Well, perhaps. However, it doesn’t even compare to any of its predecessors. Apparently our friends at Activision have dropped the ball.

New GH3 Drummer

First off, the graphics. Not much to say here, though I don’t like the star power meter, I find it harder to see my Star Power while playing. It seems that they made the notes really bright and annoying, and removed any and all contrast from the rest of the interface so I can’t see anything. Additionally, though the character graphics are spiffed up a bit for the newer generation systems, they’re nothing special. I will say that the drummer is a machine. Machine, not in that he has high endurance, but his movements resemble that of Johnny 5 from Short Circuit. Also, despite his huge chin, the vocalist isn’t too good at lip synching either.

Audiophile-level Sound Quality

Looks aside, the real flaws lie within the gameplay itself. While there isn’t much different with the way songs are played from the previous version, the songs themselves are shitty. First off, pretty much every song sounds the same, plays the same, looks the same. I couldn’t tell the difference between any of the European Invasion songs, as well as half of the rest of them. Additionally, the songs are transcribed poorly. In Guitar Hero 2 you had a great tracklist, with unique songs that were fun to play. In this, the songs are boring repetitive two or three note chords with little variation. There are only a few notable exceptions to this, including the songs by Muse, Eric Johnson, Metallica and Dragonforce. Even the Tenacious D song was not any fun to play.

Sound wise, this game is terrible. At first, I thought it was just the settings on the TV or something, but nope. Probably a combination between an attempt to achieve a realistic “Live Sound” and the fact that the cover band used for the game was actually fronted by the 13 year old son of one of the developers, trying to “make it big” after taking approximately three guitar lessons. Instead, all I can hear is some indecipherable trebly noise mixed with the same yelling crowd looping over and over.

If you are among the unlucky saps who bought the game already, here is a suggestion: Keep the Les Paul, because admittedly, it’s worth more than the game, and you can use it for Rockband/GH2 (maybe). Tape the GH3 disc to your ass and use it to make playdoh shit cylinders, because that is all that is useful for.