Good game overall, but unfriendly new system setup, unwanted songs, and poorly-done additional features hold it back.

User Rating: 7.5 | Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock PS2
I own the first two Guitar Hero games, and I enjoy playing them. I've beaten all of the Guitar Hero games on expert. I've also been playing guitar for about five years. Guitar Hero 3 is a nice follow-up game, especially taking into consideration the fact that Harmonix didn't create it. However, the fact that Harmonix didn't create it shows all too well, as many freshman mistakes and poor decisions went into this game.

Guitar Hero 3 features an onslaught of impressive songs, but only about half of them warrant a spot on this game. "Paint It, Black" by The Rolling Stones is a good song, but "Sympathy for the Devl" is on the "Top 100 Greatest Guitar Solos" list. Wouldn't it make more sense to include that? It's a general rule that "Miss Murder" by AFI will not be tolerated in a game featuring DragonForce. I assumed that the point of creating a game focused on awesome guitar playing was to let people play guitar awesomely, not like an emo kid. The bonus tracks are highly laughable as they range from the incredibly easy ("Closer" by Lacuna Coil) to "not-even-a-song" songs ("Impulse") to a bunch of old foreign punk music that nobody enjoys.

And I didn't know people still liked Slipknot.

Battle mode feels like it was tacked on by Neversoft when they realized how great Rock Band would be. There are only three boss battles which aren't even relevant to the story; apparently, Tom Morello goes around guitar dueling people who play Pat Benatar songs? You get so little practice time in Battle Mode that it's ridiculously hard to defeat Lou in the final song.

The entire feel of the game is less friendly than in Guitar Hero I and II. Both previous games in the main series featured nice, inviting colors like tan, bright orange, and red. This installment features mostly black, grey, and blue colors in sharper images with more edges. This might not make sense to some of you, but psychology suggests that people subconsciously relate more to earthen colors and smoother, rounder graphics. This game feels more like a business, and it's hard to get attached to it. And, on the PS2 version at least, the characters are horrid looking. It's pretty disheartening to count more than 10 of the same NPC animations in the audience in this day and age.

Despite these flaws, one manages not to completely hate this game. I really enjoyed playing as Tom Morello. The added difficultly makes the later songs fun, and Through the Fire and Flames is superbly implemented. It's very fun to play.

My suggestion? Put in more guitar-oriented songs that people will feel proud to complete. And nobody will mind waiting for you to complete an additional feature instead of putting in something with great potential that fails.