[Grant]

This week's review -- Guitar Hero III. This review will be most useful for the 12 of you nationwide that wanted this game but haven't yet picked it up. As always, measure this review against others to determine your long-term happiness. Complaining about my reviews after they have been posted will result in the austere sound of silence.

GUITAR HERO III
Publisher: Activision / Red Octane
Adjusted Score: 4/5


Musical rhythm-based games and I have long had a gentleman's agreement -- which is, as long as you stay far the hell away from me, you can continue to suck as much as you want to and nobody need be injured. That informal detente lasted until well into 2005, until somebody I knew had the unmitigated gall to press a ridiculous looking plasticky guitar controller into my hands and demand I press its garishly-colored buttons in time with White Zombie's "Thunderkiss '65". This began the first of many allowances of this genre into my home, and I find myself now surreptitiously protecting my geek street cred by putting my plasticky guitars into large bins clearly marked "PORNOGRAPHY: KEEP OUT" on them.

So yes, I love Guitar Hero. And if that somehow makes you respect me less, then what can I say? Oh yeah -- "shut the f*ck up, tardo."

Ahem.

Regardless of the love that dare not speak its name, I also know full well that Activision is the place where franchises go to be bent over and anally invaded on an annual basis. So when I heard that Harmonix had fled their plasticky-guitared child to spawn Rock Band, I immediately feared that the series would descend into the kind of Hell that gave birth to Tony Hawk XXVIII and other abominations. It quite says it all that I fully expected Activision to completely dick this entire series up with the aplomb of a middle-aged hairy male porn star... and I'm wildly pleased they didn't. I can't explain why not monkeying with a winning formula is a positive in Guitar Hero and a negative in Madden, but it is, so just deal with it.

Activision's Guitar Hero III never tries to reinvent the wheel, which this year is viewed as a positive but in future years may prove a detriment (see also: Hawk, Tony). The overall scheme of "band works it way up from crappy venues to full-fledged arenas playing guitar-driven cock-rock" is still very much in effect, and since the clubs and bars are more detailed there's actually a lot more to be pleased with. The character models look a little bit more fleshed out, yet just as cartoony as previous editions. In addition, the game itself boasts a library of over 70 licensed songs, most of which are master-track recordings of the original artists. The upside of that decision is I will no longer have to take the risk of accidentally hearing the terrible rendition of Kurt Cobain in Guitar Hero II ever again, courtesy of a singer that should be kicked repeatedly in the babymaker. And let us never speak again of the knowledge that Bret "SUUUURE I have real hair under this bandanna" Michaels is the character model for the singer. The less you know of this process, the better.

But let's talk negatives, shall we? And let's start with the aforementioned plasticky guitar. This year's model of Les Paul is actually a solid piece of weighty merchandise, but in adult hands as large as mine it still ends up feeling more like Ukelele Hero, and I'm hardly the next coming of Yao Ming. When you compare this guitar to the one packed in with Harmonix's Rock Band, it truly feels like a toy... and thus sort of ruins the illusion of truly playing an instrument. Add to this the injury after the insult in that many of GHIII's guitars are actually showing up damaged and buggy, and you may do well to buy an offbranded third-party axe until Activision can figure out what the hell's going on.

The music is shockingly good, although I'd say the most common complaint is that it tends to skew heavily towards male artists, and (as other reviewers have so kindly pointed out) predominantly white male artists. Still, I consider that a minor complaint at best, unless you're one of those gamers that's wracked with The White Guilt™ about the fact that we've been stealing black music for years now without giving proper credit where credit is due. In fact, I'd go so far as to say the best unintentional side-effect of the unholy alliance Red Octane has made with Voldem- er, sorry, Activision, is that Activision has millions of dollars to pump into the music machine to get solid first-run songs. You end up with a better song list than Rock Band for it, and ultimately that's what ends up selling this game as a better alternative. (That, and the fact that Harmonix's lead developers were all smoking crack when they priced RB at $170 retail.)

The game itself is fun, but it's the kind of uneasy unpublic fun that you probably don't want to advertise to people that already know you play videogames, as it makes them think you are crazy and thus likely to snap and bludgeon people in the neck with rakes at any sudden provocation. Because of that, you probably want to take advantage of the online portion, which is (shockingly) somewhat lag-free on XBL. The only problem I've seen with this is it's somewhat difficult to find specific friends to organize tournaments, but workarounds exist to fill the gaps and all in all work well. Or, y'know, play a face-to-face showdown with your friends, as that functionality is also available.

Now before I go, let's take a moment to address the whole "if you're going to play Guitar Hero, then you should learn to play a guitar" thickheaded morons for a minute. And I think I speak for fans of both genres when I say that you should go leap into a volcano. Playing a plasticky guitar isn't any single thing like playing an actual guitar, and what's more, it never should be. Nothing pisses me off more than marginalizing someone's pastime by inferring it's simpler than it really is, and the aforementioned belief that someone who rocks a plasticky guitar to "Bulls On Parade" would be better served learning an actual instrument manages to marginalize both gamers as well as guitarists. So I suppose the easiest thing to say to those people would be, "Go play for the NFL instead of playing Madden" or "Learn how to drift your car around hairpin curves instead of playing Need For Speed." Or, in place of either of those arguments, just say "shut the f*ck up, tardo", which I find ultimately more succinct and infinitely more satisfying.

Guitar Hero III is a solid purchase this year, and while we all look forward to the future whoring of this franchise via the Activision Bastardization Machine, this year rest assured that it will not disappoint. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to go be lame. And if you don't like it, what can I say?

Oh yeah. "Shut the f*ck up, tardo."