Is this game really that hard? I mean more than II and I? The video's on youtube make it look horrendous. I beat half of II on hard and I wanted to break the guitar over my leg thru most of it. I don't want to spend $100 on it if I'm not going to have fun.

I've played through GH3 on Expert, and the note charts there are definitely a bit more tricky than GH2 (which was harder than GH1). So yeah, if you found Hard in GH2 to be rather tough then GH3 is most likely going to be, at least, more of the same.

Just a heads up, in the review you mention that Harmonix was responsible for recording the music in earlier GH games, which isn't the case. In both GH1 and 2 (don't know about 80s), a company called Wavegroup was hired to record the covers. As far as I'm aware, they don't have any association with Harmonix.

The closest thing to the music that Harmonix had an influence over was that many of the bands in the unlockable songs in GH1 and 2 had members that were Harmonix employees.

I can beat II and Encore on Hard w/o much difficulty and can do about 80% of the songs on Expert (besides stuff like Jordan) and I'm having a helluva time on GH3 Hard. I don't know if I'll ever get past Raining Blood, my fingers just don't move that fast O_o.

Since Neversoft doesn't have any of the old code, does this kill the chances that we may see DLC from the older releases? I never did pick up GH1 and my GH2 has quite a few scratches that cause it to hiccup a bit. I thought the GH2 on 360 did some of songs from the older game as DLC.

Just visiting the guitar hero community, it appears that many more Wii users are playing this online than as their PS3 or Xbox brethern, the number of wii codes more than double the number of ps3/xbox360 usernames. I'll admit the wiimote 'twang' feature when you f'ck up is pretty neat.

Hard or Expert? I'm having trouble with the last tier on Hard. I have beaten Cliffs of Dover. I get to about 77% on One when the fast solo kicks in, it kicks my ass. Raining Blood is really hard too. I started expert but have gotten stuck on Rock and Roll All Night.

Well, it's not so much the code as it is the licensing and the recordings. I imagine that if RedOctane still has the rights to some of the older songs for downloadable content (like the ones that they already offered for download on GH2) and has the rights to use the recordings from the Harmonix-era installments, then I imagine that it wouldn't be too tough to just re-create the charts and use the same recordings.

I'm pretty sure that I read that Harmonix has the rights to all the songs in I, II and Encore still.

Man, Harmonix really came away with the lions' share out of that split.

Yep. I think I read that all that they sold was the name.

I don't have any trouble finding someone to play online on the Wii ever. I always do Pro-Faceoff, Expert, Best of 3 and a match always pops right up.

Alright, I take back almost all my criticisms of GH3. The game isn't as horribly unfunningly difficult as I thought, it's just my new TV is laggy even on game mode (or the Wii itself is laggy since I thought I sucked even on my CRT). I adjusted the lag to 20ms and ever since I've been kicking ass. The first four times I played Cliffs of Dover (a song I know pretty damn well on guitar) I could barely three star it. After adjusting the lag I easily 5 starred it adding 100k to my score. My wife was having trouble 4 starring songs on the first 3 hard tiers and now 5 starred 3 on the 4th tier.

The boss battles are still retarded and the note charts aren't the best but overall I'm liking the game way more than I was 24 hours ago.

I'm also having a ton of fun with online playing now. People love to choose TTFATF and there are a few parts where I can rack up tons of points. I haven't lost on that song the first three times I've played it.

Me either...but I've had lots of people who CHOSE THAT SONG quit out halfway through when i'm kicking their ass... I think they're hoping that I'll quit out after they select it, run for the hills and they'll get an easy 'win' - not so for me... I had one kid say 'oh shit' when I was still around and playing the song when it started.

So...still trying to link my account. It absolutely positively has to be done with IE? There's no other browser that will work with it?

Raining Blood on Medium makes me cry. I can't 5 star that piece of crap for the life of me.

I have to say that Black Magic Woman is by far my favorite song ever in the series. Not only a great song but I think its one of the best translated songs in the series. It is one of the few songs that I actually feel like I'm playing on a real guitar.

I have just the opposite experience. I can't find a game. Probably because I'm only interested in co-op and/or unranked play at the Easy difficulty.

I've only tried twice to play the Wii version online. Once the night I got the game and I couldn't find anyone to play on Easy; but I played co-op two nights ago on Medium and it only took 3 seconds to find a match. I was pleased with it, but I guess I can't tell if that's the norm or not. I was also pleasantly surprised to find out that it's even possible to play cooperatively online. For some reason I was under the impression that online would be battle mode only.

I don't know. I'm using IE and I still haven't been able to link my account. I've been trying multiple times a day since Monday. That site is broken. Lots of people still can't link their accounts.

Why don't you add me as a friend (hint, hint) and I or my wife will do some co-op with you.

Why is this so damn hard?

I was able to link my account this morning. I had tried it once a few days ago and the site appeared to be done. I had trouble this morning but then found out that the zero in my account tag was actual an 'O'. Changing that got me instantly linked.

I will try and add you tonight, Mordred.

BTW, is it possible to get anything less than 3 stars on a song?

It's possible to fail. If you pass you get at least 3 stars no matter what.

they're not dual, but i have 4 of these for my 4 guitars:

http://www.guitarcenter.com/ProLine-...67-i1168655.gc

Well, I just tried going to the GH3 site again, and it says it's down for maintenance. Maybe my code will work when it comes back up.