ake no mistake. This is the most exciting and compelling release yet in the franchise that made music games a household experience. With more original recordings in place for many of the great songs in rock, Guitar Hero III delivers an incredible song list, even if more casual listeners may not recognize every tune that comes their way. New modes of play add some cool new variety to the mix. Vibrant and colorful visuals leap off the screen, drawing players even more into the rock star fantasy. Only a few confounding choices as to the handling of unlockable music and party-style gameplay keep this from rocketing into the heights of guitar nirvana.

The first thing experienced players may notice about Guitar Hero III is the newly expanded time frame for hitting notes – even a fraction of a second makes a big difference. At first, it might seem like a slap in the face to faithful GH players – perhaps a nod to the casual playing market? That’s how you’ll feel until you start hitting some of the harder tunes. Frankly, very few Guitar Hero players in the world would be capable of handling the insane riffs coming their way in the later tiers without the added split-second widening of the windows of success. Ultimately, this is the most challenging game in the series, thanks to more multi-button chords, longer solos, and the dreaded boss battles against the likes of Tom Morello and Slash.

Several new additions flesh out the feature set in this installment, the most prominent of which is the new battle mode. While its “screw up your buddy” mentality won’t appeal to everybody, it certainly is a more exciting variation on competitive play than the traditional face-off modes. In battle mode, you’ll collect various power-ups that can be thrown at your opponent, doing everything from doubling their notes, to breaking one of their strings, to triggering them into the dreaded lefty flip. It’s cutthroat, but fun nonetheless. Online is another major addition to the formula, letting you shred with a buddy across the country if such is your desire. Finally, a cooperative career gives a little more story context to playing together.

The co-op functionality is my only major gripe with the game. There is no cooperative quickplay option, making the popular party play experience a lot harder to achieve. In the co-op career, you’ll only unlock songs in the particular difficulty combination you initially played on. If you played through all the songs on Expert–Hard, and your other friend comes over who plays on Medium, then he’s screwed. Time to start another co-op career and unlock everything all over again. Only the unlockable songs from the store aren’t part of this strange design decision – they are available on all difficulties as soon as you pay for them.

For the solo hardcore player, however, this release will be a godsend. Filled with wailing solo lines and uncompromising in its commitment to choose songs that rock hard over ones that might be more familiar, Guitar Hero III won’t disappoint its longtime fans. It also has one of the most hilarious and awesome endings to a game in memory. You’re in for one hell of a good time.