Still good, but the series is losing its steam

Reviewed by Cannon Fodder on or around 17th Nov 2007

This is what happens when Guitar Hero becomes less a labor of love and more a cash cow for a big game company.
 
You get uninspired tracks (in my opinion, this is the worst song list in the history of the series . . . but I never played Rocks the 80's), too much product placement, and crash bugs.
 
I'm glad they went online with the game, but the way you play online (and the interface you need to fight through) looked like a hold-over from when online games were new to consoles in the 90's. It wasn't user-friendly at all.
 
Here's the main problem, though. The music isn't that great. I applaud Activision for getting more master tracks than any other Guitar Hero game in the series thus far, but if you're getting masters for songs that aren't fun to play . . . so what? With the last Guitar Hero games, I'd play through Medium to enjoy the songs, then move onto Hard to challenge myself. After playing this one through on Medium, I find myself lacking the motivation to play the songs again on Hard. They're just not fun as fun to play. I'd rather go back to Guitar Hero 2.
 
I found the guitar battles a nice change of pace, but I don't know if they should become a mainstay of the series. I give the game credit for its final "boss fight," though. Going up against Lou (Lucifer) in a guitar battle to the tune of "Devil Went Down to Georgia" is genius. That song seems like it was written for this game and this "fight. "