Guitar Hero 3 is by far the worst of the GH franchise, imho. The new UI is very subpar (I enjoy the streak counter, but everything is much harder to read, and placed and colored poorly). The characters, particularly the lead singer and drummer, are shoddy at best (aside of the pretty realistic Tom Morello and Slash models). The song selection is cut out of a roughly similar palette as the previous GH games, except that the bonus songs now take a significant foreign/post-hardcore turn instead of Boston-area Indie and celebrity guests (ie Zakk Wylde and Buckethead). The gameplay is mediocre, at best, on GH standards. It's devolved in flailing hammer-ons/pull-offs that you don't even need to be very accurate to hit. The difficulty sky-rockets towards the final few sets (making the last two sets nigh-impossible on expert). None of us (my suite-mates and myself) have been able to beat
Raining Blood on Expert yet, and not for a lack of effort or skill.
Rock Band, on the other hand, is a completely different beast. The drums and vocals are obviously a completely different animal, and the guitar is barely comparable as well. Ignoring the controllers for now, when comparing the guitar, I will have to side with Rock Band.
The Rock Band guitar gameplay is quite fun, even if often easier to pass (until the very end). The notes, particularly the hammer-ons/pull-offs, require much more accuracy to hit (play Rock Band for a while then play GH and you'll see). The songs are often more chord-based, but the movements are less annoying/impossible than the GH chord-based songs. Occasionally there will be awkward/long breaks during the songs while other instruments play (this is a
band game instead of just guitar), but they typically don't take away too much, especially when playing in a full band. The UI is far superior to GH3 (the pass/fail meter is a little bit out of the way, but it's consistent with the band mode which is helpful), with the Overdrive (Stat Power) meter being very easy to see, and the ability to see how many stars you have on the song. The solid black background makes notes contrast greatly, making them very easy to see (once again, switching back to GH3 makes you really notice the difference). While the first few sets are rather easy, the end of the game (and much of the DLC) can get rather difficult. I still haven't managed to beat
Green Grass and High Tides or
Ride the Lightning in solo mode on expert, and
Blackened gives me all sorts of trouble. Rock Band's very frequently updated Downloadable Content (DLC) is also a big plus (3 new songs every thursday).
I may continue this rant with my controller opinions (bottom line is PS2 SG > Rock Band Strat > PS3/360 Les Paul > 360 Explorer > PS2 Kramer) some day.
Also, CoD4 does beat Halo 3 (or 2 or 1) easily.
