Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Highly addictive"

I hate change. When I hear about major changes, I run into my room and cry. So when I heard about the change in companies for Guitar Hero, I assumed it would suck. Well, I was wrong. But really, after seeing companies change in a series I used to like, can you blame me? Guitar Hero 3 went through a graphics change, so it wasn't completely left alone.

Story:
Really? Do you need to know? Most of the time, I don't what's going on. As far as I know, you're part of a band. You play in random places, but soon end up in Hell fighting the Devil. I don't know how that happened either.

Gameplay:
Pick a character, pick a guitar, pick a stage, pick a song, start playing. Timing is key. Most (or all) of your attention will be on the fret board. You will have to time strumming the guitar controller (or ps2 controller if you're poor) with the notes. Your rock gauge shows how well you are doing. Missing notes lower the gauge, but making notes will rise it again. Some notes come in stars, hitting these notes rise your star power. Activate star power will double your points and rise your rock gauge faster. There are different modes of play. Career mode allows you to unlock songs. But I never could beat it on hard. The last section is impossible, and don't tell me you did it on expert with 100%, because that's insane! I tried as hard as i could, but I could never beat 'One' (Metallica). No man should be able to beat the career on hard, because that's insane (and no, I'm not insane... at least I don't think). There are also guitar battles with a friend, which suck. Some power ups are too over powered, which result in killing too easily. If you really need to make the game evil, you can play 'Through the Fire and the Flames' (Dragonforce). If you can play it on higher then medium, get a life. Playing co-op is a cool thing that they added.

Graphics:
A little stiff. Characters move like they were on strings. The stages look nice, but you are not going to notice a thing past the fret board.

Sound:
The music is decent with good selections ('Rock you like a Hurricane' by the Scorpions, 'Welcome to the Jungle' by Guns N Roses), but also bad selections. The songs have been recored by different people. You can't tell me that's Alice Cooper singing 'School's Out'

Overall:
Well, if you liked the first two games, then you might like this one. It's the same game, but with minor changes. I liked it, so that might mean something.

Score: 7.6/10