Guitar Hero III vs. Rock Band

Playing a real instrument is hard, impossibly so for most. That’s why the Rock Gods granted us Guitar Hero III and Rock Band. The question is, which game rocks hardest? If you have a ton of cash and want to save some reading time, getting them both buys you the best of both worlds. For those who can choose only one, there’s a pretty clear winner.

Both games were tested on the Xbox 360 for this review. The main difference between the two consoles is that Rock Band for the PS2 comes with a wireless guitar while the 360 version has a wired version (in fact, all the components in the Rock Band kit are wired).

The Gear
These games would both be worthless without the pack-in instruments, and while Rock Band kills Guitar Hero III in terms of quantity, there are some real qualitative issues to consider. Obviously, the drum kit and microphone that come with Rock Band aren’t comparable to anything since Guitar Hero III focuses on guitars only, and fortunately both of those components are great. The microphone is a decent Logitech USB model that has enough just enough heft to feel substantial. It does a great job of tracking pitch and is also used as a tambourine during portions of certain songs so the singer doesn’t get too bored during the other solos.

The drums are pure awesome. While the Web is abuzz with tales of broken kits, ours worked perfectly out of the box and a pair of real wooden drumsticks is included. The drums are very responsive, although getting used to the feel of the bass pedal takes some real work, and although the pads all sit at the same height, unlike a real kit, it’s easy to sit and rock out with some practice. The only downside is that the sound of wooden sticks hitting plastic makes a lot of noise, none of which sounds like real drums. As long as you are able to crank the music (or play with headphones) this isn’t an issue, but it can be a real game-breaker if you’re drumming with a beginner who clacks out a horrific beat.

Unfortunately, the guitars for both games have different strengths and weaknesses so your preference will depend on your skill level and play style. Guitar Hero III features a wireless guitar modeled after the classic Gibson Les Paul, while Rock Band’s wired guitar apes the Fender Stratocaster. Everyone who tried both agreed that the Stratocaster looked nicer and was much more comfortable to hold. The body and neck of the Les Paul is much thicker than that of the Strat, and the body has a sharp edge that really makes your arm hurt after extended play sessions. Apparently this is an issue with the real-life Les Paul as well, but this is one case where realism isn’t appreciated.

In terms of actually playing, the GHIII guitar blew the Rock Band guitar out of the stadium. It has vastly superior fret buttons that are easy to press, don’t make loud clicking noises, and have a low profile that allows for super-fast button-mashing. The center fret is also marked with raised bumps that provide terrific tactile feedback if your fingers start to stray.

The frets on the Strat also have bumps on the middle button, but they are so small as to be nearly worthless. The frets also make a lot of noise and require far more pressure to depress than do those on the Les Paul, which makes it tougher to perform slides, hammer-ons, and pull-offs. An extra set of fret buttons further down the neck that can be tapped without having to strum during certain sections ended up being a rarely-used gimmick, as did the effects switch. This switch lets you change the sounds produced by the whammy bar, but has no in-game use in terms of scoring.

Then there are the strum bars. We thought the virtually silent strum bar used in the Rock Band guitar would be superior to the noisier one in the GHIII guitar, but it turns out that for most people the clicking noise offers helpful feedback, leaving the Strat strum bar feeling mushy and imprecise.

Overall the guitars were both suitable for the easy and medium difficulty levels, but beyond that the overall imprecision of the Strat became apparent while the Les Paul continued to be an outstanding performer. Comfort issues aside, the Les Paul is the most accurate guitar released so far, and the fact that it’s wireless on the 360 while the Strat is not seals the deal.

Something to note is that the Guitar Hero III guitar will work with Rock Band, but the Rock Band guitar will not work with Guitar Hero III because Activision decided to lock out all guitars but its own. The ideal setup is to buy both games, use the Guitar Hero III guitar to play lead in Rock Band, and relegate the Rock Band guitar to bass duties as the bass tracks tend to be easier to perform than the lead tracks.

The Games
Even the best peripherals on earth are worthless unless there’s a good game to take advantage of them, and these are two entirely different beasts. The original Guitar Hero ramped the difficulty level up nicely, while the second and third (Rock the 80s) created a fairly big gap between medium and hard. This release takes the overall difficulty level to a new extreme, and for most people who tried it the game was often either too easy or too difficult. The game loves throwing in chords that use three frets instead of the typical two, for example, and many of the solos look like pure chaos to the average player. During testing there were several requests to hook up the old PlayStation 2 and play the first three games because so many of the songs were simply more fun to play.

Tracks in Guitar Hero III are still unlocked in the same way, requiring players to burn through several songs to unlock the next tier. This was acceptable before, especially when completing a tier unlocked an encore performance, and the new addition of boss battles after certain tiers was supposed to spice things up further. Unfortunately these sections serve only as frustrating barriers that break up the flow of the game. Battles involve playing a song alongside an AI opponent, and perfect play during certain sections lets you unleash powerups that cause the AI player to miss notes in various ways. The bad part is that the opponent can curse you in the same way, making you fight the controls instead of jamming to some music. This sounded like a good idea on paper, but the implementation is terrible.

Rock Band reaches back to the roots of the Guitar Hero series by keeping the difficulty to manageable levels while still offering enough of a challenge to give the game some legs. Guitar Hero experts may find Rock Band too easy for their tastes, but average and even good players universally found that Rock Band hit the sweet spot. Most of the tracks feel much more natural to play than do the frenetic mixes found in the upper difficulty levels of Guitar Hero III. Unlockable tiers are still used to gradually introduce players to songs with higher difficulties, but replayability is through the roof thanks to separate campaigns for singers, drummers, and guitarists.

Rock Band also looks much better than Guitar Hero III, incorporating fantastic animation and slick menus. Both games offer online play, but once again Rock Band provides the better experience since you can sing, drum, or strum. While the online components are welcome additions to the Guitar Hero series and a nice to have in Rock Band, they are pathetic substitutes for getting a bunch of friends together and rocking out in the same room. Rock Band is the clear winner in this regard, and because there are so many different things to do it is far easier to get people to participate who normally wouldn’t touch a video game. Guitar Hero III still feels very much like a game, while Rock Band is an unforgettable experience.

The Tunes
Both games are absolutely packed with great tracks covering many types of music, so choosing on this basis is purely a matter of personal taste. There are many more master tracks included than has been the case in past games, and although there is some overlap between the two games one will have a master track compared to a cover in the other so both are worth checking out. The real draw here is that there are already plenty of downloadable tracks for both games and many more are promised in the future, so you’ll probably run out of money before you run out of songs. The cover tracks are a mixed bag in terms of the vocals (Ozzy Osbourne is a tough act to follow, for example), but the instrument tracks sound great in both games.

And the Winner Is
There’s no overlooking Rock Band’s high price. If you’re on a budget, don’t care about drums, or don’t care about singing you’re better off getting Guitar Hero III for the superior guitar and then buying Rock Band as a standalone game so you can complete the guitar campaign. Those caveats aside, Rock Band belongs in your living room. It gets the same sorts of reactions that the best Wii games do – people initially mock it, then they get sucked into “just one try” by the seeming simplicity. The next thing they know it’s three in the morning, and as they’re shaking the cramps out of their fingers they can’t even complain about the pain because they’re hoarse from so many hours of singing and laughing. It’s one of the few gimmick games that offers enough entertainment value to justify its price tag, so get a few friends to chip in if need be and rock on.

Guitar Hero III
Rating: 8.5
Pros: Excellent wireless guitar; the series finally gets downloadable tracks; comes with a good mix of songs
Cons: Seemingly designed to cater only to expert players; boss battles are implemented poorly; presentation is lacking, even compared to GHII

Rock Band
Rating: 9.0
Pros: Local multiplayer doesn’t get much better than this; great for all ages and backgrounds, tons of variety thanks to multiple instruments; excellent presentation
Cons: Wired component; guitar stinks compared to the GHIII Les Paul