phungus's Full Review: Guitar Hero III for Nintendo Wii
I recently had the chance to spend several hours playing Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock on the Nintendo Wii, though I do not own one. With what these things are selling for on eBay, I sure wish I had bought a couple because I could have easily financed my Christmas shopping. Now that I’ve experienced the Guitar Hero phenomenon, I have to say this is really an innovative and genuinely fun game that I would never have expected to gain in popularity like it has.
In this game, you get to pretend to be the lead guitarist for a rock band. Or rather, a cover band who does rock songs. The actual song is played by the rest of the band, and it is up to you to provide the lead guitar part. The game rates your performance by how well you rock the crowd, and if you miss too many notes, the crowd will eventually boo you off stage. You will get to play many different songs from bands like The Rolling Stones, Rage Against the Machine, Guns and Roses, Heart, Foghat, Metallica, and many more. There are lots of big name bands on here, and most people will probably recognize the songs.
This game is played using a guitar-shaped controller with four buttons on the neck, instead of strings. You ‘play’ the guitar by pressing one of four buttons in the right sequence while simultaneously moving a lever up and down that represents the strumming of the guitar. On this Wii version, the wireless controller mounts inside of the guitar controller, and you get bonuses for moving the guitar around during the faster parts. There’s also a whammy bar for added effect. It’s basically the real life equivalent of showboating on stage, which has long been a rock and roll mainstay.
When the music is played, you can see the band and crowd in the background. In the center of the screen is a picture of the guitar neck, and it is divided by frets. As the music plays, the frets scroll up in a faux-3D way like the famous lead-in to the Star Wars movies. When it comes time for you to hit a certain note, you will see the corresponding button color on screen. The idea is for you to hit every single instance of the button appearing on screen. If you don’t do it at the right time, you’ll miss that part of the music and your score goes down. If you miss too many at once, you get booed off stage. It might sound easy, but it’s a lot harder than it looks.
At first glance, it seemed like a really simple push-button reflex type game. In fact, I think this game would be a little easier with the sound turned off. I can play the real guitar, and I found myself wanting to hit buttons and strum where the game did not need me to. The reason is that the game doesn’t make you hit every single note in the music. Entire guitar solos are sometimes done just by pressing and holding down one button. That’s why I say it may be easier with the sound off since you can’t exactly play by the rhythm of the music.
Being that I work in IT and have some background in computer programming, I could not help but analyze just how this game worked. You know how in karaoke they take popular songs and strip out the vocal track so that you can sing along? In this game, they took popular songs and stripped out the guitar track. I guess they had to get the original track recordings to do this. When the game is being played, you only hear your guitar part if you play it, so if you miss certain parts of the song you will not hear any guitar at all. In a way, it’s like isolating the guitar section of a song, then just working the volume up and down.
While this game is not exactly complicated, it is wildly fun. Some people have knocked it because they think it makes a mockery of real guitar playing. Others have said it’s just a lame reflexive game with a giant controller that costs extra to play. As for me, I totally get the point of the game – it’s so that you can pretend to be a rock star. It’s fantasy! Who hasn’t listened to their favorite song and visualized themselves as a member of the band playing one of the instruments or singing along. In a way, this is like putting a game in the hands of people who like to play air guitar. Now you can be a rock legend without having to learn a real instrument, or leave the house.
As a guitarist who understands how learning a musical instrument can boost confidence in youngsters, I really hope that this game will help build up interest for people to pick up a real guitar and learn how to play it. I have a young cousin who requested his parents get him an electric guitar after having played this game quite a bit, and I hope there are plenty more that get the same idea. If you want to get your kids interested in music, I think that Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock is a great way to start.
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