Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock marks the debut of the hit rhythm game franchise on Nintendo systems. Prior fans of the series shouldn’t be too surprised with the game, but several notable additions besides a solid soundtrack make the game an obvious essential purchase. In basic terms, notes travel toward the player and the corresponding fret button on the neck of the guitar must be pressed while the guitar is strummed for a note to count. Play well enough, and you can activate Star Power by tilting the guitar’s neck upward.

Graphics haven’t changed much from prior editions. The 2-D artwork is nice, but the 3-D graphics leave much to be desired. Not that it matters much for a game like this; it’s not HD and doesn’t need to be. The characters are still low poly, almost grotesque in design, but now include several famous individuals such as Slash. For those who do have HD sets, the display lag time is adjustable so that you have no reason to blame your equipment on missed notes.

Of course, the game also features an all-new soundtrack, including several fan-requested tracks. 71 songs are playable, with 25 set aside as bonus tracks. The music varies widely in difficulty, and each song includes a guitar lead and bass set of notes, so a pair of players can play both in two-player mode for the full experience. The game keeps performance stats for competitive players and includes a large set of unlockable tracks. Career mode takes players through various venues, and famous rock stars, such as Slash and Tom Morello, are included as bosses within the game who must be outplayed in order to progress.

The most interesting addition to Guitar Hero III is the battles. These battles play something like the combat modes of some puzzle games. Instead of gaining Star Power for completing a star sequence of notes, an attack item is acquired. Attacks include having to slam on the whammy bar, changing up the duration of notes, and increasing the difficulty level (it’s pretty funny to have the fifth fret of notes suddenly pop up on your opponent’s screen while they’re only on normal difficulty).

Besides improving upon previous iterations of the game, many improvements have been made to the controller itself. For the Wii version, the Wii Remote snaps into the guitar controller itself, and many of its functions are integrated into the control. Motion control, the speaker, Bluetooth communication, and rumble are all used. The speaker functionality is unique to the Wii version and is used to spew out incorrect notes. The Gibson Les Paul-inspired guitar controller also features an analog stick in addition to plus and minus buttons. The controller includes a detachable fretboard for easier storage, as well as customizable face plates. The only real oddity with the controller is that when the Remote goes into sleep mode, you have to press the remote’s buttons rather than any of the buttons on the guitar. Perhaps for this reason, the face of the remote is visible and accessible through the front of the guitar. This means that faceplates from the other versions will not fit on the Wii edition.

Guitar Hero III also includes online multiplayer. The online system works much like the one found in Mario Strikers Charged, including friend codes, leader boards, and announcement boards. Players can actually connect to Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection before starting up one-player mode. If a friend comes online and wants to play, the player will receive a notification in-game. The jammer can then choose to exit their game and join in multiplayer. While the multiplayer aspect of the game is solid, the Wii version is missing a critical feature found on the other consoles: downloadable tracks. What you initially buy is what you get. Multiplayer includes co-op play, standard competitive contests, and the new battle mode. Local multiplayer also includes a co-op career mode.

Overall, Guitar Hero III is a must-have package for rhythm game fans, and Nintendo-only console owners now have their chance to rock out.