I know it's been said before but I realized something today I've been trying to ignore about Guitar Hero III. It's really f*cking hard! Let me preface this rant by saying that I am the best player I know, not that it really means anything. This is only amongst my circle of friends, some of whom aren't bad. Basically I'm just trying to say that I don't suck at Guitar Hero, nor am I the best but I consider myself an "expert level" player. So having said all that, am I really just making excuses when I call it bad game design when I can fail a song at 0% completion? You folks who have played GHIII know what song I'm talking about. Yes, I've been to YouTube and yes I know people can beast this song, but what sense does it make to intentionally make something so fiendishly difficult, to the extent that a large section of longtime GH players can't even approach it. I played through the first GH, GHII for both PS2 AND X360 and GH80's without even thinking of smashing my controller, yet GHIII has managed to inspire me to completely destroy the Les Paul and, just moments ago, damage my Explorer?

I have lost it and smashed controllers on several occasions throughout the years. Here's the breakdown:

3 Super Nintendo controllers, 1 NES controller, 1 PS1 controller, 2 PS2 controllers, and 2 Xbox controllers have payed the ultimate price. A Wii and a PS3 controller have also come dangerously close to premature death. In my defense the red button on the GHIII Les Paul controller wasn't working right and caused me to fail the final battle against Lou on expert after having failed many times prior to that, then I snapped. What's my point? My point is that Neversoft forgot about one very crucial thing when making GHIII. To make it more about having fun rather than just being able to show off. Showing off can be fun, believe me I know, but it's not what makes Guitar Hero so awesome. While I'm at it, let me vent my disgust at the battle mode introduced in GHIII. I've only played this mode during the career when it was required and I played it against someone online once so I could get the achievement but deep down I loathe it. Versus a human, it blows because a song can potentially be over before ever hearing a chorus or reaching the next verse. As far as the boss battles, I didn't hate them until I got to Lou. After failing many times I realized that it's entirely random as to whether you can win, because if Lou gets certain powerups it becomes impossible to win. Double notes is the most bullsh*t thing to taint the Guitar Hero series. The one thing that is superior about GHIII over the other games is the song selection. It's better than what ships on the Rock Band disc as well.

Guitar Hero III's DLC has been pretty disappointing as well. The freebies (Dream On, the Halo theme) were nice but No Doubt? Cuz their guitar work is so freakin' great, right? Gimme a break. Rock Band, to be frank, poops all over GHIII as far as DLC goes. Not to say that all of RB's DLC has been awesome (Oasis, Grateful Dead, bad covers) but the variety and overall quality of it has been superior. However I've felt since day one that Rock Band needs good DLC because, frankly, there's a lot of **** in Rock Band. Stuff that's not fun to play on any "instrument" ***coughGarbageHolecough***.

At this point I don't know how much longer I'll be into these types of games. The formula is pretty much set and Activision seems poised to run the Guitar Hero franchise into the ground. I really don't know what else can be done with this type of gameplay. Chances are that as long as the songs are good and the essence of the series (the "fun" I mentioned) is maintained I'll probably stick with it and so will countless others. But Guitar Hero III was a bit of a mis-step and in my opinion Guitar Hero: Aerosmith is also a mis-step. I am glad that other artists will be in the game but overall I think band-specific installments are a bad idea. Genre -specific expansions are, however, a good idea as long as the price is right (GH 80's is great example of how to do this the wrong way).What Rock Band is doing with the track packs is the way to go if that's what people want. The Boston track pack is a good example. At this stage, pretty much all of Boston's first record is there. And of course artist packs like the Metallica one that cover a couple different albums is also a great way to do things. I wrote this because of my doubt about the future of these franchises that I love. I have the feeling that in as little as a few years the rhythm genre will all but gone. And we'll have EA and especially Activision to blame.