Unless you've been living under a rock, then you'd probably know that Guitar Hero III is available now, and that it comes in four different flavors. While the PS3 version builds off the PS2 version, and the Xbox 360 version is basically built off the 360 port of Guitar Hero II, no Nintendo console has ever had a Guitar Hero game, and along with the Wii remote, this leads to an interesting question: is Guitar Hero III for the Wii as good as other versions?
Only if you are a graphics whore, achievements whore, or someone who loves being nickeled and dimed to death with downloadable content will this be a disappointment, because underneath, it's still the same fun game play we've grown to know and love.
Guitar Hero III brings 71 songs to the table, 46 on the main set list, and another 25 bonus tracks. Of those 71, a whopping 51 are the master recordings. Most of these are the bonus tracks, but 26 master tracks on the main set list is welcome. There's also the introduction of Battle Mode, which replaces Star Power with different weapons that can be activated to make your opponent screw up.
As for the controller, it makes good use of the Wii remote's accelerometer, wireless capabilities and rumble features, which might mean cheaper controllers for the Wii version down the road. The internal speaker is also used creatively to emit a sound when wrong notes are hit, rather than having that sound come from the TV. It's a small feature, but a nice one. Unfortunately, downloadable content is not featured on the Wii version right now, but everything is there for it to happen in the future.
Also of note is co-op career mode, which is the same basic premise as solo career mode, but splits the game play between guitar and bass or between and and rhythm guitar on certain songs. Better yet, you get to decide which part you want to play before you start up, so you may want to decide ahead of time who is going to play what.
Not much has changed since Guitar Hero II, and not much is different between the Wii version and other versions of Guitar Hero III in the game play department. Like always, the further you get into the game, the harder the songs get, so while "Slow Ride" might be easy, "Raining Blood" and "The Number of the Beast" will rip into you.
There are some issues with product placement, though, which seems to be just about everywhere. While companies like Zildjan and Guitar Center make sense because of their connection to music, companies like Pontiac don't. It's a little bit annoying, and I wish they hadn't sold out Guitar Hero so much.
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