GUITAR Hero 3: Legends Of Rock (£69.99, *****) has just hit the shelves.
I was a huge fan of the first games and have played them to death. This new title, which I've been checking out on my Xbox 360, sees the optional addition of a wireless guitar so that you can extend your performance to jumping up and down on the sofa
or trying to show off by playing it behind your neck. Activision has added a few new twists to its already excellent format. Once again you choose one of several characters and work your way through a number of venues by playing four of five songs as well as you can. You don your guitar peripheral, hold down the coloured buttons and strum in time to the music. I am proud to say that I have even progressed to playing the game on 'hard' mode. This gets pretty challenging by the time you reach the seventh venue.
Songs are varied and include ones from Pearl Jam, Muse, and Foo Fighters and there's even some Guns N' Roses in there for people who prefer their rock a bit more retro. There are also some bonus tracks from bands such as the Kaiser Chiefs.
There is one thing I was disappointed by and that was the downloadable content. I added the Foo Fighters pack to my collection for about four quid and this only came with three songs that were just not much fun to play. Also, the audio levels were all over the place.
New to this game is 'Boss Battles' where you must play against legends such as Slash and even play an encore alongside them. In Battle mode you play for battle power instead of star power and you can throw very unsporting spanners in the works such as broken strings, double notes and even left handed play. This is fun but even in multiplayer it's much better playing a classic face-off or a duet in Career mode.
The game also sounds a lot better this time around as most of the tracks are the originals. It looks better, too, with the characters lip-syncing to the tracks even better than Girls Aloud. It's a massive leap in graphic quality if you compare it to Guitar Hero 2. The fret board is much clearer to see and it's also at a slightly different angle.
Thankfully this change has got rid of that feeling of motion sickness and that weird crawling sensation you used to get when you looked away and stared at something still in the room.
This game is great fun, and a great addition to the already successful series. I only worry that it will be blown out of the stadium when Rockband is released from EA, but for now it's the best interactive music game of its type on the market.
