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| From: Activision Inc.
Category: Video Games
List Price: $89.99
Buy New: $49.95
You Save: $40.04 (44%)
New (18) Used (2) from $49.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  184 reviews
Sales Rank: 14
Platform: Nintendo Wii
Color: White
ESRB: Teen
Media: Video Game
Edition: Wireless bundle
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Age: 12 - 20 years
Operating System: Nintendo Wii
Size: Guitar Hero Set
Shipping Weight (lbs): 4.6
Dimensions (in): 36 x 36 x 36
MPN: 95125
Model: 95125
UPC: 085081814678
EAN: 0047875951259
ASIN: B000TGB4UU
Release Date: October 28, 2007
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
 5 for the guitar, 3.5 for the game. July 4, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
So far, every game in Guitar Hero has been immensely addictive, but each has had its own flaws: the first had a decent musical selection with fairly good covers, but the clunky Hammer-on/Pull-off system for fast notes ruined the experience on higher difficulties. Guitar Hero II fixed this problem, but was comprised mainly of poor-quality cover versions of great songs.
Enter Guitar Hero III. Most of the music tracks are now master recordings, but the art direction and the layout of the song charts have suffered under the franchise's change in developers. On the Wii, this is especially noticeable because of the system's inability to process graphics above the resolution of 480p. Fortunately for the game, this doesn't significantly detract from the experience, because you'll be keeping your eyes glued to the note chart too much to pay any sizable attention to the background graphics.
The game's difficulty curve is also one step forward and one step back--having played both Guitar Hero II and III, I can safely say that the transition from Medium to Hard difficulties will be a lot smoother for most people, as Medium now introduces Hammer-on sequences early and often; this will be beneficial to casual players who want to alternate between Medium and Hard most of the time when they play, as the only major obstacle they will have to overcome is learning the fifth fret button. However, Hard and Expert difficulties suffer from severe balancing issues--song difficulty remains fairly lenient until it hits a brick wall 80% into the game.
Battle mode is another case-in-point of positive and negative traits: while the concept sounds good on paper, attack powerups will almost always kill a player instantly on Hard or Expert, and will almost never have an affect on a player on Easy or Medium. It would have been a good idea to put a handicap on these power-ups so that their duration is reduced for players on these higher difficulties. Also, I didn't enjoy being forced into playing these battles in Career Mode--especially the final boss, because of the match's rigor compared with the rest of the songs on the same difficulty level.
The one immensely positive thing about Guitar Hero III, though, is the redesigned Les Paul controller--virtually anyone who has played the previous two titles can attest to the fact that the new one has a stronger strum bar and buttons, a more sensitive whammy bar, and is just overall much better than the instruments for Guitar Heroes I and II.
 LOVE IT! July 2, 2008
THIS GAME IS AWESOME! THE FIRST NIGHT I GOT IT I STAYED UP VERY LATE PLAYING IT. LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT!!
 guitar hero 3-fun for a variety of players! June 30, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Guitar hero III is lots of fun and my whole family enjoys it. My only complaint is the rather limited selection of music that's included.
Great game June 30, 2008
The game is really cool. I was amazed by how fast it came in the mail.
Rocking The George Formby June 30, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I bought Guitar Hero III for the Wii a couple of weeks ago. Being a competent if unremarkable guitarist I was curious to see how playing Guitar Hero compared with 'the real thing'.
My initial feelings were a) I look ridiculous playing a plastic ukulele and b) I really should be practising my guitar instead of a guitar simulator. The initial choice of songs was underwhelming; Foghat (meh), Poison (dear God no), Pat Benatar (m'kay), Cream and a few I had never heard of. On the plus side there was Alice Cooper's 'Schools Out'. (I'm always partial to a bit of vintage Vince.) After five or ten minutes figuring out how to synchronise pressing the buttons with the fingers on my left hand with pressing the strum bar with my right hand, I was away and happily playing along on the Easy Level mode.
Compare this with the learning curve when playing a real guitar. Your fingers will hurt due to the strange contortions you are forced to make, the wire strings give you calluses, and your family and neighbours may not appreciate the distorted cat-in-a-mangle noises you are making. Playing a recognisable song is really hard work.
However, learning and then playing songs is an immensely satisfying experience in both cases. You don't quite get that oomph you have with an amped up real guitar, but then the GH III ukulele won't give you backache.
There were a few minor annoyances:
1) The playlist is a bit limiting. If you like mainstream classic rock than you'll love the music in the game. The Bloc Party, Stone Roses and Kaiser Chiefs songs seem, I don't know, out of sorts; shoehorned in to appeal to those who might want to play the game but feel ambivalent about Heart, Foghat or Slayer. If you want something a bit different then you are scuppered with the Wii version since other songs cannot be downloaded. A future release that can automatically generate fingerings for any given piece of music would be fantastic, Mr Activision.
2) The avatars aren't to my taste. You have a Bruce Dickinson clone, a JPOP starlet, a Tank Girl, a Hendrix look-alike, a hair metal dolt, Lita Ford's cousin, the last Mohican in town and a KISS-esque fat bloke. The unlockable characters (El Slasho, Mr 'Look At Me Play An Air Raid Siren' Morello from Rage Against The Machine, Lou the Devil and a couple of others) are fine but... These ain't my heroes IYSWIM.
3) Likewise the other members of the band. The singer is always this funny looking bloke in a t-shirt, on bass you have this Derek Smalls/Cousin It cross and at the back beefy guy is always bashing the drums, irrespective of whether you are playing White Zombie, The Strokes or ZZ Top. Band members do tend to dress alike, yunno. If the guitarist looks like an extra from the Rocky Horror Picture show, there is an outside chance that even the brick outhouse drummer is wearing ill-advised lippy.
4) There is no room for improvisation, composition or even playing what you are hearing; you are effectively matching dots on a grid in time to music. That's more fun than it sounds, but still. The number of times I strummed the correct rhythm and got loud clunking noises for my attempts at musicianship are too many to want to recall.
Don't get me wrong - I loved the game. It is very easy to just pick up and play, which is more than you can say for a real guitar. Most will be to do the Easy Level songs without any practice, making the game a winner at parties. You can even rock out with a friend and pretend you are playing to thousands in an enormodome. (The sex and drugs part of the Rawk triumvirate are up to you.) It will inspire you to expand your musical horizons. It might even encourage you to go out and buy a guitar of your own...
Finally, the cost. The price is a bit steep, but you are getting a game that will draw you in and give you many months of gameplay, even more if you can persuade a friend or your other half to join you in the co-op career mode. The 'just-one-more-go' aspect is very high.
So is it worth the money? Yes, certainly. It's fun.
And there is a song by Dragonforce. Oh yes.
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