Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock has finally arrived, but with Rock Band on the horizon how does this new instalment fare?

For those of you new to this series, Guitar Hero is a rhythm based game with one of the coolest gaming add-ons ever, the wireless guitar. The idea of the game is to travel pubs, dives and stadiums, all while playing a set amount of songs, complete each of the songs on the set list and you may be asked to play an encore, finish this and it will be time to move onto the next venue.

Each song is represented by a large fret board in the centre of the screen, coloured icons will move down the screen in time with the music and when they pass a certain point, it’s up to you to hit the corresponding button on the guitar. This sounds nice and easy and it is to begin with, but as you up the difficulty you will soon find that you require speedy fingers to hit some of the more furious guitar solos and power chords that the heavier rock tunes throw at you. The more notes you hit in order the more you will build up your Star Power Meter, once this is full you can then point the guitar to the sky and watch as all the notes turn blue and your score rockets.

Performing well in a song will give you added benefits, such as cash to spend in the store and sponsorship, while it is not essential to use the store, it is a nice way to kit out your rock star with new clothes and guitars and also unlock new songs and even new characters.

A welcome addition to the Guitar Hero series is the face off mode, at certain parts of the game you will be confronted by a famous guitar player, who will challenge you to play against them on stage, the idea is to out play them and use power ups similar to Battle (on multiplayer) to defeat them. This really breaks up the game, but it is a shame that there are only 3 guitarists to play against.

As with previous Guitar Hero games, the layout is identical, the frets are in the centre, the stage is at the top and the star power meter is on the right hand side, along with the dreaded Rock Meter. The Rock Meter measures your performance and follows a traffic light system (red, amber and green) let the meter fall into red and its game over, its not so hard to stay in green on easy but put this game on hard and miss a few of those solos and the crowd will start booing at you as the meter creeps closer to the red side.

This game is only as good as its songs, and with over 70 to choose from and plenty more being made available online there is a great selection. To be honest, the first gig really put me off the game as the first few songs were really boring and not familiar, but thankfully, after a few gigs you open up songs from Metallica, Sex Pistols, White Zombie, Smashing Pumpkins and Pearl Jam to name a few.

Online mode has been beefed up this time around, here we have the Face Off where you play alternative parts to a song, Pro Face Off, where you play note for note, and Battle, where you get a series of notes for a song, play these right and it will give you a power up, which you can use by tilting the guitar and then watch as your opponent struggles to hit the notes. The power ups include a broken string, power surge and increased difficulty, as well as the excellent lefty flip. But be warned, what you can dish out can also be thrown back at you, so be prepared for a frenzied game. The Battle mode is a real nice touch and a good step forward in this series.

Guitar Hero III brings with it some new improved features which are a welcome addition to the series, if you own the previous version then it may not be an essential purchase, I guess it just depends how much you want the excellent wireless guitar (which feels very well built) and the new songs which come with this game. I for one feel that Guitar Hero III is a brilliant game to add to any collection, but that’s only my opinion, what’s yours?