David’s Retro Rewind - Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock

There’s a particularly special place reserved in my heart for the vast majority of games present within the Guitar Hero franchise. I say “the vast majority” because I’d personally like to forget that Guitar Hero Live exists. Despite that, this is the series that inspired me to begin taking guitar classes when I started high school. That is thanks to some combination of the skill set I picked up from almost constantly playing the Guitar Hero series and the encouragement of an enthusiastic teacher in my classes. Because of that, there were a good couple of years during which I almost became a lean, mean, fret-shredding machine.

I’d rather not get into why I used the word “almost” in that sentence within the scope of this article. Suffice it to say that I find it’s nice to know that Ubisoft’s Rocksmith series exists and is patiently waiting in my Steam library for the day I decide to take up the instrument once more. Before I can tackle the steel strings again with any degree of confidence, I feel as though I need to go back to where it all began.

I figure it’ll be quite a bit easier to rebuild my muscle memory with slightly more forgiving plastic buttons rather than steel and nylon strings. To that end, I thought it would be fun for me to fire up my trusty PlayStation 2 and prepare for another installment of my Retro Rewind series. Today’s stop on the nostalgia train is Neversoft and Activision’s 2007 release Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock.

Guitar Hero III was the first game in the series I ever played. I have quite a few fond memories of playing its co-op career mode on my friend’s Xbox 360 back in eighth grade. That’s the primary reason why I wanted to give it some time in the spotlight under the guise of the Retro Rewind banner first before I eventually grant the same treatment to any other title in the franchise. I do most assuredly intend to cover more Guitar Hero titles in due time; that’s especially true for my personal favorite entry in the franchise, 2010’s Warriors of Rock.

For today’s discussion though, I feel I should begin by explaining what relatively little the game has in the way of a plot. You start out auditioning for the role of lead guitarist (and bassist, if you have a co-op partner) within a local, newly-formed band. After you quickly manage to blow your new bandmates away with your skills and subsequently get yourself hired, you find that your new band has been hired to play at a nearby backyard birthday party.

The set list of tracks available to you at this party serves to ease you into the gameplay to a certain degree. For example, the first song you can choose to play at this show is Foghat’s “Slow Ride.” I can speak with some degree of experience in saying that this classic rock hit is simple enough to play on the lower difficulty settings, but still challenging enough to be engaging as you ascend to Hard and Expert modes. You have to complete at least three of the four songs in this tier, plus an optional encore thereafter if you feel up to it. This will remain the case during every playable gig in the game’s campaign.

You successfully entertain the guests at the so-called “Backyard Bash” event to the point that the police are called and subsequently end up rocking out right alongside you. Then you and your band are approached by a man in the audience who offers you the chance to perform at what the game refers to as “your first real gig.” This is essentially just an open mic night at a local bar, but it’s still a decent chance to get your foot in the metaphorical door and draw some attention to your band.

You manage to do just that by playing this show, as it turns out. After you’ve completed your required three-song set, you’re unexpectedly challenged to a guitar battle by none other than Tom Morello of Audioslave and Rage Against the Machine fame. This guitar battle is the first of three “boss fights,” (for lack of a better phrase) that you’ll face throughout Legends of Rock’s campaign. The gameplay during your duel against Tom Morello operates exactly the same as it does in the multiplayer “battle” mode.

That is to say, instead of the standard Star Power you would ordinarily accumulate during a standard song, you can earn “battle power” in the forms of various attacks you can launch against your opponent at any time. To name a couple of examples of how this works, you can use attacks that do such things as break one of your rival’s guitar strings; this forces them to quickly and repeatedly tap the corresponding fret button to (somehow) repair the string. Alternatively, you can temporarily increase the difficulty level (from Medium to Hard, for instance) at which your foe is forced to play the current song.

If you want to be particularly evil, there are also attacks which completely reverse the onscreen orientation of your challenger’s fret buttons for a few seconds. This is known as “lefty flip” or, if the player afflicted by this power-up is already playing with lefty flip mode enabled, “righty flip.” This might not be so much of an issue for players who have better than subpar hand-eye coordination, but it certainly typically tanks my chances of winning a guitar battle.

As you might imagine, it’s best to wait to utilize any attack power-ups you might acquire until your enemy is playing through a more complex segment of whatever track you’re performing. This makes them more likely to miss larger amounts of notes and, in turn, significantly negatively impacts their “rock meter.” When a competitor in a guitar battle has their rock meter drop from bright green to deeply red, they’re declared to have lost the battle. This is how you must go about defeating Tom Morello.

Assuming you manage to prove victorious in the face of Mr. Morello’s challenge, you and your band will invite him to play an optional encore alongside you as a show of goodwill and sportsmanship. This additional song, to the surprise of hardly anyone, is Rage Against the Machine’s “Bulls on Parade.” Once you win the guitar battle and play through the encore with Tom, you’ll gain the ability to purchase him in the in-game store. Doing this will permanently unlock him as a playable character for use in any of the game’s play modes.

It seems I went on a bit of a tangent discussing how guitar battles work, so let us now return to Guitar Hero III‘s story. It turns out that Tom Morello isn’t the only notable person whose attention your band attracted by playing the show at the local bar. The same man who offered you this gig summons you to the back of the venue after you leave the stage. It is here that you meet Lou, who appears to be a manager and record label executive of some description.

Lou offers your band a lucrative contract and (once you accept) sets you up with the gig which constitutes the third tier of the game’s campaign. You now have your chance to shoot a music video at Lou’s own fictional Studio 999. I’m sure you know the drill by now. Once you arrive at the studio, you’ll have to successfully play through three songs and (if you desire) an encore. After all is said and done, Lou demonstrates that your music video has gone just about as viral on the Internet as a music video from a lesser-known band could go in 2007.

He subsequently hands you a set of airline tickets that will get you on the first available flight to the United Kingdom. In doing so, this sets your course for the game’s fourth campaign tier. I’ve got to tell you folks, this tier is my second-favorite in the entire game. From the stage design to the songs you can play during this gig, just about every aspect of your band’s show in the U.K. has managed to earn itself a special place in my nostalgia-fueled memories.

The songs you can play during this tier of the campaign are the Sex Pistols’ “Anarchy in the U.K.,” Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid,” Sonic Youth’s “Kool Thing,” and Weezer’s “My Name is Jonas.” As a bit of a fun fact, this version of “Anarchy in the U.K.” was meticulously re-recorded by the Sex Pistols specifically for use in Legends of Rock because, as frontman Johnny Rotten once explained, “we lost all our masters.”

I don’t know if I’ve ever publicly mentioned this here on Phenixx Gaming, but I don’t think my musical tastes are very nuanced or complex. I mainly listen to classic rock and classic heavy metal; that is, with a few noteworthy exceptions, such as Rush and “Weird Al” Yankovic. As you might expect in light of that, I was already quite familiar with “Paranoid” and “Anarchy in the U.K.” the first time I played through this tier all those years ago. On something of a personal note, I was even lucky enough to be able to take my best friend to see Black Sabbath in concert in 2016 on their final farewell tour. I’ll never forget the rendition of “Paranoid” with which they ended the show.

Having said all that, this is part of where I think the beauty of games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band really shines through. I say that because these games easily have the capability to introduce their audiences to new songs, bands, and genres of music. Just because I was already a fan of Black Sabbath and many other bands whose music is playable in Legends of Rock most assuredly doesn’t mean I knew every song in the game. Playing through this game and its contemporaries within the same franchise helped me to significantly broaden my musical horizons. I can’t thank the developers enough for that.

Anyway, I’ve gone on yet another tangent. Back to Guitar Hero III’s story we go. After your gig in the United Kingdom, you receive a heartfelt letter from a prisoner back in the U.S. who loves your band. The prisoner mentions that they would have their dreams come true if you were to perform at the facility in which they’re confined. In order to avoid disappointing any fans, you pull some strings (pun intended) and manage to arrange just that. This is the same drill as usual, except for the inclusion of another surprise after your standard performance.

You’re suddenly dared to face none other than Slash, the venerable guitarist of Guns ‘n’ Roses and the man solely responsible for popularizing the top hat. You have to face him in a guitar battle before an audience of the incarcerated. How Slash obtained clearance to be in the prison, much less challenge the scheduled band to a contest of skill, is far beyond me. In any case, the guitar battle against Slash is quite a similar procedure to your duel against Tom Morello.

Assuming you pull off a victory against the top hat-clad shredding machine, you’ll then perform an encore with him in the form of Guns ‘n’ Roses’ 1987 smash hit “Welcome to the Jungle.” Afterwards, you’ll once again be granted the ability to purchase and subsequently unlock Slash as a playable character. Once you’ve thoroughly entertained the imprisoned, it’s off to yet another gig.

This one takes place in the middle of the desert, of all possible venues. The game will amusingly claim this is because you’re “the hottest band on Earth.” All puns aside, I suppose that’s better than being called “the coolest band on Earth” and subsequently winding up performing in Antarctica. After you’ve participated in the concert in the desert, you’ll find yourself on another flight. This time, your destination is the Land of the Rising Sun. It would seem that your band is apparently just as famous in Japan as it is in the United Kingdom and (presumably) most other places by this point.

This point in the game’s campaign is where things really start to get interesting in my opinion. I don’t think I need to include a spoiler warning for the plot of a thirteen-year-old Guitar Hero game, but just in case, we’re venturing into spoiler territory as of now. Remember how I said earlier that your manager, Lou, “appears to be” a record label executive of some sort? Well, looks can be deceiving, and there’s a simple explanation as to why he’s the best of the best at what he does. Allow me to elaborate.

Through a series of unscrupulous actions, your manager reveals that “Lou” is actually short for “Lucifer” because, put simply, it turns out that he’s the Devil. Yes, that Devil. The contract you signed after you met him at the bar was, in actuality, a contract binding your mortal souls to Lou’s service for all eternity. Because you either didn’t bother to read the contract or don’t speak legalese, you’re now trapped in what’s essentially Hell in all but name.

You must now use the skills you’ve gained through the previous seven tiers of the campaign to cause enough ruckus within an underworld venue known as “Lou’s Inferno” to attract the Devil’s attention and ultimately rock your way back to the mortal plane of existence. You go about this by (you guessed it) successfully playing through enough songs to unlock the final face-off against Lou. Before we get to that, I want to briefly mention that this tier is my favorite in the whole campaign.

That’s mostly because your set list for this portion of the story is composed of songs I’ve greatly enjoyed for as long as I can remember, such as Metallica’s “One” and, much more fittingly given the situation, Iron Maiden’s “The Number of the Beast.” I’ve honestly always been a bit surprised that Legends of Rock’s developers didn’t license The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” for this part of the game. Although I can see why that is considering that this is the most difficult tier of songs present within the title.

I would also argue that the developers did something significantly more memorable than licensing “Sympathy for the Devil” as the backing track for the final guitar battle against Lou. Much to my nostalgia-fueled delight, the developers commissioned Steve Ouimette to compose and perform an outstanding (in my opinion) speed metal version of The Charlie Daniels Band’s “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”

Granted, Charlie Daniels himself disapproved of this cover due to the nature of the guitar battle which meant that the Devil at least had a chance to emerge victorious. However, if you’ve become skilled enough at the game by this point in its plot, you probably won’t have to worry about that despite any dirty tricks Lou might have up his hellish sleeve. If you win the guitar battle against Lou, he’s forced to break your contract and send you back to Earth. As a result of your victory, you and your bandmates also return to the land of the living to immeasurably massive amounts of fame. It would appear that you are now true legends of rock.

So, all of that is to say that I absolutely love Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock for various reasons. My adoration for the game is so strong that if you’ve got a copy of it lying around, no matter what platform it is on, I encourage you to break it out and spend some time playing it. If you’re rusty at the gameplay, or new to it entirely, don’t worry! I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it if you persevere. As the God of Rock himself says in Legends of Rock’s tutorial, “[The late] Eddie Van Halen may have been born with a guitar in his hand, but he didn’t learn to play it until he was two.”

There you have it, my friends! I hope you’ve enjoyed taking a look back alongside me at my first experience with the Guitar Hero franchise. As I mentioned near the beginning of this editorial, I do fully intend to cover most of the rest of the series as their own individual Retro Rewinds when I’ve got the time. For now, though, I’ll see you next time the nostalgia train prepares to leave its station and head for another stop on our journey through my personal gaming history!