Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock arrived in October 2007 with a plastic guitar, a stack of master tracks, and a boss fight against Slash. It was the first game in the series made by Neversoft, after Activision bought RedOctane and MTV Games bought Harmonix, the studio that had built the series. That handoff could have gone badly. It did not.
Trailer, via redoctanestore.
Neversoft Takes Over From Harmonix
The series changed hands and kept its footing. Neversoft developed Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, and Activision published it worldwide in October 2007 for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii. Aspyr handled the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X versions, which came later in 2007. Vicarious Visions and Budcat Creations also worked on the game.
It is the third main installment and the fourth overall in the Guitar Hero series. The basic play is unchanged: you hold a guitar-shaped controller, hit the strum bar while pressing the matching colored fret buttons, and keep time with notes scrolling toward the bottom of the screen. The game covers lead, bass and rhythm guitar parts.
Star Power, Hammer-Ons and the Performance Meter
The mechanics underneath that loop are where the game earns its keep.
Notes can be sustained, held until complete, and they can form two- to four-note chords. Rapid runs simulate hammer-ons and pull-offs, letting you skip strumming on marked notes. Miss a note and the performance meter drops; drop it too low and you fail the song, with the band booed off the stage.
Ten correct notes in a row earn a score multiplier, stacking up to four times. Starred note sections build Star Power. Activate it — tilt the guitar vertically or press a button — and the multiplier doubles again. While Star Power runs, the meter climbs faster on correct notes and missing costs you less.
Four difficulty levels shape the climb:
- Easy, which uses three fret buttons.
- Medium, which uses four.
- Hard, which uses all five.
- Expert, which adds no new buttons but increases the number of notes.
A Setlist Built on Master Tracks
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock carries over 70 songs, most of them master tracks rather than covers. The list runs from Heart’s “Barracuda” to the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage” to Kiss’s “Rock and Roll All Nite.” That range matters. A setlist that jumps between those three acts is not chasing one audience.
The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions let players download additional songs. The PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360 versions support online multiplayer — a first for the series.
Boss Battles and the Co-Op Career
Single-player Career returns, joined by a new Co-Op Career mode. Competitive challenges put players against in-game characters and against each other, and a multiplayer battle mode borrows the shape of an action game. Split-screen and co-operative play are both in.
Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave appears in the game, as does Slash of Guns N’ Roses. Both can serve as boss opponents. The venues are modeled on real rock rooms, and the game doles out unlockable content across its modes.
Where the Difficulty Curve Bites
Expert is the mode that decides how long this game stays in the console. It adds no new fret buttons — it just asks for more notes in the same space, and the jump from Hard is where the series stops being a party trick and starts being a skill.
The battle mode is the weaker addition. Pitting players against in-game characters is a fine novelty, but it wears thin. It is a feature, not a reason to buy.
The online multiplayer is the more consequential change. It is the first time the series let players compete against strangers rather than the person holding the second controller. That is the feature that extended the game’s life past the couch.
What the 8.4 Says
An 8.4 out of 10 from six outlets is a strong score with a caveat attached. It is not a perfect game, and the aggregate reflects that. The battle mode drags. The Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X versions arrived later than the console releases.
What holds the score up is the foundation. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock took a proven loop, added online play and a co-op career, and put master tracks behind it. Neversoft inherited Harmonix’s design and did not break it.
The setlist is the real argument. More than 70 songs, most of them master recordings, is a statement about what the series was willing to pay for. “Barracuda,” “Sabotage” and “Rock and Roll All Nite” in one game is a range worth noting.
The Case for the Third Entry
Downloadable songs on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, online competition on three systems, and a co-op career that gave two players a reason to stay in the same room — those are the additions that outlasted the novelty of the battle mode, and they are what the series kept building on.
The 8.4 is fair. The battle mode is a footnote. The online play is why this one still gets talked about.
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