Guitar Hero III and Rock Band were the two hottest choices for games back in October. Fans everywhere were deciding which game to get. Wii owners had the easiest choice, as that was the only platform not supporting Rock Band. So here is the first official Box Review.
Now the story is kind of whack. I don't demerit or complement scores based on story, but I thought it would be kind of neat to point out. The way the cutsceens work is that pictures appear on screen, kind of like Pokemon. The story goes that you are a backyard band that gets popular and tours all over the place before getting sucked into Hell. Yeah.....
Now the actual gameplay hasn't really changed much. You still hit the five buttons on the guitar in unison to when that color note on the screen hits the bottom. One thing of note is now the game keeps track of your streaks, popping little messages here and there.
The guitar is really neat. Instead of black, you use a white guitar to shred. You pop the Wiimote into the guitar directly. Now you don't have to take the Wiimote out before you play the game, as you can easily use the included analog stick to act just like a classic controller. And the motion sensors control star power. The whammy bar is just as good as all of the others, but sometimes it fails to calibrate correctly, and I'm stuck with a whammy bar that is always in the down position.
The song list is the best song list I've seen ever for any game ever. Songs include Paint It Black by the Stones, When You Were Young by the Killers, and One by Metallica. But the thing that ruins the whole game is that the songs it comes with are the only songs you'll be playing. Yes, that's right, no downloadable content available for Wii owners. That brings the game down two whole points right there.
The graphics are cartoony, punk, and give an all-up-in-your-face kind of vibe to them. There is certainly no graphical spectaculars to be had. But the environments are lively, and serve great purpose to what they are, backdrops.
Multi-player is a real letdown. Not only do you have to find a friend and a separate guitar, there is also no co-op free play. The only co-op mode is the co-op career mode. And some songs can only be unlocked by playing them in the co-op career mode. The online play though is awesome! You can rock out in two to seven session play with friends and random people!
Now the thing is that there was a developer flip-flop in the system. Red-Octane, the previous developer of Guitar Hero, has now moved over to Rock Band. So that means that Activision, most famous for their Tony Hawk franchise, has taken over. They added new stuff, like online and better graphics, but they took away other stuff too. For one thing, no downloadable content on Wii! That was the thing that ruined the game for Mii, I mean me.
Graphics: 6/10 You can do better on Wii. But for what they are, they are good.
Gameplay: 9/10 Shred the guitar! But they aforementioned whammy bar isn't so hot.
Sound: 10/10 The soundtrack in this game is the best ever.
Multiplayer: 7/10 It is fun, but lack of a co-op free play brings it down.
Charm: 3/10 Just pick a song and go, nothing to look at.
Replay Value: 8/10 You could keep playing if you wanted to.
Overall: 7/10 Solid online gameplay and a plethora of songs can't make up for lack of downloadable content.
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