The closest I've ever come to being musical in my time here on Earth was playing Green Sleeves on the piano the other day after two hours of intense training. I want to learn an instrument and after trying my hand at the harmonica and the accordion I'm determined to nail the piano - I have visions of myself walking into a swanky jazz bar in London, flexing my fingers, clicking my joints, easing my hands in for a night of sensual ivory tickling, and after a couple of little sexy numbers all the tall blondes dressed in black leather will naturally flock my way to compliment my shiny piano and ply me with cocktails while wondering what else my highly talented fingers are capable of! But then if those same girls watched me play Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, they'd know that my fingers aren't up to much after all! Left hand breaking into mini-sweats, blazing up the fret board at what feels like one hundred degree muscle burn - GH III makes the previous instalments look like Ukulele Hero.

Just like Guitar Hero II, in GH III you get a new shiny guitar - unless you buy the solo edition, but you'd have to already have the guitar from the second pack and no desire for a wireless guitar. For me it was the latter; I wanted to dance around and play some rock tunes without tripping over my wires! Plus, a second guitar means I'll be able to have the luxury commodity that is multiplayer for both Guitar Hero titles I now own. This year's guitar replicates the Les Paul - it's shiny black, like the piano in my dreams, and also comes with a detachable neck should you be travelling with it and want something compact. As with previous guitar mock-ups, this controller comes with five different coloured notes on the fret board and a strum button that you can strum either way on the face of the guitar, complete with a whammy bar for bending longer notes and standard buttons like Start and the all-important dashboard button should you want to reply to a text message using the guitar as a painful method to say hello. Differences between this and last year's Gibson are simply that the Les Paul is wireless, feels heavier and more substantial - it looks a lot nicer too. Oh, and let's not forget the money spinning ploy of detachable faceplates for the Les Paul too; soon you'll be able to buy snap-on union jacks or clip on skull heads. Rock hard!

Guitar Hero games are simple on paper. Using the notes on the guitar controller, you simply have to match them up to the ones on the 3D moving fret board displayed on the screen - in time with the song that's playing. Match them up, press them down and strum the strummer - you understand - but lovers of the rhythm genre are no strangers to multitasking. Some notes are longer than others, so they require you to strum and hold down the notes on the fret board, then there are other notes that form chords and require to you press multiple notes down in a single strum. Hitting lots of notes without missing or pressing wrong colours not only wins over the crowd, but it makes your score increase, because the longer you can go without messing up, the more each note is worth. Getting ten notes in a row for instance then makes the following ten notes worth double the amount, and the ten after that triple - all the way up to x4. Lastly, there are some notes that look different in appearance onscreen - coloured stars. Hitting these stars in the correct sequence awards you with star powers, which when activated by briefly raising your guitar, make whatever point multiplier you have applied already double for a short period of time. This means that if you're currently earning triple points for each note, with star power activated you've got a x6 multiplier - which should put you on the leaderboard for sure.

So what's new in Guitar Hero III? Surely the developers can't just add a load of new songs, stick a III over the II and bundle it with a swish new guitar controller can they? Apparently not, because RedOctane have gone to great lengths to make you feel as if you've entered a new generation of Guitar Hero. The first thing you'll notice if you've played the first two games is the brand new interface. The 3D fret board and the notes on the board look a lot crisper and almost neon in colour; it all looks very posh, and great in HD. The backgrounds that see your character dancing and playing on stage are funny too; there's always something going on depending on where you play - not that you'll have time to pay much notice thanks to the intense difficulty hike that comes with this title. The whole menu navigation is nice as well, looking like a giant fan's scrapbook, with options for familiar things such as multiplayer or career, visiting the shop and downloading new content, and then not so familiar things like Xbox Live and co-op careers.

Xbox Live allows you to play against rivals from across the globe, so that these rivals can then humiliate you and make you thankful that your new guitar is wireless, because it makes it easier to throw the bloody thing out of the window. For skilled players it's a shame that webcam support isn't entertained, as seeing the look of intense concentration on the face of your opponent might make for some cheap laughs. Whether you decide to play offline or on, the modes remain the same - although personally I prefer to play offline because at least I know who I'm up against and how good they are. As with the previous games you have your face off modes where you can either take turns to play certain parts of the song, or a pro-face off, where you both play the song in its entirety, which seems a little fairer to me. Co-op is here now, so one player can play bass while the other plays guitar - and seeing as most songs are quite bass heavy, no player is really left out. My favourite new multiplayer mode has to be the battle, however.

Battle appears in the single player mode too and the principle remains the same - the game mode is similar to face off in some respects, as you each take turns to play sections of the song. However, instead of collecting star powers and playing for points, you collect battle powers and play to see your opponent lose! By hitting all the notes in a sequence you can collect some nasty guitar battle powers, including Amp Overload and Cut String - overloading their amp makes their notes harder to hit and cutting their strings forces them to repair what you cut by rapidly tapping the corresponding note on the guitar controller. The trick is to use your powers when they're playing their part of the song, or you could collect up to three powers and use them all at the same time to ensure your opponent can't hit any notes for as long as the battle power lasts. The winner is the one who survives the attacks and makes their opponent lose.

Co-op career is like the single player career, but without the battles. The single player career is worth playing just to unlock songs that are exclusive to single player careers however, like the solo sessions by famous guitarists like Slash and Tom Morello - these artists play their solos in a battle style and these boss battles shake up the traditional song after song routine. Playing co-op isn't without its perks though; some songs can only be unlocked by playing with a friend, so it pays dividends to buddy up so you can enjoy these songs on your own at a later date.

GH III has over seventy songs and they're no longer "as made famous by" recordings, but instead the genuine article with the proper vocals and instruments. This is fantastic, especially when some impersonators on previous Guitar Hero games didn't sound anything like the object of their emulation - and I wouldn't have liked to hear anybody impersonate Jack Black on one of the Tenacious D songs in GH III either! With that said, GH III sports quite an unusual line up of rock songs. Some songs strike me as really good rock classics, while others are oldies that I haven't heard of at all - songs from the Seventies, or even earlier. While Welcome to the Jungle might be a song of choice for offline multiplayer, I certainly found myself skipping the same songs over and over again. In Guitar Hero II there wasn't really any song I actually hated, so it's a real shame GH III caters for more mature audience, leaving people like me with limited rock knowledge with a slew of songs that I can't bring myself to bother with. Don't get me wrong - I love some of the newer songs by bands like The Sex Pistols, AFI and The Killers, and I won't say no to a bit of Black Sabbath either - but some just aren't my bag, baby.

You see, the game is a little easier if you know the songs you're playing - after all, you already know the rhythm and that's half the battle in a rhythm game. But even with the songs I knew, the Medium mode, which I can play with ease on GH II, is really hard in GH III. Easy is easy no matter what GH game you play, but the difference between the two mediums is astronomical - I'd say that the GH III medium is close to GH II hard and if you aren't too confused by now then you'll probably handle the increased difficulty with ease - but a simple mortal like me, with only four fingers and a thumb, can't be expected to pull off some of the solos found in this game!

Some of the seventy songs can be purchased from the store using credits you've acquired in Career. Bands like the Kaiser Chiefs and Killswitch Engaged hide in this store, but beyond that most of the songs there are by unsigned bands, many of them better than so-called classics from the olden days in Career mode that I've never heard of! GH III is full of other great things to purchase with your career money too, such as new characters like the Grim Reaper and the Rock God, as well as a load of different outfits for already unlocked characters, plus new guitars and new moves too. If you want to spend real money then you can buy track packs from Xbox Live - there's a rather tempting Red Hot Chilli Peppers pack with the new song The Pretenders inside that I might invest in sooner or later, but you can also sneak some songs off Xbox Live for free too - check out the Halo Theme as a free download, rocking out, playing melodies that you thought you'd only find in a Bungie classic! It's fantastic that Microsoft and Activision joined forces here and it's got to be the reason to get the Xbox 360 version over the others for downloadable content and being able to play the Halo Theme alone!

There's no getting around the fact that Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock is an expensive game. Retailing at £74.9, you've got to factor in bang for buck when making a purchase like this. Sure, it's got full online play, something that is without doubt a massively welcome addition to the series, but I still feel that it's a better experience to play offline with mates - and for that you'll need another guitar, which will put you back another fifty quid. Sure, you don't need to be a lottery winner to enjoy such a luxury but you do need to feel no emotions when parting with such large amounts of money for a game. I mean, Guitar Hero III and another guitar controller is almost the price of a Nintendo Wii, which opens up a whole world of entertainment. But then you still have to buy games to play with your Wii and if you're like me, who simply cannot say no to gadgets, then Guitar Hero III is a very rewarding experience - it's a lot harder than the previous games and it's got an eclectic mix of songs that won't all be to your taste, but it really is a lot of fun, especially with friends. It's something that will keep the family hooked at Christmas - whether you're playing or just spectacting. If you think music games might be your thing or you enjoyed previous instalments in the series then save up and treat yourself, because Guitar Hero only comes out once a year (if that) and you can keep coming back to it until the next one is released - providing you don't get so into the rock atmosphere that you smash your guitar controller on your makeshift stage!

Reviewed by Dexter Pearson for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).