Hands-on with Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock for the Wii

So how am I supposed to do write-up on a Guitar Hero game? Everyone has either played it or know of the concept — you press five colored buttons, flip a switch up and down and pretend you’re actually playing a guitar. Actually, that’s pretty good right there. OK, I’m finished with my impressions post! I’m clocking out for the night …

No? Not good enough? Fine, I’ll give some more info on the game.

First off, I suck at the game and any rhythm game for that matter. I’ve tried playing Guitar Hero in the past and have always failed miserably. This time though it was different. No, I still failed hard, but I actually enjoyed myself this time. Nothings really changed, it’s still the same old Guitar Hero you know and love. I think I enjoyed it because I finally was able to get through an entire set without getting a gameover (even though I was missing a ton of notes). The new co-op mode will go through the entire song no matter how bad both players are doing. So you won’t feel bad for yourself or your friend if you can’t finish a song. The friend will still kick your ass, but hey, you get through it at the very least.

Of course, if you’re an asshole and want to just destroy your friends at the game, you can always go into battle mode. I didn’t try it when I was playing it last week but from what I was told about it, a lot of it reminded me of Tetris Attack. If you do really good, you’ll get power ups that you can use to attack your opponent. There will be various attacks such as breaking one of the “strings” or forcing the note chart to flip around to many more attacks.

All in all, I had fun playing it. I know I was going to fail no matter what so I just had to pick the two hardest songs of the over 70 plus tracks: Dragonforce’s Through the Fire and Flames and Metallica’s One. I got destroyed by a Nintendo Rep and Dyson. 

If I were to pick this up though, I’d have to opt for the Xbox 360 version. The Wii version will of course play online, but with no downloadable content anywhere in the future planned for the Wii version, the 360 and PS3 version would be the better bet. Aside from that factor, it’s going to be the exact same thing on each console. One little neat differance for the Wii version is that when you miss a note, instead of the missed note sound coming out from the T.V’s speakers, it comes out of the Wiimote in the guitar.  

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock will be out on the 28th of this month and will retail for $89.99.