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Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock Wireless Bundle - PS2 Review (continued)
More User Submitted Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock Wireless Bundle - PS2 Reviews
Date: 2008-03-22
The game is good, the controller is akward.
Guitar Hero is a excellent game. It has some great music in it, and it is fun to play. But the controller is just so awkward and bad. First of all, what is the use of the Blue and Orange buttons in the Easy? They become obstacles when you have to press buttons, and you bump them instead. I mean, it gets annoying and frustrating. Also, I have larger than normal fingers, so I am not as fast as the next person, so my fingers stumble over them. Also, the whammy bar is annoying, and seems to need to be used in the battles, but not used in the regular songs. Also, the game itself is fun, but it seems like they could've done more to it. I like the fact that you build and build and build to the next level of songs, but using the same storyline for every mode is pretty lame. I half expected a new storyline to come in effect for every mode all the way up to legend. But, the game is just fun to play. What it requires though is a severe amount of practice to master the button mashing, because it's not just press a button hit a note, It's more of a synchronizing thing. It requires your full attention. But like I said, it's a fun game, but the controller needs to be worked on, and worked on fast. I hope they improve on it in the next game.
Date: 2008-03-11
Bring Back Harmonix
Playing Guitar Hero III is like watching that garage band you loved when they were nobodies sell out to commercial interests and lose all their personality in the process. Neversoft managed to take an amazing game and make it lackluster and bland.
Songs: The songs are a matter of personal preference, I guess. For the most part the set list is good, but once cannot help but get the feeling that they are trying to appeal to a much narrower audience than in past games. There could have been more diversity in the music and in choice of bands. There are very few females and ethnic minorities represented in the mix. The game would have been much more exciting if there had been more variation in the music. What I loved about the first game is that the songs in every set were very different from each other, so there was bound to be something you liked. Unfortunately in this game many of the songs have the same feel.
Game play: It is as though Neversoft completely missed the point of the game. They focused so much on the rock legends background story that they took the emphasis off the game play and music. The battles were in interesting concept, but they run counter to the spirit of the game. The point of the game is to play the song as well as you can so that you actually feel like your playing. Battles, on the other hand, disrupt your playing no matter how well you're doing so that you never feel like you are playing the song. The idea of battling guitar legends like Slash is fun, but it would have been better if the attacks were saved for the multi-player battle mode. You have to play the battles in career mode, but at least you do not have to beat them to continue. Unfortunately, though, you cannot play the battle songs in quick play or cooperative, so if you want to play them you have to battle.
The essence of the game--the actual playing--does not meet up to the standards of the past versions. The music is not synced to the notes well enough and there is not much variation in note patterns. Consequently, playing often feels monotonous and repetitive. All of this makes it hard to get into and enjoy the game as much as with past versions.
Controller: A wireless controller enhances game play and increases portability. Unfortunately, the design of the wireless controller is flawed. The detachable neck does not fit into the head of the guitar as snugly as it should, allowing the contacts to become disconnected. The first time I tried out the Kramer controller, the buttons stopped working. I was able to fix it by using rubber bands to hold the neck in place. It has worked so far. Beware. If you buy any of GHIII controllers, you most likely will encounter some problems due to the inherently flawed design.
Furthermore, star power is harder to activate using the tilt. The sensor is not as sensitive as in the standard controller. If you use the select button, be forewarned that the start and select buttons have been relocated. Instead of being above the whammy bar, they are now under it which makes it a little harder to reach (depending on the position you keep your whammy bar in).
Characters/Venues: This is probably the saddest part for me. They destroyed my favorite character Judy Nails. No longer is she cute and quirky. With here triple breast enlargement and scanty clothes, she is now skanky. The new female character Midori does not make up for it either. With her cutesy, cartoonish depiction she is at best out of place in the game and at worst a racist, fetishistic depiction of Japanese girls. Considering the only other female available wears a bra for a top or a leather body suit, it seems that Neversoft felt compelled to objectify or demean every woman in the game. Seeing women dance around on stage in scanty clothing I find very alienating. As if that were not enough, some of the bonus guitars are disembodied female body parts. The chauvinistic tone underlying the whole game is sick.
The other characters did not fair much better, either. Pandora and the Grim Ripper were offed. The Grim Ripper was replaced with the Devil, the depiction of which features the grubby MTV-ish aspects of the game in all its glory. The singers look hideous (What did they do to their faces?!). The new bonus characters, excluding Slash and Tom Morello, are somewhat amusing but ultimately without substance unlike the bonus characters in the past.
I find the venues to be lackluster as well. There are 3 or 4 in the middle of the career that look almost exactly the same except the stage features a different centerpiece in each or them.
In sum, Neversoft got their hands on gold and turned it into a commercially crass and chauvinistic piece of junk. The premise of the series and the new songs might be enough to sustain a fan, but if you are just starting out go for Guitar Hero I or II.
Date: 2008-03-11
Fun for all!
I am not much of a gamer, but my boyfriend is and we have a PS2. We were looking for a fun game that we could play together and this is perfect! I especially like that we can play at the same time, but on different levels. It's a fun game for everyone, gamer or not!
Date: 2008-03-08
A Bit Disappointing
I received Guitar Hero II as a gift a few months after it came out and quickly realized I couldn't stop playing it. I loved it for its arcade-style gameplay and its big-hit setlist of songs that were available to play. Now, I own Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. When I bought it, I couldn't wait to open it up and rock out to more great songs and get addicted to this new game.
I started playing it and I soon realized that this game (number three) is a flawed attempt to build off of what was an incredibly well-executed and eye-catching game (number two). That's why I give this game four stars overall--while it is dissapointing from a consumer standpoint, I realize that it's incredibly hard to follow up a great game.
On the bright side, this game looks absolutely superb graphically. The characters have a whole new look to them, and the gameplay graphics look much better than Guitar Hero II. Activision did a great job cleaning up the cartoonish appearance of the characters and venues of number two to make the venues look more like the host of a legitimate rock show. The button-pressing is great as well; there are much more difficult sequences of buttons to press on EXPERT, which is great for someone like me who's mastered most of the songs on the previous game.
Now, for the downsides of the game. The first thing that I noticed was the faultiness of the "Kramer Striker" wireless guitar controller. Not only is the controller larger and more awkward to use than the SG controller, but the sensor also doesn't recognize when the guitar is lifted vertically for Star Power. Thankfully, a friend of mine who also owns the game informed me that Star Power can also be utilized by hitting the SELECT button just below the whammy bar. I had to put my hand in a new position for this, as the button arrangement on the head of the guitar isn't as user-intuitive as the arrangement on the cherry-red SG. My second issue is the setlist. While there are many more songs this time around, and the bonus songs are cheaper to buy, the main setlist is full of songs that probably wouldn't have made the cut in number two. There are more obscure tracks (like "Black Sunshine" by White Zombie), and not-as-guitar-heavy tracks (like "When You Were Young" by the Killers), and many of the bonus tracks are sung in languages that I don't understand. I also found it amusing that they chose to use as many original-recording tracks as they could and still place cover versions of more popular songs on the game (this makes the fakeness of the covers more noticeable). Finally, the Battles, which are a new feature, aren't interesting either. In essence, they are just like playing very short songs in which Star Power unleashes a five-second attack on the level's boss. They are fun for a short time, but they get very repetitive.
To sum up, I realize that Activision was likely under intense pressure to make another masterpiece, and I take this into account. Just be aware that it pales in comparison to the masterpiece that was Guitar Hero II.
Date: 2008-03-08
Great game and guitar
I love this game. I think Guitar Hero 3 has the best tracks so far. The black kramer wireless guitar has worked flawlessly so far. The nice thing about this guitar is that the select and start buttons are positions in a nice place so that they don't get accidentally when playing. This wireless guitar is much better than some of the other wireless guitars I have played on. The sensitivity of the fret button, strummer, and wammy bar are great as well. I highly recommend the Guitar Hero 3 bundle to anyone.
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock Wireless Bundle - PS2 Reviews Page: 10 of 10 Prev<< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
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