A friend of mine recently scoured the downtown Toronto area in an effort to find Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock. Needless to say, he succeeded, although he was disappointed that they sold out of the game for Nintendo's Wii, and instead settled to get the game for his PlayStation 2.
Personally, I never understood the appeal of the Guitar Hero games. And I still don't. However, fearing for my friend's sanity (and eyesight) I sat by him as he “rocked out”.
As I sat there, I noticed several things. The most obvious being the music. For the most part, it wasn't anything I particularly liked. I actually found it quite disappointing that most of the songs one is expected to “play” are the ones most people are tired of hearing. Many of them have been on commercials over the years and overplayed on many “rock” stations on the radio. Kiss, Cream, Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath and Aerosmith are all featured in the game, and there are few people who don't know the songs made famous by these groups.
Where I do give the game credit is in the lesser known songs it has the player attempt. “Knights of Cydonia” by Muse, for example. I have been a fan of Muse for about 3 years now, and everyone I've mentioned Muse to would usually look at me blankly. So imagine my surprise when my buddy begins to play the song in one of the final levels!
As I paid more attention I also noticed that, when the game took his “band” to England, his set list consisted of punk songs. Knowing a relative amount of music history, I found this quite impressive (given that the punk rock movement originated in the UK). As I did some research (read the instruction manual to the game), I found that the Sex Pistols actually recorded a new version of “Anarchy in the UK” specifically for this game.
Amongst some of the other songs that had my attention during this game were “3s and 7s” by the Queens of the Stone Age, “The Metal” by Tenacious D, “Pride and Joy” by Stevie Ray Vaughn, “Bulls on Parade” by Rage Against the Machine and, by far my favourite, “The Devil Goes Down to Georgia” by Steve Ouimette (especially appropriate given one must “rock” their way through hell itself).
Although I was mildly impressed, when the end of the night came, I was no guitar hero. In all fairness, I had never even ventured to play the game. Like I said, I never saw the appeal. And I still don't. If you're a fan, by all means, go buy the game. My buddy is a huge fan and he played for 4 hours straight. So it's definitely no disappointment to those who are familiar with the franchise. However, it must be said that half the fun of games like “Guitar Hero” and “Rock Band” are the songs a gamer is expected to “play”. Although I do not know how much consideration is taken into when selecting the songs for these games, I can only say that there are a lot of great songs that can break their way into such a popular video game genre.
