Mini-review: Guitar Hero 3 (360)

I picked up GH3 late last week. The title's been written up to death, so I'll give a very brief 'mini-review' of my impressions:

Good:

• Better track selection than the first, my guess is because of the increased attention and budget, plus the 'arms race' (perhaps neck-and-neck race would be a better metaphor) with Rock band.
• The highlighting/hinting of notes that can be hammer-ons or pull-offs is a nice bit of polish and for me anyway, really useful.
• The cutscenes are appropriately tongue-in-cheek.
• I like the wireless guitar. Some have reported problems with it, but I haven't seen any.

Bad:

• I *hate* the boss battles. I think they ruin the illusion of Guitar-god-fantasy, and in career mode they are so infrequent that it's difficult to ramp the difficulty in a meaningful way. As a result, the powerups seem random, and strategy is non-obvious.
• The go-go girls are unneeded and make what was previously a broaden-the-audience title and make it less so. I blogged about this before.

That's it. If you liked GH2, you'll like GH3 is I guess the super-short review :-)

Activision taking the low road with Guitar Hero III

Arg! It's not enough that Sony's peeing in the pool, but Activision has to add to the melange?

This from Joystiq (via Raph):

They fully updated the graphics, including doing motion capture for the avatars, and the NPCs in the background, like the go-go girls in the stage that’s set in a strip club. Neversoft has a full-sized motion capture studio at their facility in California, so why not make good use of it? Especially if you have to mocap some strippers. Tough work, this rock stuff. Based on what we saw, the dancers will be giving Soul Calibur a run for the money. Jiggle factor five, Mr. Sulu.

Thanks, Activision! At least I know have my decision made easier for me. Rock Band it is!