| Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock - PS2 | 
| From: Activision Inc.
List Price: $49.99
Buy Used: $14.50
You Save: $35.49 (71%)
New (48) Used (36) from $14.50
Rating:  55 reviews
Sales Rank: 234
Platform: Playstation2
Genre: musical instrument games
ESRB: Teen
Media: Video Game
Edition: Game only
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Age: 12 - 20 years
Operating System: Playstation 2
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: 95135
Model: 95135
UPC: 047875951358
EAN: 0047875951358
ASIN: B000TGB4V4
Release Date: October 28, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | More than 70 of the most legendary rock anthems of all-time | | • | Added multiplayer modes: arcade inspired Guitar Battle and the dual shredding co-op career | | • | Challenge the legends of rock and roll in boss battles | | • | Take those axe shredding skills online and rock around the world | | • | All-new tricked out venues taking you to hell and back |
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| Accessories:
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Product Description
The third game from the Guitar Hero series is here, and ready to rock your face off. Channel your inner guitar god as you thrash your way through all sorts of venues, from hole-in-the-wall bars to sold-out stadiums. In addition to standard Guitar Hero features you know and adore, this game features all kinds of killer new options, such as the new multiplayer action-inspired battle mode, grueling boss battles, a bevy of exclusive unlockable content and authentic rock venues. Plus, the expanded online multiplayer game modes will also allow axe-shredders worldwide to compete head-to-head for true legendary rock status. Best part, of course? The new songs! Fresh downloadable content will be offered on multiple platforms, and players can now shred to a set list from many of the greatest rock songs ever recorded. Delivering more master tracks than ever before, strategic partnerships have been secured with all the major and independent music record labels and publishers to allow unrivaled access to their deep history of music catalogs, along with supplying artists' original recordings. Featured hits include: Rock And Roll All Nite (as made famous by Kiss) School's Out (as made famous by Alice Cooper) Cult of Personality (by Living Colour) Barracuda (as made famous by Heart)
Combine all this with new wireless guitar controllers available for each platform for the very first time, and you've got a game that's more than a game - it's a one-of-a-kind hard rock experience. The music will blast, the fans will scream, and your neighborhood may never sleep again! New controller models, including wireless Thrash and burn through new venues and varying levels of difficulty New playlist with awesome new songs and unlockable content Multiplayer action mode Grueling boss battles Online multiplayer mode lets you battle other rockers worldwide For use on the Playstation 2 Game System
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| Customer Reviews: Read 50 more reviews...
 Lots of Hype, Moderate Execution October 30, 2007
Kyle Slayzar (Grand Forks, ND)
49 out of 61 found this review helpful
As an big fan of the Guitar Hero games and owner of the previous three installments on the PSXII I was VERY excited for GH3. HOWEVER, after playing for a few days now I am very sad to say I'm rather disappointed as I have mixed feelings over GH3.
First off is the aesthetics looks; obviously Activision made a great effort to appeal to contemporary audiences and, from a marketing standpoint, this is very understandable. However, I feel as though the Guitar Hero franchise is now becoming a marketing tool for new bands and songs instead of following the formula of playing great songs both old and new. Granted there were many songs from the 1980s on back, but in many instances songs were from the past year or so; some were even being initially produced during production of Guitar Hero 3, which reinforces my theory.
To be fair, there were many songs I was very pleased to see make the final cut such as Welcome to the Jungle and La Grange. I'm a big classic rock fan and it was a blast playing Rock Ya Like a Hurricane. I would've chosen some different songs for say Aerosmith, Cream and The Who but you win some, ya lose some. I should also be fair in saying I did enjoy some of the contemporary works such as Priestess, I actually went out and bought their CD because I fell in love with the song they used... but that's where my love for the new songs end. They also butchered some songs, most notably The Devil Went Down to Georgia; I was skeptical at first because it's a fiddle song and my fears were confirmed as I noticed it became a death metal song. *le sigh*
Then there's the severe lack of diversity in the songs. It appears to be half death metal, half classic rock; almost all from primarily white bands. I've seen better diversity at a Trent Lott Christmas party. No Hendrix, no Stevie Wonder, no Michael Jackson, no Prince, no Rick James ("I'm Rick James!"), no Vandross, no nothing. Carlos Santana seemed to be the token minority group in the entire game, granted they did an excellent job doing Black Magic Woman and that one is probably my personal favorite to play.
The bonus songs, to me, were all worthless. It's almost all one genre; garage bands. Granted this is primarily the basis of the bonus songs in previous Guitar Hero games, however, at least Red Octane placed songs everyone could enjoy such as Dethklok and even Strong Bad. This time around, I did not find one bonus song I liked.
Then there's the layout; it's waay too contemporary for my taste. It seems to be marketed entirely to heavy metal, death metal and (dare I say) emo fans. Aside from glam rock character Izzy and Motown Xavier (which they only had one song contributing to) the characters, arenas and styles all reflected contemporary rock themes. The British Invasion is subtlety hinted although they use Weezer as an example when other songs would've personified this much better since Weezer is 30 years late. I just wish there would've been more balance between contemporary and classic. The only arena I liked was the prison, which I thought was nice.
I also thought way too much emphasis was placed on aesthetics than actual game play. The stages were beautifully done and some of the characters looked considerably better than before... but, then again, most of the time our focus is on the fret board and not what is in the background. It also made it very difficult to read points and, more importantly, star power. I had considerable trouble discerning my star power level given the new layout. The old layout from the first three installments was considerably easier to read on the fly.
Then there's the versus boss mode... which I think is the most worthless feature they included, which you are forced to do if you wish to proceed. Despite being a seasoned player, it took me several trial and error sessions to beat each boss especially the final boss Lou. It was literally a toss of the coin as half the time the boss would strike back and the other half he would not. Not to mention you have to cause the boss to fail before the music stops; you could have triple the points the boss has and still lose which is hardly how a guitar battle should be engaged. If anything, the battle should be based on points at the end of the song, which would've been great with The Devil Went Down to Georgia. I just wanted to rock dangit!!
The difficulty also seemed to be considerably off. I thought I'd start small on medium and played through the game. I noticed the first few songs were super easy, then towards it the end it got considerably harder than usual. Songs on medium seemed to be hard but without the orange button, especially on the last two genres. Particularly in the song One by Metallica, the song goes into a long solo of run-offs similar to hard if not expert songs on previous installments. While this made me a better player in the long run, it will deter casual players.
And perhaps it is just me but others and myself have noticed the screen appears smaller. I checked my screen settings and even put on widescreen mode to see what was the deal and, sure enough, the fret buttons and screen was condensed to allow the player to see the stage, characters and background better... which is kind of pointless since you're supposed to be focused on playing the game, not admiring the scenery. This made it REALLY hard to do harder songs since I had to scoot up to the screen and squint my eyes.
Lastly, there's the loading time. It is considerably longer than before due to the large emphasis on backgrounds, characters and animations instead of gameplay. For previous Guitar Hero fans this will prove to be cumbersome as you will be tempted to hit the green button thinking the game is waiting for your input when, in reality, it's still loading.
However, there are some pros. I really enjoyed the co-op career mode since I typically play Guitar Hero games with friends and this allows us to move towards an attainable goal.
All in all, Guitar Hero III could've been done a LOT better. Activision and the four million contributing companies with rock intros strayed heavily from the formula and will disillusion many long-term fans. I strongly recommend you rent this first and try Guitar Hero 2 if you really want it; the second installment is much better executed with all the features you'll really need with a diverse soundtrack.
 Disappointing November 2, 2007
John Sweet (San Francisco, CA USA)
32 out of 41 found this review helpful
My friends and I have now spent a few hours playing the PS2 version of this, and my overall take is: don't spend money on it. While there are some really good songs in the lineup (Black Magic Woman, La Grange, Holiday In Cambodia), overall the sound is mushy, making it often very difficult to follow the music.
I've only played a handful of the tunes on Hard so far, but several of the Medium-difficulty guitar and bass parts don't match the rhythm of the music well at all (the mushy sound could be a factor here).
That's pretty much the worst of it: low-fi sound and poorly-synced guitar parts. But in general, this feels like even more of a toss-off than the "Rocks The 80's" version did.
Somewhat less importantly, the avatar and venue animations are goofy (Midori... GACK), and feel cheap and sloppy compared to previous versions, which is a low bar to begin with. The biggest lose here is that the hammer-ons and pull-offs are for some reason SUPER BRIGHT compared to the other notes on the fretboard, which confused me at first.
It might be just that the PS2 port is crappy, possibly deliberately so. Another clue here is that GHIII takes at least twice as long to do an auto-save than any of the previous versions, and its memory footprint is about the same, so it's not like it's doing any more. I know that the gaming world is even more aggressive about forced obsolescence than the PC or consumer electronics worlds, but this seems like killing the golden goose, especially considering the unprecedented appeal of this game outside of the typical gameboy demographic.
Sadly, the suckage doesn't end there. The Bonus tunes, rather than being chosen by a contest, or the personal friendships and/or quirky tastes of the developers, are transparently driven by promotional considerations alone, which turns out about as you'd expect. In prior versions, I've really enjoyed discovering songs I liked from unknown acts like Shaimus, Brian Kahanek, and Bang Camaro. There's nothing like that in GHIII. All of the bonus songs I listened to were bland and forgettable ("Hey! These guys sound just like Nickelback!").
The development team clearly threw a lot of time and effort into the new "Battle" mode, but it's just not any fun to play. I watched a friend take multiple stabs at beating Tom Morello, but I couldn't really even comprehend the game, let alone devise a strategy for winning it.
Overall, it feels like they added a bunch of dumb, useless features; screwed up the ones that made the game fun in the first place; and somehow also managed to punish me for not buying a new console. I've spent $50 before now on something I enjoyed less, certainly, but I won't be buying any more Neversoft GH games. Since they're most likely abandoning the PS2 platform from here out anyway, it may be moot.
overdone, strained sequel November 1, 2007
Pascal Meunier
12 out of 14 found this review helpful
This latest installment of Guitar Hero tries too hard to outdo the previous versions. The interface is hard to read (meter, multiplier, etc...). They pop distracting balloons right over incoming notes after you hit so many notes in a row, and sometimes that's enough to make me fail a note. Some songs are so-so, were overplayed on the radio or don't sound like I expected them to. It's like the RIAA chose the songs.
Finally it plays quite differently from previous versions of GH with the introduction of "boss song battles" to unlock the next group of songs. You have to "attack" the character playing against you by tilting the guitar. Unappealing and Lame. I'm not a 12-year old. Booo! Buy the others, avoid this one.
HUGE DISSAPOINTMENT October 28, 2007
The Dude (EH CT)
11 out of 36 found this review helpful
Let me start off by saying Iam a guitar hero freak I play it all the time almost every day. Yes I guess you could call me one of those guitar hero losers.
I was anticipating this release like no other game ever I went to get the copy at a midnight opening for the game.
There are a few things different about this release from the other 3 releases. That I DO NOT LIKE , but that may differ from your opinion.
1. The game play is a lot different than the others games. There is a smaller screen to work with and they make the fret buttons smaller too.
(not to smart)
2. They will probably ruin the series by concentrating too much on the background stuff all of that has improved from previous releases but still who has time to pay attention to that stuff ?
3. On all other releases I play on hard and expert modes. But in Guitar Hero 3 like I said the screen and fret buttons are smaller so hard mode is not to much fun.
4. I dont wanna start and wars with people and their favorite bands but when it is called LEGENDS OF ROCK I cant help but wonder where is Megadeth who was on the previous two games? Where is Motorhead one of the most influential bands of all time. Where is the great Alice in Chains theres not Grundge in the game no Nirvana. But the did put some stupid bands in like Slipknot and AIF etc. are those two bands legends of rock and will we remember them in a few years probably not.
5. Something they where pretty consistent of in the other releases was the harder the song is in real life was usually later in the game / however they do have different arenas that go together with the bands but still. They made a kiss song more difficult the a Cream song c'mon.
6. There doesnt seem to be a uniqueness to any of the songs they all seem like your playing the same song. The other releases for example Stevie Ray Vaughan's Texas Flood the type of pattern you had to play made it unique and blended great with the song. In GH3 there is not to much blending it seems somewhat stale.
Some of the pros for this release
1. The music I like the fact that they picked a lot of older songs but then they did throw in some newer stuff which kinda sucked.
2. The note streak will pop up when your playing, this is a good idea which I happen to like that they added to the release.
3. Slash and Tom Morrello as characters are a great idea for new characters adding real performers.
4. The Battle mode is alright once you get the hang of it but it seems kind of out of place. When all you wanna do is just rock out.
In closing be warned if you like how the previous games where, then try to rent this game first to see if you like it, before you go out and spend your money.
My only fear is that GH series is going to end up staying in this worring about everything but the songs. They will concentrate on new challanges to be made / battle modes and background work than the actual gameplay. They should have just stuck with the orginal gameplay.
Rocking The PS2 Night Away October 31, 2007
Michael Kerner (Brooklyn, New York U.S.A.)
10 out of 14 found this review helpful
When it comes to the game systems from the last generation, the Playstation 2 has really delivered to hard core gamers young and old alike. Surprisingly, though one of the best video game franchises might have seen its final light for the PS2. With the success of Guitar Hero, many gamers have been able to really rock out loud into the night and the heart of the day. But, the last rendidition, Guitar Hero Encore: Rock's the 80's, it really didn't do the job at enticing die hard fans of the game series. Still, many gamers have been eagerly awaiting the so-called 3rd installment for the Playstation 2 and the final version for this great system of Guitar Hero. Now it is here, and here it will rock you.
Guitar Hero III for the Playstation 2 is the latest game in the successful music game franchise. The gameplay brings in some new tricks from boss battles, and some new great tracks that make you wanna rock out like the Beastie Boys rap classic Sabatoge, Heart's standard classic Barracuda, and the classic Kiss party anthem Rock N' Roll All Night. The graphics are really great and the gameplay still remains as addictive to where Guitar Hero II really did leave off. The game is fun and addictive to new gamers, and die hard fans alike. Still, there are a few disadvantages to the game. One them is that I wish there could've been more boss battles than just 3. Although it is a great addition, it just could've had more. There are a few add-ons though that make up for it, including online gaming, where you now battle against your foes through the PS2 online, and new venues to rock out loud too.
All in all, Guitar Hero III is a great game for new gamers for the Playstation 2. Sadly, with the end of the PS2 era, this might be the last time gamers will be able to rock on this great system, and have to get the PS3 for the next rendition of Guitar Hero IV. I still think it is a great game though, but gamers could've had more to rock with.
Graphics: B
Sound: B+
Price: B
Fun & Enjoyment: B- for solo play; B+ for multiplayer action
Overall: B-
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