Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock

To preface this review, I thoroughly enjoyed the first guitar hero game on the ps2 back in the day. Boston, David Bowie and Rob Zombie headed the superb playlist. I still listen to some of those songs and I loved the way everything was made. You actually felt like you were playing a guitar and helping out the band. Expert was hard, but it wasn't impossible. I would stay up till 4 in the morning so that I could unlock all the songs and get better. Yes, I was that guy when it came to guitar hero.

This one has changed everything about that. First of all, the playlist is horrible. Most of the songs I've never heard of, and I would have no wish to hear again. A lot of the songs are from bands that I knew or thought I did but they didn't have songs that I recognized. It seems like they took the hardest songs from a band that they could find. Should Tenacious D even be considered as a rock legend? Should Dragonforce?

This brings me to my next point. The joy of the first game was that the notes that you played actually made it sound like you were playing the song. If you missed a note then the whole song went awry. Now it feels like you're not even needed to play the song. Almost like the backup vocals. Or the tambourine player dude guy. Now the whole point of it is to react to the colors as they pass over the bar. There's no rhythm to the game anymore. I would do just as well without the sound as with.

I'll be in the middle of playing a song and suddenly a random note will pop up and you'll lose your 50 note streak. It's very frustrating. In fact the only song that felt like the old school was one I downloaded. It's the only song I'll continue playing on it and enjoy it. All the other songs are just meh. That one song is Top Gun's Theme song. And it actually feels like you're playing it. That is what GH3 should've been. Not some mish-mash of notes that you randomly have to play and hope you hit them. You should feel the rhythm and know when you need to strum.

~j