In the experience of most Guitar Hero"" fans, there are four steps to any new release in their beloved guitar-shredding franchise. The newest release in the franchise, ""Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock,"" follows a similar pattern.
First is attraction. The new controllers are wireless, modeled after the classic Les Paul guitar. The game also features fewer covers and more master tracks than ever before from the likes of Tenacious D, The Rolling Stones and The Who. Authentic rockers like Slash and Tom Morello are even featured as boss characters who play their music in the game.
Once you've caved and bought the game, it's time for addiction, meaning plenty of rocking out in the meat of the game: career. Neversoft may be a new developer to the franchise, but they've really cleaned up the interface. You get a streak counter to let you know how long you've gone without missing a note, and the star power and rock meters are a bit easier to read out of the corner of your eye as you rock away. However, there's a definite air of ""if it ain't broke, don't fix it,"" great news for fans since the basic gameplay remains unchanged. But, seeing some new instruments may make the game feel more like a complete experience.
Surprisingly, there's also a pretty good story to the game, with some excellent 2D animation of your band as they rise to fame and eventually battle the devil for their contracts and souls in a finale set to ""Devil Went Down to Georgia."" It won't win any awards, but it's a fun little rock opera to tie the sets and venues together. Unfortunately, the venues and band don't look much better than they did back on the PS2, but you'll be focused on the notes anyway so it doesn't really affect the experience, unless you're a snob for good graphics.
A separate career for cooperative play, complete with its own story and encores, is also included. This means you need friends to play The Strokes' ""Reptilia,"" so have an extra guitar handy.
The next stage most players hit is anger. You hit some song in career you can't beat and you need to keep playing, so you challenge your friends to intense rock-offs. Fortunately, the Face-off and Pro Face-off modes return, along with a new Battle Mode. Here star power is replaced by ""battle power,"" allowing you to use power-ups that break your opponents strings, increase their difficulty and other insidious things to mess with your opponent's groove.
The mode sounds great on paper, but in execution, it feels a little off balance - oif you throw a ""Difficulty Up"" and a ""Double Note"" power-up at someone at the same time, usually they won't survive. Maybe more advanced players will enjoy the extra challenge, but in general it feels like the mode detracts from the fun of playing the music.
All these modes, along with cooperative play, are available over Xbox Live, which is great for when your friends are in class, but the game sorely lacks a ranking system to match players of similar skill. Get ready to either get smacked by godly rockers online or beat down people who play on Easy.
Finally comes acceptance, where you play the game casually over the long term and just enjoy it as a whole. Overall, the new edition doesn't revolutionize anything about Guitar Hero, but it refines it ever so slightly and delivers the sweet nectar of new tracks to the fans. The developers are promising plenty of downloadable tracks as well, and with a set list as good as the game already has, would-be rock stars will be playing this one for a long time. Or at least until they release a new edition.
