It took a few generations, but Guitar Hero is finally on the Mac.
Warning: The following game my be hazardous to your productivity and will unleash your suppressed fantasies of rock stardom.
Not all of us can be rock stars, but some of us can be Guitar Heroes. For years, the Guitar Hero series has been popular with game consoles, and fortunately, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock delivers most of its console cousins’ attributes to the Mac.
At its core, GH3 is a music-based color-matching game. You “strum” a bar on the USB-connected guitar’s body while holding down colored buttons on the neck. The game shows you which notes to play and when, and your goal is not to get booed offstage. You can play with your Mac’s keyboard instead of the guitar controller, but it ruins the spirit of the game.
In solo career mode, your band travels from venue to venue while the cut-scenes tell a mildly amusing story—and, more importantly, give you time to rest your hands between songs. In the Boss Battles, you attack your opponent with a variety of guitar-related problems. The battles require more luck than skill, and if one goes on too long, the Boss eliminates you with a Death Note.
You can play the co-op career mode with a friend (after you buy a second USB guitar, sold for the Xbox 360 for about $50). The venue path is different than in solo mode, and you’re spared the worthless Boss Battles. The co-op career unlocks songs that are unavailable during the solo career mode.
If you’re in a competitive mood (and you have two guitars), three head-to-head modes are available. Face-Off lets you and a friend trade off playing song sections. Pro Face-Off has both competitors play the entire song at once. Battle Mode is the Boss Battles transferred to multiplayer mode, but equally matched players almost always end up finishing up via sudden death, so it gets old pretty quickly.
GH3 supports online play, too. You can set up a private match, or use Quick Play to battle a random shredder. Network lag is corrected by a “flash forward” effect that re-syncs you and your opponent. At press time, Aspyr was still negotiating downloadable tracks, so keep an eye out for them in the future.
The bad news is the pro-level system requirements. PowerPC Macs are out. The minimum requirements are so steep that MacBooks, with their integrated graphics chips, are unable to play the game. Even with the recommended requirements met and the graphics set to their lowest settings, there’s still noticeable stuttering during the first song.
The bottom line. If your Mac can handle the requirements, GH3 is a fun, addictive game that will have you wishing you could get the band back together. Even the hamfisted Boss Battles don’t detract from the spirit
COMPANY: Aspyr
CONTACT: www.aspyr.com
PRICE: $79.99
REQUIREMENTS: 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo or faster, Mac OS 10.4.10 or later, 1GB RAM, 6.1GB hard disk space, 128MB ATI Radeon X1600 or nVidia Geforce 7300 or later, USB
Great solo and party game. MacBook Pro and GH3 means you can finally rock out during your lunch break at work.
Boss battles are lame. High system requirements. Intel Macs only. No Pantera songs.
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Play games
June 26, 2008 at 6:54am
"Here I am rocking you like a hurricane with another one of my reviews, today I'll be reviewing Guitar Hero 3. The small plastic guitars are back and this time they are wireless.
Like I said above Guitar Hero 3 is in fact the fourth installment, rock the 80's being the 3rd, in my opinion it shouldn't be classed as a ""next installment"" because its essentially an expansion pack of the second guitar ..."
Online
May 23, 2008 at 4:58pm
Wow! Did that just come out. No wait, it’s been out for like 4 months. Way to be on top of things. It is pretty disappointing to see 3 or 4 days go by with no new posts and then this is the best you can come up with. A new game for the Mac that has been out and talked about, for the last 4 months, by every other web blog in the world. Very impressive, Keep up the good work.
Ben
March 02, 2008 at 5:10pm
The requirements are just ridiculous. Many Mac users I know are still not on Intel. I won't be for another year and a half, hopefully a Mac Pro when I do upgrade. But it's not just PPC Macs that are also excluded, all of Apple's system with vampire/leach/integrated cards are also incompetent [this is understandable].
But game consoles like the Wii use PPC processors that run at 700-something MHz. On the other hand, thinking about game consoles, I could just download an Play Station 2 emulator and use a PS2 disk and my Mac's keyboard.
Take that Aspyr.
Joseph
February 07, 2008 at 9:22pm
Is that Susie with the guitar and spikey bracelets?!
