After giving your fingers a little time to rest, the Guitar Hero brand is back again to dish out the pain in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. With developer Neversoft taking over for the now MTV-owned Harmonix, many fans feared this new studio would break their favorite rhythm game. Fear not. While some things have clearly changed, the fun factor is alive and well.

For those unacquainted with Guitar Hero, the basic idea is that you play the guitar for your in-game band via a 5-button guitar controller. As notes come down the screen, you press the appropriate button on the fret board while simultaneously hitting the strum bar with your other hand. Think Dance Dance Revolution for your fingers and you’re getting close.

Not seeing any need to uproot a system that is working just fine, Neversoft essentially gave Guitar Hero a super-flashy makeover while adding a few new touches. This new Hero has all five game modes from the past with the addition of a standalone co-op career and of course the new battle mode. While the existing modes all rock just as hard as ever, both of Neversoft’s new modes suffer issues. In the co-op career you and a friend must work together to beat songs and progress through the game.

You even unlock a handful of songs which can’t be played solo until being beaten in the co-op career. But what if you don’t have a friend and another guitar? You can’t play the co-op career online, despite being able to do so with individual songs. Thus your options for playing those select tracks are: cheat, deal with it, or buy another guitar and/or friend. Battle Mode is a neat idea that doesn’t really translate well into the game, at least not into single player.

Most people are familiar with Guitar Hero by now, but if you’re not then the good news is that the game is remarkably easy to pick up. The game comes bundled with a wireless guitar peripheral for a larger than normal recommended retail price. In-game, the player is presented with a vertically scrolling bar with five grooves, featuring coloured markers which move down the screen as the music plays.

Each of these coloured markers represents one of the different coloured fret buttons on the guitar peripheral. By holding the appropriate coloured fret button and hammering the strummer at the right time, you strum a note. Mess up the timing, and you’re given a mangled, out-of-tune note in return. Single notes are shown with just a solitary marker, while long notes have a trail behind them, indicating that the appropriate fret button must be held for that length of time.

Sounds easy doesn’t it? Well it is, after a few hours on easy mode when you’re only using three coloured fret buttons - then you’ll move onto four and those that want a real challenge will use five coloured fret buttons.