Published: Thursday, 31st January, 2008 11:30am

Guitar Hero III

by Narin Bahar

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Game review

Guitar Hero III

Guitar Hero is fast becoming a game with a franchise to rival Star Wars. But with great power comes great responsibility and GHIII sees original developers Harmonix off the project and Neversoft now on board instead, something which left long time gamers concerned a Jar Jar type red herring would be thrown into the mix for the latest outing. But fear not.

Guitar Hero III is at least as good as anything that comes before – and for those who have played the game previously there's nothing but a few basic tweaks to the play style, plus the best track list (with more original songs) so far. From Santana to Nirvana, the Chilli Peppers to Kaiser Chiefs, Queen to Weezer, you'll be humming those tracks and seeing the songs in your dreams.

For those who haven't played it yet (and if not, why not?) here are the Cliff Notes. You have a controller which to all intents and purposes is like a guitar – complete with five fret buttons and a strummer. Notes appear on the screen, you hit and strum the notes at the right time and sweet music is made. Unless you miss too many in which case you're booed from the stage.

GHIII is more addictive than anything that's gone before – in part because of its amazing tracks and in part because the levels of difficulty are such that you get more play time out of it than any before – although RSI is a danger with some of the later levels.

The fact is though that as games go there is none better at the moment – I'll certainly be playing this until The Force Unleashed makes me swap my Wii guitar for a lightsabre instead.

Five stars. Buy it now.

* Multiformat, prices from £59.99