Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

by Ron Burke

By the time you hit your third product in a series, you probably have the formula down.  Halo 3, Dead or Alive 5, Doom 3, Quake 4, Mortal Kombat 3, Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike: Fight for the future – all of these franchises have established themselves with a solid formula that doesn’t deviate from the norm too much in their execution.  Fans know what they can expect from the sequel, and the developers typically don’t stir the mix a great deal before release.  You can imagine it caused a great deal of trepidation when publisher Activision purchased Red Octane in May of 2006 and then handed development to long-time Tony Hawk developer Neversoft for Guitar Hero III.  Would we get the same consistent improvement that we’d seen moving from Guitar Hero to Guitar Hero II?  As 80’s Euro-band Asia would say, “Only Time Will Tell”.

One of the first things that were improved was the graphics in Guitar Hero III.  Fans bemoaned this focus as they thought it would detract from the song lineup or polish.  Neversoft insisted that this was a non-issue and pressed forward with a complete retooling of the graphics.  The end result is mostly improved by their hard work.  The singer now lip syncs to the songs surprisingly well; likely courtesy of their incredible work with the Tony Hawk engine.  Similarly, the character you select will be far more animated than they have been in previous titles, moving about the stage and generally striking a rock pose a bit more than before.

What is a rocker without a cool stage from which to rock?  No rocker at all!  Guitar Hero III won’t let you go down like that, bringing 8 completely new venues to the game, one for each ‘stage’ of the game.  The Backyard Bash is your natural start where you’ll play for your grungy friends literally in your back yard.  Rock hard enough that somebody notices (read: you beat the required number of songs in that set) and you’ll head to Mitch’s Moose Lounge.  The Moose Lounge is a seedy Go-Go dancer club, complete with crappy sparking lights and bathed in cheap pink neon glow.  Rinsing the stink of Mitch’s place off, you get the wise idea to shoot a video – the only place that makes sense is the back end of a semi truck with spinners and huge flames on the sides!  I won’t spoil the storyline (yes, there is one) but you’ll end up visiting the Shanker’s Island jail, a Desert Rock Tour location that looks not unlike a neon Burning Man, the Kaiju Megadome, and finally Hell where you’ll have to play a game of twister against Death to escape.  Wait…maybe I’m confusing the game with a Bill and Ted movie.  Yeah, more like you’ll have to square off against Lou before you can escape on the coolest motorcycles this side of California Customs. 

Playing through the game you’ll eventually earn enough cash to unlock some new characters including Tom Morello (Guitarist for Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave), Slash (from Guns and Roses / Velvet Revolver fame) Lou (you may know him as Satan), The God of Rock (use your imagination), and GHII staple – The Grim Ripper.  The unlockable characters aren’t the only new cast members though; you also have my personal favorite – Midori.  Midori is a J-Pop rocker decked out in the most obscene Japanese Schoolgirl / puffball haircut / Stripper Boots combo this side of the ocean.  You’ll also be able to play with Bret Michaels of Poison on his two tracks, but you can’t recruit him to your band.  Judy Nails got a bit of an upgrade with a new look and new attitude, but it looks like Clive Winston, Eddie Knox, and Pandora didn’t make it past the Neversoft Tribal Council and are not included in the game.  All of the characters do get a few more clothing options, although some of them are simply color swaps, but one of the cool things is that any character can select any guitar now.  If you want Midori to rock the Grim Ripper Scythe you can do that.  If you want Lou make offerings to the rock Gods with the Tiki Guitar, you’ll have to simply unlock it, buy it, and assign it.   While I can see the concerns that fans have (the character models look more like they came from Tony Hawk than Guitar Hero II), the change isn’t as bad as they imagine it to be, with a few exceptions.  Let me explain.

The graphics are clean and upgraded almost across the board.  I say almost because I think the bassist and drummer are probably plotting to kill my entire band.  While the singer and your character look human and tend to move in a natural way, the bassist and drummer are clearly murderous cyborgs waiting to snuff us out in our sleep.  Their movements tend to be very stilted and stiff, making their performances a bit unnatural.  If the camera didn’t show them so often I probably wouldn’t have noticed, but the guy running the camera crane is clearly trying to warn us.

There is one other area we have to discuss – framerate.  The framerate in Guitar Hero III is pretty unshakable, except in one scenario that seems unfortunately repeatable.  If you are playing on the Kaiju Megadome as The Grim Ripper and deploy star power while he is on screen, you’ll occasionally get a framerate stutter for just a split second.  It isn’t enough to really affect gameplay, but it is there.  The rest of the entire game features an unshakable framerate, no matter how much craziness is going on.  I’ve talked with Neversoft and they are already testing to resolve this issue, so you may never see this bug yourself. 

Obviously the sound category is the most important, but also subjective, section of the entire game. If you can’t enjoy the song selection you won’t want to play the game. With a mix this diverse, you’ll find some songs that you love and some that you simply hate – there is simply no avoiding it. To that end, I’ll focus on the highs and lows of the soundtrack in my personal estimation. Starting off with the master tracks, I think that Living Colour’s “Cult of Personality” is a pretty fantastic re-record, and the inclusion of Metallica’s “One” and The Rolling Stones’ “Paint it Black” elevates the set quite a bit. What really impressed me though is the quality of the non-master tracks. “Rock You Like a Hurricane” was pretty damned close to the original and there are several more where that came from – my hat is off to those unsung rock heroes.

In total there are 71 songs shipping in the box. 46 of these songs are unlocked through playing the game, while another 25 are purchasable bonus tracks. 51 of the songs are master tracks (meaning the original artist either re-recorded it for the game, or allowed the original recording to be used) - more than either of the previous titles. While I’m not a big fan of the ultra-repetitive Euro-rock anthem “Anarchy in the U.K.”, it is pretty cool that Activision and Neversoft lured the Sex Pistols back into the recording studio for the first time in 30 years to re-record the song, making it completely exclusive to this game. Speaking of exclusive and unique, two of the three boss battles get unique music for the event. Tom Morello and Slash recorded original battle music, rather than simply rehashing their past successes.

As with any rhythm game, there are bound to be songs that make you wince. For me, “Anarchy in the U.K.” is in that list, as is “3’s & 7’s” by Queens of the Stone Age are painful to play, despite them both being master tracks. I do recognize that it is a matter of personal taste, but I’d like to see a few of the best guitar players of the past few decades get a shot at one of these games – where is Prince? Where is my Hendrix? For the third time now, I have to ask – where is my Testament? Heads up – you can’t have a “Legends” title without those guys. Rush would have to enjoy another track on this game as well. While we are on the subject of questions, how did we get saddled with “The Seeker” from the Who instead “Who Are You?”, “We don’t Get Fooled Again”, “Teenage Wasteland”, or “Baba O’Riley”? “The Seeker” has to be one of the least rockin’ tracks in their expansive catalog. I’m sure I could pave a small city with paper roads equivalent to the legal contracts required to get these songs released for the game, but “The Seeker” just baffles me.

Topping the bottom of the list is the final track - “The Devil Went Down to Georgia”. Steve Ouimette is a long time producer of videogame music and has worked with Activision in the past, so it was no surprise to see his work on this title. The metal remix of the original by The Charlie Daniels Band is a love it or hate it affair. I’m sorry to say that I’m not a big fan of the song. Your mileage may vary.

Taking a look at the controls in Guitar Hero III, you can’t help but praise the fantastic work on the Gibson Les Paul wireless guitar bundled with the title.  The first thing you’ll notice is that the axe now breaks into two pieces – the body and the neck portion.  Additionally you can also change out the faceplate for maximum personalization.  Aside from the obvious benefits of wireless, the guitar is also far sturdier, sporting a longer strum bar, a stronger whammy bar, and slightly larger buttons.  Neversoft has also put in a new accelerometer into the guitar to deploy star power, which is a bone of contention.

The star power now seems to deploy at even the slightest movement.  With the Xplorer axe you had to swing the guitar almost straight up, but any quick movement will active the Les Paul.  I found myself concentrating to hold perfectly still so as not to deploy the power.  A few folks managed to pick up the game at the Sunday launch and have cited similar concerns.  I’m sure a software update could make that a little less sensitive, but it is something you’ll have to get used to in the mean time.

As you move from Medium to Hard and beyond you’ll need to master hammer-ons and pull-offs.  To that end, the folks at Neversoft have further refined those from the Guitar Hero II formula.  They are a bit more forgiving and tend to flow a little bit better.  Granted, there are a few songs that have hammer-ons starting on the second note in a run, rather than the first, or putting a strummed note in the middle, but overall they are improved.  There is a little bit of a ‘glow’ to the beginning of the hammer-ons, giving you a visual clue as to where your run begins.  If you are new to the series and have no idea what I just said, you’ll be happy to hear that the training modes have returned, as well as practice mode to help you nail those difficult solos. 

If you were to look at the difficulty levels of the Guitar Hero franchise, the original title would be the baseline.  Guitar Hero II raised the difficulty bar a little bit, but also tightened the controls overall.  Guitar Hero: Rocks the 80’s was all over the board with difficulty levels ranging from Tinker-Toys to underwater baby seal juggling in a Great White shark tank.  Guitar Hero III reigns in control of the difficulty arc and raises it another notch above Guitar Hero II, but you won’t see this until you reach hard or higher.  Easy mode is still relatively easy, with most people able to shred a little bit with some practice.  Medium is challenging for most, but certainly an attainable goal.  The leap from medium to hard has never been wider.  Similarly, the leap from hard to expert is a vast chasm.   You’ll have to put in a bit more practice than you have ever before to reach the end.  It isn’t actually the note fingering sequences that add up to this increased difficulty, but instead a bit of tuning to the rock meter.  Messing up seems to impact that meter a bit faster than ever before, and it seems much more difficult to get it to raise than in games previous.  You’ll need to plan out your star power usage and likely deploy it a shade earlier.

I’m going to go against the grain and applaud Neversoft for introducing something new to the series – the boss battle.  Throughout the game there are a total of three ‘bosses’ that will step up and challenge you to a face-off where you can use your power-ups against your foe. The power-ups can range from a lefty-flip to bumping the difficulty and you can store up to three of them.  Using all three at the same time is devastating, but there is also a power-up to steal from your opponent, so don’t hold onto it too long!  The three battles were actually quite easy for me and I trounced all three of them in my first attempt.  A lefty flip / difficulty up / double notes trio will take out even the most stalwart of opponents.  If you are unable to take out your opponent before the end of the song, you’ll play the song again but all powers will become a death power that slowly marches down the screen until one side or the other is defeated.  This sudden death portion can last less than 10 seconds, so expect a sudden and decisive victory or defeat pretty quickly. People are fretting (see what I did there?) about this boss battle business far too much – stop whining, it is a pretty minor part of the game.   For those that do like the new battle mode, you can take that online and stomp your friends, as well as playing it locally.

While I did tear on “Devil Went Down to Georgia” for its metal remix, I also have to put the finger-snapping DragonForce title, “Through the Fire and Flames” through the meat grinder for its overbearing difficulty.  The song serves as a cap to the game, giving you the chance to fail miserably while the credits play and allowing you to purchase this song when the credits are done.  While the 80’s inspired hair-glam falsetto-fest is certainly going to appeal to a lot of folks, the guitar portion of the game is so unreasonable as to break all semblance of fun.  I could complete last year’s bonus track “Jordan” on Hard and was getting pretty close to completing it on Expert, but “Through the Fire and Flames” is akin to an acid-induced-Technicolor-projectile-vomit of notes on the screen.  I don’t see how anyone could spend enough time to complete this song, much less get 5 stars on it.

I already mentioned that Battle is available in online and offline multiplayer, so let’s talk about Face-Off, Pro Face-Off, and Co-Op online.  For the first time in the series, you’ll be able to play with or against your friends over Xbox Live.  The few tracks I’ve played online went without a hitch, giving me the chance to square off against some press members that were talking some pretty heavy smack prior to their beatdown.  I won’t name names, but they know who they are – go hang your head in the corner Emo kid.

71 songs?  51 Master Tracks?  It would be foolish to try to deny that Guitar Hero III has a lot of value right out of the box.  There is also the potential of downloadable content, although no pricing or tracks have been announced at this point.  There is a tremendous amount of entertainment coupled with a fantastic new guitar in this box.  While I could take or leave some of the songs, the overall polish seems worthy of a thumbs up.  The addition of online play and the battle mode (whether you like it or not) means that Neversoft isn’t interested in just making a carbon copy of previous work and slapping new songs into it.  For their freshman effort with this series, I think Neversoft has done a bang-up job. The Guitar Hero formula isn’t particularly complex.  Keeping people interested after 3 previous titles in the franchise is.  Neversoft isn’t a new development house, but they are new to this series.  To that end, they have taken what Harmonix has built and ran with it like crazy.  They have a few new features to try, as well as a new look for the game overall, but suffice it to say that the game hasn’t changed a great deal – and this is a good thing.  While I may not enjoy all of the new tracks, this is certainly the strongest song lineup with the most master tracks we’ve seen to date.  Download the demo and see for yourself!

Gaming Trend Score

87

1. Graphics: 87
2. Audio: 85
3. Controls: 90
4. Gameplay: 85
5. Value/Replay: 90
6. OVERALL:87