First GH III Video Displays Differences

Joystiq has up one of the first videos of Guitar Hero III , and links to an IGN article discussing the changes. As they point out, there are quite a few differences. The UI has been overhauled in several ways, which may or may not be to your liking. "The HUD has been completely revamped, with lights replacing the Star Power meter and a new chain counter that tells you how many notes you've hit in a row. According to this IGN feature, the timing has also been changed, which may explain the early Wyld Stallyns-level performance in the videos. It's hard to blame the team from Neversoft if the game's playing a little differently at the moment, as they didn't have access to the code (created by Harmonix) from the original two games. Besides, there's still time for tweaking." The changes don't bother me that much, but the twanging butchery of "My Name is Jonas" made my eyebrow twitch.

Re:They don't have the source code?!

[xero314]

This is probably because Harmonix, or now MTV, owns the rights to the original code, where as Red Octane, now Activision, owns the rights to the Guitar Hero name and most likely some of the UI aspects. So Harmonix keeps the code which they can use as the basis for the up coming Rock Band game, and Activision can get Neversoft to start over but use the recognized name of Guitar Hero. This happens in the game industry alot.

Re:Difficulty

[Soul-Burn666]

Hell. Add a couple of difficulties above expert.

If you don't want it to scare new players, just have it unlockable. Start with Easy, Normal and Hard and by either completing a couple of Hards or entering a code (for the lazy) it will open up Expert and whatever level which is by all means insane and meant for pros only (like 12-footers in ITG).

Just like DDR pros who can easily beat songs on a dance pad that I can't even clear on a keyboard (madness [youtube.com] check out 2:20).
There is a market for extreme difficulty, and it's only getting larger as more people get better.