Guitar Hero 3, for the Nintendo Wii, Rocks!

I got this game as a X-mas gift, and I've spent several hours playing it thus far. I made it through all the songs on Easy, half of the songs on Medium, and half of the songs on Hard...just to give you an idea of my experience level with the game (i'm no guitar hero master like a lot of people I know, or people i've seen playing it on you tube).

Gameplay

The game is played with a plastic wireless guitar (thanks to the fact that you plug your Wii controller into the guitar to use it). The game comes with some cool stickers that you can stick on your guitar if you want(stars, flames, rock symbols, Gun's n' Roses logo...etc). Once you get your guitar all plugged in and ready to go, you can start playing (and if you are a beginner like I was, start with the Easy level of difficulty).

Guitar Hero 3 is played as if you are the lead guitarist of a rock back. You play the guitar track of well known songs by strumming your guitar with (if you're right handed) your right hand, and fretting the guitar by pressing different colored buttons at the same time. All the while you are pressing the buttons and strumming your guitar, you have to watch these little circles as they scroll down the screen. As the circles come to a line on the screen, this is when you press the correct colored button, and strum the guitar. If you mess up, the Wii remote will make the sound of a missed note. It's somewhat like Dance Dance Revolution, if you have played that before. The game gets harder and harder and you play through song after song...and make it through without getting boo'd off stage (by making too many mistakes).

Now that you've got a basic understanding of how this game is played, let's talk about the different game modes you can play.

Star Power

First you need to know about star power. You get star power when you complete a series of notes in a row without missing. The notes will be shaped as stars as you play them...instead of the regular circle shape. To use star power, tilt your guitar back. What it does, is double your score as you're playing, for a short period of time. The screen and notes you have to play will turn a blue-ish color, until star power wears off. Using this at the right time of a song will really boost your score.

Career Mode

This is the main mode of the game...where you start out playing slower paced songs in a backyard bash. In Easy mode, you have to pass 3 of the 4 songs in the first group to be able to move on to the next "gig". As you play on, you'll play at bars, jails, Japan, a commercial filming set...and even your own huge rock concert. Along the way, you'll have to battle bosses in guitar battles, such as Slash from Guns n' Roses. These boss battles are different from playing the regular songs, in that you have to force your opponent to mess up by hitting them with different power up items. You gain these items by completing different series of notes played with your guitar, during the battle. To use the power ups, you tilt your guitar back...and your opponent gets zapped with Double Notes (forces them to play double notes, instead of single ones), Whammy Bar (forces them to hit the wammy bar on the guitar a bunch of times before they can start playing their guitar again), Amp Overload (makes the notes they have to play on the screen flash...making it harder to play each note at the correct time)..etc. Career mode is over once you finish all of the songs, and defeat the last boss (i'll leave that for you to discover on your own).

Co-op Career Mode

You can play the career mode with a friend, as one person plays lead guitar...and the other plays rythem guitar (basically just 2 different parts that complement one another). There are a few differences when playing co-op career...such as there are no boss battles, and your partner will sometimes play bass guitar.

Battle Mode

This mode can be played either with 2 players playing head to head at home...or you can go online and battle people over the Nintendo WFC connection! You log on and specify what type of skill level you want to play at, and how many songs to play against your opponent. The goal here is the same as when battling a boss in career mode...make them mess up, using your power ups! This can be a lot of fun, especially playing your friends in person. A lot of time you'll go online and everyone you play will be way too good...not giving you a chance to win.

Star Ratings

Each time you complete a song, you'll be given a star rating. 3 star is the worst, and 5 star is the best (1 or 2 star would mean you messed up too much and never even made it to the end of the song).

Guitar Center

Yes, you can go to the "store" in Guitar Hero 3, and buy new guitars/outfits/bonus songs you can play...even videos that show how they created parts of the game. The guitars/outfits don't power you up in any way...they're just for fun...something extra they threw into the game to make it a little bit "cooler". By the way, you earn money to buy things from the store each time you pass a song in Career Mode (you'll get more money if you do better and get a higher star rating on a song).

Extras

-My old roomate is a Nintendo Rep, and told me that sometime in 2008 they will start offering new songs that you can download onto your Wii and play on Guitar Hero 3.

-There is also an "Expert" skill level that you can play...and it lives up to it's title. It feels like you are really playing the song on a real guitar (in a way)...and sometimes feels like its even more complicated playing the song on Guitar Hero 3 than it would be to play the song in real life!

Conclusion

Overall I've really enjoyed this game thus far. I've been playing guitar for about 6 years (still not very good at it), and on the Hard level, it is a real challenge to make it through each song without getting boo'd off the stage. The replay value is endless with this game...especially playing battles with your friends...or playing to co-op mode. This game is so popular that it's getting close to becomming an official national pastime. Bars hold "Guitar Hero Nights" instead of karaokee nights now. It's an insanely popular game that I think all ages could enjoy.