Product Description

The third game from the Guitar Hero series is here, and ready to rock your face off. Channel your inner guitar god as you thrash your way through all sorts of venues, In addition to standard Guitar Hero features you know and adore, this game features all kinds of killer new options, such as the new multiplayer action-inspired battle mode, grueling boss battles, a bevy of exclusive unlockable content and authentic rock venues. The expanded online multiplayer game modes will also allow axe-shredders worldwide to compete head-to-head for true legendary rock status. Best of all, check out the new songs! Fresh downloadable content will be offered on multiple platforms, and players can now shred to a set list from many of the greatest rock songs ever recorded. Featured hits include: Rock And Roll All Nite (as made famous by Kiss) School's Out (as made famous by Alice Cooper) Cult of Personality (by Living Colour) Barracuda (as made famous by Heart)This game comes bundled with the all-new wireless Gibson Les Paul guitar controller, available for each platform for the very first time. The exclusive Gibson guitars will include innovative features such as removable faceplates that will allow fans to later personalize their guitars and make it their own, and a new button color design that will be integrated for an even greater authentic feel and rock experience. With Guitar Hero 3, you've got more than a game - it's a one-of-a-kind hard rock experience. New Les Paul customizable wireless guitar controller Thrash and burn through new venues and varying levels of difficulty New playlist with awesome new songs and unlockable content Multiplayer action mode Grueling boss battles Online multiplayer mode lets you battle other rockers worldwide For use on the Nintendo Wii Game System

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1318 in Video Games
• Size: Guitar Hero Set
• Color: White
• Brand: ACTIVISION
• Model: 95125
• Published on: 2007-10
• Released on: 2007-10-28
• ESRB Rating: Teen
• Platform: Nintendo Wii
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 3.00" h x 12.00" w x 28.00" l, 4.90 pounds

Features

• More than 70 of the most legendary rock anthems of all-time
• Added multiplayer modes: arcade inspired Guitar Battle and the dual shredding co-op career
• Challenge the legends of rock and roll in boss battles
• Take those axe shredding skills online and rock around the world
• All-new tricked out venues taking you to hell and back

Amazon.com
Product Description
The third game from the Guitar Hero series is going to rock your face off. You will channel your inner guitar god as you thrash your way through all sorts of venues. In addition to standard Guitar Hero features you know and adore, this game has all kinds of killer new options such as the new multiplayer action-inspired battle mode, grueling boss battles, a bevy of exclusive unlockable content, and authentic rock venues. The expanded online multiplayer game modes will also allow axe-shredders worldwide to compete head-to-head for true legendary rock status. Best of all, check out the new songs! Fresh downloadable content will be offered on multiple platforms, and players can now shred to a set list from many of the greatest rock songs ever recorded. Featured hits include:

• Rock And Roll All Nite (as made famous by Kiss)
• School's Out (as made famous by Alice Cooper)
• Cult of Personality (by Living Colour)
• Barracuda (as made famous by Heart)

This game comes bundled with the all-new wireless Gibson Les Paul guitar controller. The exclusive Gibson guitars include innovative features such as removable faceplates allowing fans to personalize their guitars making them their own, and a new button color design that will be integrated for an even greater authentic feel and rock experience.

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Customer Reviews

Some flaws, but overall a great game
I come to Guitar Hero 3 for the Wii having played Guitar Hero 2 on the PS2 at Expert difficulty. Sometimes formula can be a bad thing, other times it's not. This is one of those "not" times.

The game plays basically the same as its predecessor, and on top of that it's got a better set list. After reaching 5-star level on nearly all the songs at Expert difficulty in Guitar Hero 2, I found that the list of songs that I actually just enjoyed playing was very short. That's not so much the case with Guitar Hero 3, which has a larger collection of songs that are both fun to play and to listen to.

There are flaws, though. It seems to me that the new developers decided that they needed to tweak the Hammer On/Pull Off controls a little, and the result of this tweaking was that there were many times throughout the game where I instinctively didn't strum because two notes were close together, but one of the notes inexplicably required you to strum. Although this increases the difficulty, it feels awkward and forced (you could, after all, just do away with HOPOs altogether rather than making them unworkable at seemingly random times).

I'm not a big fan of the boss battles, either. The battle mode seems a good idea for balancing multiplayer Guitar Hero, because Guitar Hero 2 suffered significantly from the fact that an Expert player could hardly help beating anyone playing on Medium in the Face-off mode, at least not without putting down the guitar, which isn't exactly fun. However, the battle mode really has no place in the single-player career mode, where all I'm looking to do is play some songs.

It doesn't help that the boss battles are not very well executed. The final boss battle had me stuck for quite some time, simply because the battle power-ups that I was getting weren't very useful against the opponent. When I finally got the right power-up, defeating him was trivially easy. That means the battle was far too dependent on randomness, which isn't really fun in a game that's good precisely because it depends completely on skill.

Add on top of this the fact that, for no obvious reason, the songs that you play in the boss battles can't be accessed away from those battles. That means there's no way to just play these songs. You've always got to be worried about defeating an opponent who's messing up your ability to play. Along the same lines, certain songs are only unlockable by playing multiplayer mode. I wouldn't call that a good idea in any case, but it's especially annoying on the Wii version, because there currently is no guitar available for separate purchase, which means you must find someone else who owns both a Wii and Guitar Hero 3, and most people I know who have the game have it for PS2 or XBox 360.

The game is still lots of fun even with these flaws. There are some good new features to balance things out, such as the ability to play the game online (though again it seems that more often than not when I go looking for an online game, there aren't any available). I think I like the Wii guitar controller better than the PS2 controllers for Guitar Hero 2, in part because they seem more responsive. A number of times when using the PS2 controller and strumming very rapidly while attempting to deploy Star Power, I have had the controller frustratingly not register my movement despite holding the controller vertically. I haven't noticed such problems on the Wii.

As far as difficulty goes, if you played Guitar Hero 2 on Expert, then it won't take you long to get through Guitar Hero 3 on Expert, either. Some of the songs are still difficult (and some will cramp your hand), but because the gameplay mechanics are the same (and that is a good thing), if you're good at Guitar Hero you're good at Guitar Hero. You won't have too much trouble with the vast majority of the songs in the game.

All in all, if you liked Guitar Hero 2, you'll probably like Guitar Hero 3. If you didn't, why are you reading this?

Rocks So Hard It May Hurt Itself!!
I've never played the previous games in this series but this game is addictive! The Wii remote is easy to tuck into the guitar and the tutorial is pretty easy. Instead of strings you have a bar you push corresponding to how fast the notes move. I've never strummed guitar, my husband has. And I'm thrashing him at this game!

You work you're way up from a garage band, earning money along the way that you can spend in the games store for goodies like new outfits, real songs from around the world, and extra characters.Your current playlist is good with songs everybody knows even if their a poptart. You may even get asked to do an encore! My one gripe is their aren't that many chick songs, at least not on the levels I've played.

If you can find a second guitar remote you can rock head to head, which I plan to do with the spouse. I'll need to find a pink faceplate though. The makers said they'd have alternate fronts, so here's hoping. The guitar/remote is about the size of a eukalalie but still manages to make you feel very boss and you'll suddenly find yourself moving with attitude to the rhythm.

Stop reading and go play one!!!

Life in Mono
Guitar Hero 3 is great, however there are some problems with this particular version.
First, let me point out the obvious. This is the first and only Guitar Hero game for any Nintendo system. Currently only Rock Band Special Edition has been released for Wii, there are no plans for any of the three other Guitar Hero games will come to Wii. In other words this is the only game in town for GH on the Wii and sadly the game plays songs only in Mono. This means if you have a fancy surround system, the music would only come out of the center speaker. You can rig it up so that the same mono sound comes out of other speakers, but that is not even an approximation of Dolby Pro Logic II. This is a negative, but shouldn't really prevent anyone from picking this game up.

The game itself is still as good as Guitar Hero 2 Bundle with Guitar or Guitar Hero (Game Only). In fact I would say that generally on the same difficulty level this game is a bit harder that the others. The set list, like the others, is a combination of classic and modern music. This is an online game, so you can play against people online and they claim that at some point additional songs will be available to purchase (not likely).
The new feature for this one is the battle mode. In these special boards you will face off with Slash, Tom Morello, etc... and instead of star power you get attacks to use against your opponent. It is well done, but since it is only a few songs it doesn't play a major part in the game.
The Gibson branded guitar looks great and the Wii-mote actually plugging into it allows for better tilt functions. Also it rumbles and sound comes out of the controller, though it is rarely used (rumble for star power and speaker mostly for missed notes) it does put this version over the other guitars.
The big negative is the mono sound from the game. Even though the packaging clearly says Dolby Pro Logic 2, it is only in that sound format for the menus and whatnot. [On 12/6/07 Activision acknowledged this bug and offers a disk exchange.]

Since this is a music game, the mono sound is a negative, but really it shouldn't prevent anyone from picking this up. There will be a disk exchange coming in the future [I totally called that one], in the meantime, rock on.

EDIT: Here is the press release from Activision spokeswoman Rhy-Ming Poon:
"We recently became aware that some consumers have not been able to enjoy the full audio output in the Nintendo Wii version of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. We are currently working with Nintendo and are planning to issue an improved audio experience in future versions of the game. We expect to have re-mastered discs available by early 2008 and we will be offering consumers replacement discs at no cost once they become available. We thank all of our customers for their support and patience."