Guitar Hero III Review - Rock out with your Sock out!

Hey, wannabe Rock Heroes! If you've been itching to take your air guitar skills to the next level, then by all means, rush on out and purchase Guitar Hero III. The folks from Harmonix have stepped aside and given the reigns over to ActiVision fully, which usually spells disaster for a game title franchise, but not the case, with this gem of a game!

Back are the Star Power features, the cascading scoring system, the fret board engine that we are all familiar with, and love! The Graphics and Characters get minor tweaks and overall improvements to their look, and additional costumes!However, now they've added some great additions!

For example, before the songs were not the actual recordings, but they were mock ups covers of the original songs. Now, many of the songs in guitar heror, vocal tracks, drum beats, etc, were actually taken from the original 5 track masters, which makes for a more vibrant experience! When you play "Sunshine of your love" by Cream, you get Eric Claptons original licks. Apparently, bands and record companies caught on to the Success of Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero II, and now they want to play ball! Which is awesome! Hearing Pat Benatar is always better than faux Pat Benatar.

Also, celebrities are now in the mix. Former GnR guitarist and current Velvet Revolver, Slash as well as Audio Slave's Tom Morello are featured characters, who you can do 'battle' with at various stages of the game!

Also, and this is what makes Guitar Hero absolutely awesome... a new wireless guitar controller. This was what really set this game apart originally. Harmonix took the concept of "Air Guitar" and turned it into an actual game! And to me that is genius. Sure we have had peripheral game controller for fishing rods and for guns (I still love Duck Hunt), but none have had the same coolness factor as the Guitar! This is have the fun of Guitar hero is pretending to Rock out like your favorite Guitar heroes, as you play along to their songs! Now, if you have your old Controller, like me, you can still buy the game, like I did. However, you can go out and buy some of the newer versions that are wireless, and they are even selling stick on labels designed by the likes of the Smashing Pumpkins and Van Halen!

All in all, this is a great game, and a ton of fun! It's not a game to immerse yourself in for months like say, Oblivion or World of Warcraft. It might just take you a couple of nights on the console to best it, but it definitely worth it!