And I borrowed it from a friend. Also the worst in the series by far.
Right then, to the actual points of the review.
The first and second Guitar Hero games were very fun - the few times I played the first one I had a blast, and the second game is probably one of maybe 4 games I've clocked 100 hours on with the 360.
The third one on the other hand?
It is a glitchy, derivative, lazy, boring imitator.
Graphics-
Everything is very shiny, which is fine - if it weren't for the fact that for each detailed environment, there is tons of advertising (does anyone else see the irony of having Axe go-go dancers while playing Holiday in Cambodia?) and the character models are crap. Some of the environments are nice, but others are a bit lackluster or lazy.
They took out some of the good characters, turned on the "prostitute" switch for the female characters, and made the rest of the characters look like complete idiots. The animations are not all that better - the guitarists move about and are animated, but the identical crowd stands there, not doing anything. The singer flails about randomly, and opens his mouth really wide and shuts it over and over again. His head also looks like a block, and the hilarity of watching him is one of the few redeeming qualities of the game.
Sound-
Well, lots of guitar noises here. There are some good master tracks, some horrible setlist choices, and some really stupid songs. (Raining Blood, Through the Fire and the Flames). While it is nice to have some master tracks, it is cringe-inducing how bad the covers are (and some of the re-recordings).
The cover of Paranoid is reminiscent of the cover of Institutionalized from the previous game, in that the singer just kind of talks without putting any heart into it or singing. The re-recording of Anarchy in the UK also suffers from lousy singing, but the problem there is not with Neversoft so I cannot really blame them on this one. The cover of Holiday in Cambodia is well...butchered horribly, and it is a shame - great song leaving a bad impression on people due to the cover.
Stability - Not a ton of it. The game is very glitchy, with there being achievements that will unlock through easy to accidentally perform glitches, the frets will occasionally stop working or the notes will stop registering, and star power randomly activates. In addition, if you miss a note and as it goes off screen and you hit the next note, the one you missed takes priority, and the rock meter goes down.
At this point, you may be saying "You've only pointed out the fringe aspects of the game and not gotten to the core, blah blah blah I think Dragonforce is original", or something like that. So let us move along to the gameplay, which is the most important part.
Gameplay - It doesn't hold up well to previous installments. It feels like the strum note window has been tightened up, and that the Hammer-on/Pull-off window has been loosened, thus making the game a whole deal less satisfying and more frustrating. There are notes in the charts that aren't in the songs, bits where there are single hammer-ons or pull-offs that don't have any business being where they are, and songs where there should be hammer-ons or pull-offs but aren't.
The note charts are a huge problem. Neversoft tried to pick songs that would be difficult, not fun, and it shows. Section 7 of the career mode is an obvious example of what I'm about to mention - the 3-note chord fetish. For some reason, this game has a few billion 3-note chords, many of which really don't feel like they belong where they do. In previous games, a 3-note chord sounded heavier than normal notes, and they made sense for the most part. GH3 throws waves after waves of them at you in an attempt to confuse you and cripple your fingers. Sometimes they don't sound any different (Paranoid, Number of the Beast). Sometimes they aren't fun to play (3s and 7s, Before I Forget). And on one occasion, there was a shift from a two note chord to a three note chord just to go one note higher. I forget where that was, but it would be easy enough to find again.
Star Power has been rendered useless, as it lasts for about 15 seconds with the base amount and maybe 45 seconds with full. It also is less effective, as you lose rock meter faster than you gain it, even with star power on.
The difficulty here is something to note - maybe it is just that I've finally gotten decent at these games, but GH3's career was a lot easier to get through than GH2s. Before getting to Devil Went Down To Georgia, I had only failed 5 times - not five songs, five times overall. The Boss Battles are the only really difficult part, which was where I had failed the majority of songs which I failed . The career also seemed a lot shorter, because a lot of the songs were not very memorable. Most of it was just endless chord-work, nothing really fun to play. The only songs which I can remember playing are My Name is Jonas, all of section 5, Cult of Personality, and all of Section 8. The rest all seem kinda hazy.
There is just one more point I need to make here.
Boss battles suck. They were a bad idea, and they were executed badly. The first two are brief, mildly amusing interludes that just seemed like a mini-game that had a slight amount of novelty, but nothing you'd really want to play again. I have no problem with the first two, because they were short, easy, optional, and despite myself, I found myself having a bit of fun with them.
The third boss battle pops up, and I am at loss for words that this website won't censor. It is 75% luck and 25% skill, adding up to 100% crap. By the time you get your second battle gem, the devil has gotten four of them. You get the harder song track (for the most part), and battle powers are completely ineffective against the devil except if you have multiple at the same time. Amp Overload and Lefty Flip seemed to not do anything, as the devil still hits all the notes. There is a delay between when you use an ability and when it actually takes effect, which is infuriating because if you use them too soon, they won't do anything, and if you use them too late - again, they won't do anything.
All in all, Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock (if it is legends why is Tenacious D in this game?) leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. It has none of the fun from the previous games, and introduces a huge mess of problems that hopefully will be rectified with Guitar Hero 4.
But they probably won't be. Not with Activision and Neversoft running the franchise into the ground, with all the problems mentioned before, the mostly pop music soundtrack of GH:OT, the fact that GH:AS uses the GH3 engine, and that GH4 is ripping off Rock Band.
In short:
The good: Hilariously bad animations. Has online (which I have only played a few times, having had problems and no fun with it). Co-op career is nice.
The bad: Everything else.
Thank you for reading.