bit-tech Shopping: Activision Guitar Hero III Legends of Rock Bundle (PS2)

Rating: 2

Time with product: 1 Month

Strengths: fun game, my son and his friends enjoyed playing it while it worked.

Weaknesses: 1 of 2 controllers failed after less than 6 hours of play.

Summary: The unit was purchased at Target, (December 1st) and my son received it as a Christmas gift. Shortly after a controller failed. Contacted Red Octane via customer support website for trouble shooting steps. After a long delay, I received their response and unsuccessfully attempted their fix. I sent an e-mail response stating that the troubleshooting steps did not resolve the problem and after another long delay the stated that I must exchange it at place of purchase.The next day, (March 1st) I attempted to exchange it at Target, but they refused it. Said it was 1 day past the 90 day warranty!Since then I have been trying to contact Red Octane (and its parent company Activision). They have not returned my calls or responded to my e-mails. Not only is this a poorly constructed product, the company behind it is unreliable.

Rating: 10

Time with product: 2 Months

Strengths: More songs performed by the original artists in this version.... Battle Mode is pretty cool... Good for all ages.

Weaknesses: None

Summary: I think this is the best version of Guitar Hero yet. There is a great selection of songs and the new battle mode is a lot of fun. I refuse to spend more money on PS3 so i am very happy that the makers of this game released a PS2 version. Hours of fun for the whole family.

Rating: 10

Time with product: 2 Weeks

Strengths: A Small ROCK BAND built around an Electric Sound producing Guitar w/controls & a PS2 DISC -P layed thru TV set.

Weaknesses: None seen .

Summary: Great fun for our son & his friends. Learning to aquire a taste for musical instruments & enjoying hours of musical competition with friends! A clean cut way to learn & enjoy msic! It brings enjoyment that our whole family & friends can watch and listen to with our children- YOUNG and OLDER !

Rating: 8

Time with product: 2

Strengths: The song selection as well as the increase in number of songs performed by the original artists. The new Battle multiplayer mode and wireless guitar controller.

Weaknesses: menu screens seem to take longer to go through than previous guitar hero titles for PS2

Summary: This game is everything its predecessors were and more. The songs are, in my opinion, better and the fact that a good number of them are by the original artists is a plus. I have not had any problems with the wireless guitar controller so far. Difficulty of gameplay, as expected, has increased, but this is appropriate. It doesn't look as good as the PS3/Xbox360 versions but this is due to hardware limitations, but the parts that really matter (ie. the notes) look good enough.

Rating: 8

Time with product:

Strengths: Fun; well implemented

Weaknesses: Unlike other versions, you cannot play online or download new tracks using the PS2 version :(

Summary: This is a fun game. The new track list is very good and over half the songs are performed by the original artists. The game can be hard, though. You may want a teenager or a guitar-playing friend around to unlock some of the songs for you. Also, the PS2 version is the only version of the game that cannot go online at all -- no playing against other players online and no downloading new songs. So, if you have a choice of buying this for the PS2 platform or another platform, choose the other platform (the PC and XBox 360 platforms have the best online functionality). This is still a very fun game for the PS2, but it would be even better if you could play online and download new songs.