Guitar Hero III Demo Impressions

I was surprised today by a DHL delivery of a long skinny box with a big "Guitar Hero III Demo Kit" label on the back. Inside was the wired version of the new Les Paul guitar and the five song demo that is showing up in store kiosks. The songs are "Hit Me With Your Best Shot", "Lay Down", "Even Flow", "Rock You Like A Hurricane", and "The Metal".

I played through each song once on Hard, and while I don't want to go into any specifics, I can say with a fair bit of certainty that Hard mode is more difficult than it was in Guitar Hero II, which is a good thing. I can only assume that Expert is going to be crazier than ever.

More importantly, I want to say that the Les Paul guitar is far better than the X-Plorer. My main complaint with the Xbox 360 version of Guitar Hero II was that I just plain didn't like the X-Plorer, and thankfully all of my complaints seem to have been addressed with the Les Paul. The shape is better. The fret buttons feel better. And there is more room between the strum bar and whammy bar. The guitar also has a really nice, heavy, solid feel. We'll have to wait until the final game to really put it through its paces, but so far I'd have to say the Les Paul is the best Guitar Hero controller yet.

All in all, I am pretty impressed with GHIII so far. The songs are more challenging. The guitar is better. And the whole game is just bigger and better than ever. The October 28th release date can't come soon enough!