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(More customer reviews)Guitar Hero 3 (GH3) is the fourth iteration in this series of games despite it being labeled the third, though for most people the 80s edition that was the actual third game was a bit of a footnote since it only came out on PS2 and had very little in it that differed from Guitar Hero 2 other than the songs.
GH3 continues with the same basic formula as the previous games which will keep fans of the series happy, but at the same time adds some welcome new features. One of the best additions is that of online play so that you can now do co-op, face-off, pro face-off and battle mode with a friend over the Live network.
The battle mode is a change up from the normal face-off modes in that instead of gaining star power you acquire attacks from playing certain sequences of notes. Then when you turn the guitar up as if you were going to use star power it instead launches an attack at your opponent. The attacks vary in their nastiness and while I was skeptical of this new aspect of the game it's actually a nice twist for those more competitive players.
Another addition is the co-op career mode, but unfortunately you can't play this mode online which means you'll have to get a friend over with their guitar to experience this mode.
Speaking of the guitar the new wireless Gibson Les Paul style guitar controller is a welcome change from the original 360 GH2 controller. Overall it just feels a lot more solid, especially the whammy bar. Not being wired makes a big difference in terms of convenience. There are GH3 bundles out there with the original GH2 controller in them and I would recommend passing on those in favor of the wireless bundle.
The career mode remains mostly the same as in the previous games. There are now little animated vignettes between each set that don't add much to the overall experience, but certainly are a welcome change from the old bus driving across the country scenes in the previous games. The other addition to career mode is that at the end of certain sets you have to enter battle mode with another guitarist. By now most people know that Tom Morello and Slash are the two real guitarists who you battle against in the game. Both contributed original guitar compositions for their battle sections and can be unlocked as avatars in the game.
The playing experience itself is much the same, though it seems the game is even more forgiving in the timing of when you play notes than even GH2 was and hammer-ons and pull-offs are also very easy to do. For experienced players this will obviously make the game easier in some respects, but at the same time the note structure has been mixed up a bit and the later songs are pretty challenging on Hard and Expert.
While the multiplayer aspect adds a lot more playability to the game at the same time the core of the experience remains the songs and for this game there are even more original songs than before and the song list is pretty great.
Overall GH3 rocks the house in much the same way as the previous games, but with the addition of some new features it doesn't feel like more of the same. Multiplayer adds a new aspect that should give the game a lot more life overall between those times when you get your friends over to the house.
Here is the list of tracks by the original artists (or in the case of Talk Dirty to Me, original vocalist) used in the game. This doesn't include the bonus tracks by the less well known artists.
"Talk Dirty to Me" - Poison (Vocals re-recorded by Bret Michaels)
"Bulls on Parade" - Rage Against the Machine
"When You Were Young" - The Killers
"Miss Murder" - AFI
"Lay Down" - Priestess
"Paint It, Black" - The Rolling Stones
"Anarchy in the U.K." - Sex Pistols (re-recorded)
"Kool Thing" - Sonic Youth
"My Name Is Jonas" - Weezer
"Even Flow" - Pearl Jam
"Same Old Song and Dance" - Aerosmith
"Welcome to the Jungle" - Guns N' Roses
"Cherub Rock" - The Smashing Pumpkins
"The Metal" - Tenacious D
"Before I Forget" - Slipknot
"Stricken" - Disturbed
"3's & 7's" - Queens of the Stone Age
"Knights of Cydonia" - Muse
"Cult of Personality" - Living Colour (re-recorded)
"Raining Blood" - Slayer
"The Number of the Beast" - Iron Maiden
"One" - Metallica
--Co-Op Campaign--
"Sabotage" - Beastie Boys
"Reptilia" - The Strokes
"Suck My Kiss" - Red Hot Chili Peppers
"Helicopter" - Bloc Party
"Monsters" - Matchbook Romance
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