Monday 14 January, 2008

SUMMARY:
Guitar Hero III is a game which allows the player to be the lead guitarist for a band they create, and gets to experience the exhileration of being onstage and playing famous rock songs by famous rock bands of the present and future such as Black Magic Woman by Santana, Sweet Child O' Mine by Guns N Roses, Rock and Roll All Night KISS, Paint It Black by The Rolling Stones, Knights of Cydonia by Muse, and The Seeker by The Who.

GAMEPLAY:
Second time around I decided to up the difficulty and switch the level of play to MEDIUM. I was extremely intimidated at first but quickly began to enjoy the challenge. The faster speed made me more anxious and embarassed when I missed a note, but even more excited after nailing a difficult combination. I found that playing songs I was farmiliar with helped me to find the rythmn of the song easier and therefore strum more accurately.

Guitar Hero is so addicting, there is the challege of a new song, or beating your old score on a favorite. Playing with my friends who have so much more experience than me made me to nervous, I am extremely competative and hate to fail but practice is key when it comes to Guitar Hero. I swallowed my pride and continued playing even when i was kicked off a song or missed multiple notes and found that I have improved alot from only playing during very few sittings.

I really like that aspect of the game that keeps track of how many correct notes the player hits in a row, and if you hit rnough notes in a row the game recognizes it and you can play in Star Power mode which turns all the notes blue which I found did make it a little harder for me to distinguish between them but the Star Power mode doubles your points.

Another thing I had to get used to playing this game was learning where to place my fingers on the right keys without looking which is a key skill needed if I am going to succeed, but after playing for a while it became so much easier and I was doing a lot better. I also had to learn to look at the whole bar of running notes instead of one note at a time, concentration and practice are needed for Guitar Hero and I am learning fast.

A good initial entry. In future entries try to ask yourself why these games are making you do the actions or feeling the way it is and ask if it makes the game better or worse from a design perspective. Try to stay away from a play by play entry of what it was like to play the game.