Let's be honest:
Guitar Hero isn't a console franchise that's got 'mobile hit!' stamped all over it.
Why? You can't plug a guitar peripheral into your phone, most handsets are still a bit rubbish when it comes to in-game audio, and you can't really recreate the social elements of the console version (i.e. the showing off to your mates with star jumps, knee slides and Status Quo-style synchronised riffery).
With that in mind,
Guitar Hero III Mobile should be a big disappointment. And if those barriers aren't enough, consider the fact that us Europeans aren't even getting the connected version of the game that's out in the US, where you can download new tracks every month.
In short, it should suck. The fact that it doesn't is because even when you strip away all those great things about the console version, you're still left with an addictive musical rhythm game.
It's cleverly done, too. Instead of five fret buttons, you've got three – corresponding to the three columns of number keys on your keypad. Thus, green corresponds to '1', '4' and '7', red is '2', '5' and '8', and yellow is '3', '6' and '9'. As notes of each colour travel down the screen, you have to press the right key at the right time.
Hitting long strings of notes in a row boosts your score, while nailing the special star notes ups your 'star power' meter, which when full lets you press '*' to activate Star Mode, doubling your points.
With three difficulty levels, your job is to work your way through a succession of real rock songs, scoring as highly as possible to move on. They're all fully licensed, so we're talking songs like Wolfmother's 'Woman', Smashing Pumpkins's 'Cherub Rock', Alice Cooper's 'School's Out', and The Kinks's 'You Really Got Me'.
You can play as one of two characters from
Guitar Hero's console incarnation – Judy Nails and Axel Steel – and there are plenty of guitars to choose from, including (naturally) the Flying V and a Led Zep-style Double Neck.
There's a Career mode where you work your way through the tracks, and a Quick Play option to dive straight into your favourite song (if it's been unlocked).
There's also a series of Achievements to win in-game, covering everything from completing a career or earning a 50-note streak to scoring more than 150,000 points from one song.
That's the basic structure, so is it any good? Well, yes, definitely, but there are some niggles. The basic gameplay itself is pretty addictive, and has that 'just one more go' factor in spades. The Achievements, and the fact that you get a star rating out of five for every song, ensures plenty of replayability, too.
The game looks good, and the controls work well, allowing you to pick which row of keys you want to use according to your handset and/or fingers.
The fact that it's got licensed songs is key, clearly, and there's a good range of old classics and newer tunes. Meanwhile, the difficulty levels are well pitched, providing a stern challenge on the hardest mode.
The main problem? It's the music. And for this, I'm thinking not as a
Pocket Gamer reviewer who knows about the audio and file-size limitations of Java, but instead putting myself in the shoes of someone who might just have bought the game because they like the console version, or recognise the brand.
Put simply, the music isn't up to much. The MIDI tunes are tinny, and in some cases grating to listen to (as 'Cherub Rock' gets going, it's almost painful). The N95 8GB phone I used for this review is a great music phone in terms of playing MP3s, but there's a yawning gap between that and how the tunes in
Guitar Hero III Mobile sound.
This isn't Hands-On or developer Machineworks Northwest's fault, of course – they're working with the technology they have available, and have done a pretty good job. But most mobile gamers won't know that. It's a problem that'll affect any music game for Java handsets for the foreseeable future.
And while it might seem strange to argue that a game like
Guitar Hero III Mobile should only be done on mobile platforms capable of doing the music justice (N-Gage, iPhone, BREW, etc), well, that might not be such a bad idea. And if you are going to do it in Java, at least have a proper volume option, rather than a simple Sound On or Sound Off choice.
So,
Guitar Hero III Mobile is a good game in terms of the gameplay, the controls, the difficulty level and the general care that's gone into it. But it's let down by the restrictions of the hardware when it comes to music, the core of the game.
It didn't stop us giving Gameloft's
Guitar Legend a great mark, so we'll put
Guitar Hero III Mobile level with that – Gameloft's game is more polished, but has a misguided five-fret control system.
You can still have a lot of fun with
Guitar Hero III Mobile, but playing this Java version has just made us yearn for the connected BREW version (which would probably be a solid 10/10), and hope that Hands-On plans to bring it out for iPhone or N-Gage soon.
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