Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1888 in Video Games
• Brand: ACTIVISION
• Model: 95119
• Published on: 2007-10
• Released on: 2007-10-28
• ESRB Rating: Teen
• Platform: PlayStation2
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 3.00" h x 11.75" w x 27.00" l, 4.48 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

Customer Reviews

Great Game, not-so-great controller
The gameplay is GHIII is fantastic (The Boss Battles in career mode are a little silly, but they are thankfully optional). The track list is awesome and the songs are extremely well implemented and fun to play.

The wireless controller included in this PS2 bundle, however, is a big step backwards from the wired SG controllers bundled with GH I and II. I have experienced several random drops in response from the green and yellow buttons (not due to proximity from the receiver, I was less than four feet from the console). The buttons just stopped working. Also, the whammy bar is much closer to the strum bar, and my fingers on my strumming hand kept getting caught in it. Finally, the tilt sensor on my controller only worked intermittently, which was doubly frustrating because they moved to start and pause buttons directly behind the whammy bar, so the alternate method of triggering "Star Power" (hitting the start button) is almost impossible because you have to take your strumming hand off of the strum bar and bring it up and over the whammy bar. I'm returning the bundle and buying the stand-alone GHIII game, and I'm ordering a wired GH2-style controller directly from Red Octane.

Nothing new, a few flaws, but still fun
Neversoft's first take on the Guitar Hero franchise really doesn't make any changes to the formula Harmonix created with GH1 and GH2. This isn't really a bad thing since the GH1 and GH2 formulas are so great, but it would have really been nice to see something new for the series. Here's a breakdown of the game:

Graphics:
The graphics on the PS2 version of the game are really nice and definitely have more detail and flair than with the previous Guitar Heroes. Unfortunately, the frame rate drops and the song slows down and gets a little choppy when you use star power. This is really too bad because I usually try to use star power on the parts of songs that I find difficult and this really messes me up even more than I would regularly.

Gameplay/Guitar:
The gameplay pretty much follows the old GH formula, except for the fact that the window of time that you can a play a note in has been extended a little bit. This isn't such a bad thing because some of the later levels in the game would be nearly impossible without this small change. The Gibson Kramer guitar that comes bundled with GH3 is the first stab at a wireless controller for the GH franchise and unfortunately it didn't work to well. The first guitar I got was defective and wouldn't connect to the wireless adapter so I had to return it and get a second one, which did work. Since then my new controller has worked pretty well, but once I had to restart my PS2 to get the controller to work.

Set list:
This is where GH3 really shines. This is definitely the best set list yet. It includes songs like Paint it Black by The Rolling Stones, Welcome to the Jungle by Guns and Roses, and One by Metallica. Nearly all the songs are originals and they all sound really great. This is the best Guitar Hero set list yet. Unfortunately, there are a couple songs which you can only unlock in co-op, so if you don't have a second guitar you'll have to either attempt to play with a regular PS2 controller, or just forget about playing these songs. These co-op only songs aren't small songs either, a couple of them like Suck my Kiss and Sabotage are actually advertised as some of the top songs in the game on the box.

Career/Co-op Career:
The regular career is exactly the same as the past GH game except for the addition of some little cartoons after every set and three boss battles placed throughout the sets. The cartoons are cute but really add nothing to the game. The boss battles are quite fun and challenging, but since there are only three they don't really make up a big part of the career. Also the songs that you play during the boss battles are only playable in single-player career, so as awesome as it sounds to battle your friend to either Tom Morello or Slash's solo filled battle song, sorry, but you can't. The co-op career is really good and it's really fun to be able to play through the career with a friend.

Overall:
Guitar Hero 3 is basically the same as GH1 and GH2, it has the best songs of all the GH games, and the controller is flawed but it is nice to be able to play wirelessly. It's too bad that there's nearly nothing new, but it still includes all the fun of the other guitar hero games.

Disappointing compared to GH II
I had to return the GH III bundle I bought because the yellow and orange frets did not work at all. I just thought that I had bad luck and got a bad apple in the bunch. So, I was happy that all of the buttons on the second guitar worked. That is, until a few minutes into the game, the neck popped out a little bit from the body of the guitar and none of the buttons worked. In fact, I couldn't figure out why the buttons wouldn't work for a while. Anyway, after fixing that by popping it back in, I played for about an hour. Tilting the guitar to set off star power doesn't work! I had to shake violently and even then, it would only set off star power intermittently.

Not crazy about the set list. But I guess opinions can differ on that. But the pop-up note streak thing (i.e. the pop up that indicates that you have hit a 50-note streak, 100-note streak, etc.) is more distracting than helpful.

The battles with the "bosses" are really stupid. My addiction to the game is largely due to the fact that you get to listen to great music while you play a game. But these stupid battles made the game...childish. And it's just frustrating to have to waste my time on something that doesn't really require GH skills.

Anyway, the main burn for me is that the wireless guitar that comes with the bundle is AWFUL. AWFUL. I'm going to try to return the whole thing tomorrow.