I Wanna Rock And Roll All Night

.....and party every day.

I'm a wannabee guitar player. More specifically...electric guitar player. My wife had bought me an acoustic guitar many years ago but I just couldn't get into it. Excuse time: I was getting free lessons from a co-worker but we weren't playing songs that I really cared for. However, because of the guitar expense and the unused guitar sitting in the basement...I've been cut off from future electric guitar purchases. Probably a good thing because this wouldn't be the only time I had picked up a hobby and let it fall by the wayside. This doesn't stop me from entering all those internet contests for a free guitar though.

I picked up GH3 sans guitar yesterday. I had preordered at my local gamestop to make sure I got a copy on release day. When I went in to get it, they actually didn't have a preorder of GH3 for me, but instead they had a preorder of GH2. Yeah...they messed up but they did have 1 unclaimed game-only 360 copy in cabinet that they gave me. I feel sorry for the guy who was supposed to get that copy.

I bought only the game because I already have 2 guitars from GH2. I spend a lot of $$ on games but the well is only so deep. And Rock Band is going to my big money sink for the family Christmas gift this year.

Random thoughts:

What I've done: I'm on set 3 in co-op with my daughter and on set 7 in single player. I only play medium because I just can't play hard. My oldest daughter can play medium on some songs, easy on most.

Song Playing: Hammer On/Pull Offs seem easier. Timing on the notes seems a little more relaxed. This could just be that I'm a better player than I used to be.

Single player career: Overall pretty good. I do like the song list for the early GH games better but I'm having a good time with these songs. The venues are entertaining and humorous so far. There is one venue where the songs seemed to be all old which was a little odd. I like to have them mixed up a bit.

Battle mode: Too stupid beyond words IMO. I've played 2 of the battles and I'll never play them again except maybe to help my daughter and wife along to unlock the songs in their careers. Soapbox: the guitar duels should be about your own skill...not what you can do to the other player.

Co-op career: Pretty cool. The best part is that you don't have to play the same difficulty for each person but you are limited score-wise when you do that. I can co-op career with my family members. The venues you travel to are in a different order than the SP mode. Also, some songs are only unlockable in co-op mode.

Leaderboards: Contrary to GH2. Your single player and co-op career points are not reflected on leaderboards as far as I can tell. This was part of the fun of GH2. I think you only get leaderboard scores for multiplayer over live. This sucks.

Cover songs: The covers leave something to be desired. I'm sure it boils down to the singer just not quite sounding right to me. The post title song is disappointing. They really should have forked up the dough to the label to get the master track for that one. Black Sunshine is passable.

Characters: Judy Nails looks like a tramp. The main lead singer dude looks like a bad puppet....it's the mouth. The character graphics overall just look less family oriented than what was there in the earlier incarnations. They also took out Clive Winston. He was my favorite character. Once you beat Slash, you can actually buy him at the store so he's become my character now.

Guitar compatibility: My 360 GH2 guitars seem to work just fine with GH3.

Overall: Thumbs up but I'm really looking forward to Rock Band coming out.