I’m a Johnny-come-lately to this whole world of ‘virtual guitars.’ I finally picked up Guitar Hero 3 a couple of weeks ago, and today Rock Band arrived. I’d found it really confusing, trying to decide which one to get. So in the end I got both. Great economics, huh? I thought I might capture my impressions in a series of posts, in case anyone else is trying to pick one of the two.

These posts are based on the PS3 versions of the games. I’m not going to go into a whole big thing about console preference. I have a PS3, an XBox 360 and a Wii, and my personal preference is for the PS3 over the XBox 360, mostly because its a lot quieter when its running, and because I don’t care about online multiplayer.

Guitar Hero III w/Guitar Controller will run you about $100. The Rock Band bundle is $170 and comes with a guitar controller, drum set controller, and a microphone. Right there, you have a compelling reason to go with Rock Band if you’re living in a multi-gamer household.

On the PS3, the controllers are not interchangeable at this time, though as of this writing there are heavy rumors of a patch that will let you use the GH 3 guitar controller with Rock Band. My understanding is that on the 360, the GH 3 controller will work with Rock Band, but not vice versa.

Let’s compare the two guitar controllers. This is a definite ‘out of the box’ comparison. I haven’t actually played Rock Band as of the time of this writing. 🙂 But the differences just struck me so I wanted to capture them right away.
Continue reading “Rock Band vs Guitar Hero 3: The Guitars”