?

I got that once and then realized I was playing the "angsty feedback" part of the song.

I largely want to echo everything in this thread, and address some complaints people had in the Announcement thread.

The graphics really are a moot point in this game, but the art direction isn't very good in this game. I much preferred the look in GH2 (I never played GH1). I have seen the slowdown when activating Star Power, but infrequently. Even with it seemingly only tied to a lot of effects on screen, that is bullsh*t of the highest caliber - hopefully they rectify the problem there in a patch, and fire some QA people.

Adding the silly little cartoons during Career Mode is just one of those things that shows a different direction for the series, making it more of a "game" than a "guitar sim". I like that there is some context for the venues, and they kept the art consistent between the cartoons and the game, so it doesn't detract from anything, but I don't really feel that anything is added there, either.

The loading quotes seemed lacking somehow in the demo, and in the other thread, someone said they felt forced, and I think that is exactly the problem. The developers were probably told to put in some quotes for the loading screens, but the writers were not as clever as in GH2. Just another minor quibble, that really means nothing, but they start to take a toll.

Enough with the negative, on to the good stuff. The soundtrack is really solid. I loved, loved, loved the GH2 soundtrack (except for maybe 2 songs), I actually overall preferred the GH2 soundtrack to GH1, so take that as you will. I find each set of songs I have played so far to have at least one great song, one good song, and so far (up to set 7 - Tokyo) nothing that really sucks. I thought Anarchy in the UK would be a boring song to play, and I had a great time playing that one. I was also worried about Story of My Life, which is a song I adore, but didn't think it would be fun to play, and I liked it. Bulls on Parade was a lot more fun that I thought it would be, too. The only songs I have been let down by (that I can think of right now) are Sunshine of You Love and Tom Morrello's Battle Song.

Boss battles - on Medium are pretty bad. Battle mode in general is not that interesting in Medium, much more satisfying in Hard. Tom Morrello's song is more of a "Best of Tom's Guitar Tricks" than some kind of real song, which is a huge letdown. Add to that how hard it is to beat him on Medium, since he gets more notes, and isn't that messed up by most of the powerups. At least the Slash boss battle is really cool. The song Slash wrote for it is epic, I actually was bummed when I beat him, since it ends the song. Add the extra layer of cool by opening Welcome to the Jungle and you made up for the Boss Battles in my mind (although I have only played two of them).

The gameplay, which is really the core of the game, is very spot-on. So far I have only done Medium, but I love that Hammer-Ons and Pull-Offs are present even in early songs in Medium. I have had a much easier time getting five stars in songs in GH3 than in GH2. To me, that is a really good thing, it removes some of the frustration in Medium. Maybe it doesn't carry over to the harder difficulties, but the HOs and POs are a lot more natural-feeling, and easier to do now - it makes the gameplay feel very much improved. It also seems like Star Power is easier to activate, but I never really had a problem with that before anyway. The whammy bar sounds much more effect-ive than in GH2 - I don't like it. It seems to distort the sound effect much more dramatically than in GH2, and it doesn't sound as good. It also seems to take more work to get it to trigger in the first place.

Overall, I think this is a solid addition to the GH brand, even with the annoyances and "sterility". My forearms are tired from overplaying it last night, which is a testament to how little the annoyances affected the game.

Just finished the game on Hard, and I definitely didn't regret my $50 investment. There are definitely things I don't like, however.

No one's talked about this yet, but on some of the songs the lead singer's mouthing the words CREEPED ME OUT. On some of the songs it's fine, but on others it's either off a bit or just looks weird with his huge gaping maw opening and closing.

The graphics are better in places and WAY WORSE in others (I'm on the PS2 version, mind you - it might be across the board better on the Next-Gen consoles). The crowd graphics are horrible. The set graphics are pretty good, but some of the Hero models seem off. I played as Johnny Napalm and at some angles he looked pretty sweet (GIANT MOHAWK!) but at others he seemed weird, like someone had spray painted his nose and cheeks red and then smashed them into a brick wall. But, I think the new guitar graphics make up for all the other graphics - the guitars look polished and rendered and just overall really good.

I didn't really mind the boss battles on Hard, but we'll see how I feel about them on Expert. The last boss battle was really frustrating (save up three powerups and you shouldn't have a problem), but I really liked how the song was structured. He started out with all the fast stuff, and then slowly I got more and more into it, which while making the song harder made a lot of sense given the situation.

And... Through the Fire and Flames.

Yah, hate the lead singer.

Still love the game, no matter all the little changes I'd make.

I wish you could just turn boss battles off.

I guess I'm one of the few that prefer the graphical direction in this one. The others were a little too "Shining Time Station" for me. This time around it's reality with exaggeration, instead of the other way around. It also feels like everything is more tongue in cheek but still looks appropriately rockish.

I mean, you can buy a guitar that looks like a woman's leg in fishnets. How f*cking rock is that!

Warlock wrote:

No one's talked about this yet, but on some of the songs the lead singer's mouthing the words CREEPED ME OUT. On some of the songs it's fine, but on others it's either off a bit or just looks weird with his huge gaping maw opening and closing.

I think he looks like a cross between Mick Jagger and an Angler Fish. I try not to look.

I'm not sure I've read more then one loading screen quote, the songs load so fast they barely register.

Finished the game on Easy last night. I know: incredibly lame way to start. But I've played through that way in all the games and I prefer to just take it from the bottom (no double entendre intended). I feel like Easy is a good way to get to know the track list a bit and then work on something skill-wise that I was bad at from the previous game. With GH2 I was able to use Easy to learn to strum up and down better. With GH3 I got to practice a lot at keeping lower noted fret buttons held down when playing higher notes (like holding down green and red to play just a red note). Hopefully that pays off when I get back up to playing on Hard and Expert again.

Anyway, for me, it seems like Guitar Hero 1 and 2 are what you get when music people want to play around at being game developers. Guitar Hero 3 is what you get when game developers want to play around at being music people. They both came up with a fun product, but there's no doubt that I like the flavor of 1 and 2 better.
---Todd

MikeMac wrote:
Warlock wrote:

No one's talked about this yet, but on some of the songs the lead singer's mouthing the words CREEPED ME OUT. On some of the songs it's fine, but on others it's either off a bit or just looks weird with his huge gaping maw opening and closing.

I think he looks like a cross between Mick Jagger and an Angler Fish. I try not to look.

I'm not sure I've read more then one loading screen quote, the songs load so fast they barely register.

Yep, that's making me a little crazy too. I know the quotes aren't as good in GH3, but I still want to read them. Never thought I'd be complaining that a game's loading times are too damn fast.

And yeah, the lead singer is a bit creepy. Would rather he not be the guy for virtually every song. I do think they did a great job of getting him (and the rest) to sync up with the lyrics as well as they do.
---Todd

I played the PS2 version at two different stores over the weekend.
The colors seemed more flat than previous versions - have you guys seen that or was it just "crappy display model" syndrome?
It also seemed much easier to fail - as in you'd fail right away if you didn't start out hitting all the notes. It took me a minute to figure out that the crappy display guitar was beat to hell and didn't register all the notes I was playing. I'm hoping that was entirely due to the guitar and not a change in hit detection.

I picked up the Wii version on impulse yesterday. The guitar is nice and the use of the Wiimote speaker when you miss a note is pretty cool. The rumble is pretty useless though.

It seems like some of the note sequencing doesn't have as much flow as earlier games. I have to play more before I decide on this for sure though.

I definitely agree that they've managed to place the rock meter in some kind of visual blind spot. I have to look directly at the meter to tell how I'm doing instead of being able to see it in my peripheral vision. And the boss battles are utterly and completely worthless.

There's no way I would try to get people who never play videogames into this version at a party. 1 & 2 are definitely more accessible and there's more RAWK in the first tier on easy.

My very simple impressions: it's more Guitar Hero, and that's fine by me.

Of course, perhaps you shouldn't take my opinion too seriously since I've never been nearly the kind of Guitar Hero connoisseur that many other folks here are (I've never really played beyond the first tier or two on hard, and after I beat the games on medium once I generally move on, aside from coming back and playing multiplayer on occasion). That said, overall I think that this is a definite improvement over GH2.

Now, I say this primarily because of the set list. GH3 has more songs that I like than GH2 did, thus I'm more likely to want to come back and play it later, thus it's an improvement. For me and my not ever going to be able to play on expert difficulty self, that's good enough.

However, I also like the fact that it doesn't feel like a rushed PS2 port. I played both GH1 and GH2 on the PS2, and when I played GH2 on the 360 it really didn't feel like they spent much time trying to adapt it to work on the 360 -- they just upped the texture resolution, added a couple songs, and then shipped it. GH3, however, feels like the target system was the 360 from the beginning (which might be why some of you PS2 having the inverse reaction to what I'm about to say). So regardless of what you think about the art direction, the graphics really pop; the characters feel much more vibrant and alive and the venues have an extra level of detail and polish that is very much appreciated.

More important than the graphical improvements, though, is that the reworked and streamlined menu interface makes the process of actually getting into the game much more pleasant. Some of it is common sense stuff (no, I don't think I need to choose a guitar every time I play a song in two player mode, thanks), but there is also some less noticeable but very much appreciated taking advantage of the 360's user profile management (although you might not notice these changes if you are just playing with a guest on your main account). Oh, and there is also one key deviation from the 360 standards that I'm very happy for: letting two players choose what side of the screen they will be playing on despite the order in which they are logged in.

Speaking of the art direction, I'm also not terribly bothered by it. Actually, I think I'm inclined to agree with Chiggie that other than the male lead singer's ugly ass mug, I prefer it. I do want my cool British invasion character back, but all the other people in the game look better to me. I think the GH1/GH2 art style was largely informed by a need to keep polygon counts relatively low, and with GH3 they've been able to go crazy adding fun little details to the characters, and they way they've gone about that (for me at least) makes them much more interesting.

And as for the stuff that makes the game more game and less sim -- the boss battles and the between tier cartoons -- well, at least as far as I've played they don't really bother me all that much. The cartoons are short and you rarely see them, and while the boss battles are a bit of a gimmick (and don't really fit the original idea of the game), there's only like four or something, right? I'd certainly be happier if they weren't there, but I didn't mind them all that much when I played one, and it was over quick enough that it didn't really shape the character of my play experience.

I guess there are also some technical complaints that people have about the game, but honestly I don't think I'm good enough to notice them. Like I said, I pretty much just play at medium difficulty, so things like note layout quality and the frame rate hiccup when activating star power don't really have an effect on the game as I play it. Also, the new in game interface doesn't really seem any more or less visible to me, but I guess I never really looked at it enough to notice the change. Oh, and I'm also not good enough to be able to notice the change to the hammer on/pull off system either. I know that I can still do them in GH3 as I could in GH2 (but not in GH1) and that's good enough for me.

So yeah, more Guitar Hero, better set list, a few minor annoyances but nothing that ruins the fun.

I dont mind the look and feel of the game. Once the game starts, I very rarely look away from the fretboard anyway. I am in agreement though that the star power meter could be placed better.

I've only got through medium so far, but I like the added hammer ons and pull offs in medium that really didnt show up frequently in previous games til hard. Which means hard is probably gonna get crazy. Fortunately, the game seems more forgiving when hitting notes, but I have a feeling the difficulty is gonna ramp up. I can see getting through the game on hard, but I think expert is gonna slap me around like a red headed step child.

I feel that it's basically GH2 with better songs. The boss battles are possibly the stupidest idea I've ever seen. Were their play testers really going, "It's so fun! Way to go guys!"

I don't understand why the rock meter is so small and is placed on my television as if I had a SD television. I have wide screen, use the space. My rock meter should be gigantic and pulsing when I'm maxed out green or getting all static if I'm in the red. I shouldn't have to take out a magnifying glass, walk up to the television and closely examine my rock meter to figure out how good I'm doing. I also feel that it's in my blind spot while I'm playing.

Small side story: I woke up Sunday morning all psyched to pick up GH3. As I'm getting dressed I feel a sharp pain in my left hand's ring finger. I magically have a centimeter long cut right on the tip of my fret playing ring finger. So, on Sunday I limped through 2 tiers getting 3/4 stars a song just on normal. I felt like I was in a science experiment, I kept dreading seeing a yellow cord as I knew pain was sure to follow.

Oh, and thank your favorite deity for co-op campaign mode.

I think the between-tier cutscenes are awesome. They're done by the guys who animate Metalocalypse. Those guys should design a venue for GH4, like the big tower/temple from the final episode.

zeroKFE wrote:

Oh, and thank your favorite deity for co-op campaign mode.

My daughter and I second that.

I think we could both do without the boss battles though but the vs. battle mode (with items) is better than I expected.

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