Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock

Year: 2007
Developer: Neversoft
Publisher: Activision
Console Played: Playstation 3

As a technical exercise the Guitar Hero games do accomplish something. Not only did they restore faith in multi-console peripheral driven gaming, but they genuinely fooled... Ahem, appealed to music fans and helped aid their delusions of grandeur that they could solo like Dragonforce too if they wanted. The guitar shaped controller is quite nice, and it does indeed respond well to it's on screen commands, so I guess Neversoft accomplished something here.

But what I find so fucking offensive about the GH and Rock Band games is that, personally I'm a musician already, and every second I spend playing fake guitar, I could be spending playing REAL guitar. Why on earth do I need to spend ages trying to pull off a Pearl Jam song flawlessly, when I could plug in my real guitar and actually try and learn and perform the real song, which to me is far more satisfying, plus it's actually something meaningful. Guitar Hero to me is just an illusion. It's a game that isn't really there. It's certainly not some kind of instructional game. If you are a master of Guitar Hero you won't suddenly be able to shred like Hendrix on an actual guitar. It actually pains me that people are willing to invest hours of agonising pain playing fake guitar, and not want to play an actual guitar. And those that do play actual guitar, should only feel less satisfied when playing this game.

So yeah, nice soundtrack I suppose, decent idea, and it can be mindlessly fun at times too. Now I know I could say the same thing about a football game. Why play FIFA when you could go out and kick a ball with your mates, but FIFA never fools it's audience into thinking they are actually playing football. Yet how many people are willing to invest their time on that GH controller til their fingers bleed?! Why can't they put that passion into a real guitar? That is where GH becomes this strange illusion, whilst a sports game stays rooted in the fact that you know it's just a game. And that's what I really can't stand about Guitar Hero. As a technical excercise, yes I will admit it does work incredibly well... Too well. But as a video game it is cold and flawed, and does more harm to real music than good.