GH3
So my sister likes Guitar Hero 3. She's gotten to play the game at some of her friends' houses, apparently. Hell if I know, I barely pay attention to her social life. She eventually asked me if I'd get it for my Wii, and I said "only if you pay half the cost". I'm not paying $90 for that or most games. If it were a new Zelda or something, I'd consider it. But I wouldn't be writing this if we didn't pick the game up. We decided to get it... yesterday... from Gamestop after seeing it for the Wii there. I thought it wouldn't be in stock on Christmas Eve of all days, but lo and behold! There was at least one bundle! She gave me as much cash as she had and was fortunate I had the rest. However, we had to wait until after we ate food and looked at Christmas lights to play the game.
We got the guitar put together. That was the easy part. My sister couldn't find where the Wii remote goes in the guitar at first, but it was eventually found. Then we had to figure out how to get the new TV to work with the Wii. A couple button presses did the trick. Last, we had to start the game. Needed the Wii remote. It was somewhat of an ordeal just to see that title screen. The first thing we did was launch into career mode on easy. There's no way in hell I could have played medium, having only played those silly store demos. It took us a few hours, but we triumphed and beat easy mode. So, a review of sorts because I'm bored. I assume you know the artist of a song or can Google.
Music: The subtitle gives away a lot of what's in this game: legendary songs and bands. However, there's also some metal, nu-metal, punk, and other sub-genres. The point is there's actually a fair variety of music that could fall somewhere under the umbrella of rock. Indie rock, as the scenesters would like to define it, isn't represented here, but oh well. For the most part, I never cared for many these songs or bands. My favorite songs in this game would be "The Number of the Beast", "The Devil Went Down to Georgia", and "Through the Fire and the Flames". It's sad that one of the more boring DragonForce songs is amongst my favorites. There are others to unlock, but looking through the list nets me few other songs I'd really like.
Gameplay: But regardless of all of the above, the quality of the music didn't detract from the fun. I didn't care all that much. A song is a song in this game, so why care? Easy mode is, well, pretty easy after you've played it for quite a few songs. Some songs, like "Raining Blood" or "Through the Fire and the Flames" are still difficult for me on easy, though. Medium is a lot tougher to a first timer like myself. It's faster and another fret is added. I'm not about to tackle hard or expert yet. It's pretty challenging to the casual gamer or the first time Guitar Hero player, imo, and it's pretty damn addictive. The extra mechanics in this game are alright, but I don't use something like star power as much as I should - I almost always mess up when I try to. Also, the weapons in boss fights take some time to learn to cope with and can seem broken at first.
Controller: I like this thing. The Wii remote fits in easily enough and plays sounds. It's wireless too! I like that there's no wire to trip over or to limit the player to a certain distance away from the TV. I'm not quite sure how I'll get used to using four or five of the fret buttons, though. I hate having to lift the thing halfway up into the sky to use star power, though.
Plot: Wait, there's a plot? It's not deep at all, but it serves to move the game along. You can tell what's happening from the pictures alone, which I like. Spoken lines are overrated, usually short as hell unless in some cutscene, and just take up a fuckton of space on my disc or hard drive, so fuck off with that. It all leads up to the best songs in the game anyway.
Graphics: It's not really that pretty, but who cares? You're not playing Guitar Hero to see innovations in graphics. You're playing it so you can "play" rock songs. Plus, I was never a graphics whore. Most of my favorite games are SNES because they had things called good stories and gameplay. Those are pretty foreign to a lot of people, namely XBox 360 and PS3 fanboys who ejaculate all over their pretty technology.
Downloadable content: Us Wii owners NEED it. I'll even buy an SD card or three if it means I have enough space for everything. I'd like to see some songs by my favorite bands, but barring that, at least tolerable bands. I hope it comes out in 2008 like it's supposed to.
tl;dr: This game is a helluva lot better than I expected, regardless of the quality of its music, plot, graphics, etcetera. The controller is excellent, probably so on all systems. It's a very fun and addicting game, and I see why people lose themselves in it when a new one comes out. It's expensive but affordable and worth it if you buy it with a friend, sibling, or roommate. The Wii version needs downloadable content, but other than that, it's quite good.
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