Graphically, the game hasn’t improved much since the second game. The venues are more detailed, but the crowds feel like zombies, they just stand there with their arms up in the air. It would be nice to have them throw stuff at the stage for when a player is doing poorly

“Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock” has developer Neversoft taking up the reins of the Guitar Hero franchise for the first time, now that Harmonix jumped ship to work on “Rock Band.”

Any players that fear the new developer messing with the old style of game play can put their fears to rest. The game features 71 playable songs from classic rock such as Alice Cooper, Aerosmith and the Sex Pistols, to modern rock artists including Weezer, Queens of the Stone Age and Muse. Players will find a nice music lineup with a mixture of different genres of rock.

The wireless Gibson Les Paul controller is very well designed. Playing on a cordless controller is how the game was meant to feel, no more cords to rip from the console or trip over.

The game play hasn’t changed much at all since “Guitar Hero 2;” the controls have remained the same. Now players can log onto Xbox Live and duke it out with their friends to see who reigns supreme.

Only the layout of the star gauge and the multiplier look different. As always players can buy new songs, outfits, guitars and videos within the store.

The Xbox 360’s achievements give the player a nice incentive to push harder and become better at the game.

New to the game this time around is battle mode, which allows players to compete against one another, using power-ups to try and cause the other to fail.

Also new to the line up is co-op career, now the player and a friend can work together as a guitar and bassist duo. The only drawback to this mode is that there are no boss battles and friends can’t play a co-op career over Xbox Live.

Graphically the game hasn’t improved much since the second game. The venues are more detailed, but the crowds feel like zombies, they just stand there with their arms up in the air. It would be nice to have them throw stuff at the stage for when a player is doing poorly.

The characters have remained the same with a few new additions including Slash and Tom Morello. For this being a “Legends of Rock” edition one would think that more legendary guitarists would have been sought after.

Guitar Hero 3 Legends of Rock is a solid addition into the Guitar Hero series. A worthy soundtrack, online play, and a new play mode make the game from feeling like the series is running on empty. While it would have been nice to see some up scaling in the graphics department or a better story to it, the game remains a true sequel to the previous installment.

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