First, buy Guitar Hero III, if you don’t already have it, and make absolutely sure you buy the guitar controller and game set. There may be some badass songs on I and II, but III is the only one I have that allows you to practice in slower-than-normal speed, which is essential in the learning process. You’ll see my reasoning later, just be patient. I would say get World Tour as well, but they changed a lot of game features in that one from what I hear, and I’ve been told it has 6 buttons instead of 5 (although I’ve looked at a box of the World Tour controller, and can’t find a single picture of there being 6). This may sound like an advantage, but I would say it’s best to practice on the 5-button I, II, and III controller first, just to get the basic techniques down.
Where do we go from here? If you already have Guitar Hero III like I did, then you’ll know what comes next. PRACTICE. And lots of it. However, this practice will be unlike anything you’ve probably thought of doing. I’m going to be making what will seem like some unusual requests later down the line.
First of all, most people would start at the tutorials, and those people that do are absolutely right. Even if you’ve played I or II before (or if you really blew the ticket and bought World Tour first), the dynamics of the game have changed from those you’ve come to expect from playing the previous games before it or even the latest Guitar Hero version.
So do those tutorials, even though they may seem easy! This will be your refresher on how the rhythm, rhyme, and harmony works throughout the game. (Though if you listen carefully enough while you’re strumming, you’ll find little tidbits of off rhythm. Hey, the people playing it are only human, and Harmonix, Red Octane and Activision have compensated for most of these quite well where they could, so that it’s barely noticeable at full speed. No one’s got all the answers, and that’s exactly why I’m writing this guide.)
First, work your way through the career mode on Easy. If you’re already a Guitar Hero master from the previous 2 or World Tour, you’ll still need to do this, as it’ll unlock the main songs for you (which are mostly the best ones in the game, but that’s just my opinion) as well as getting you a bit of money to unlock songs and other things from the store. When you’re done, spend your hard earned cash on the songs first! Finishes and other goodies come second to your mastery of the Guitar Hero Force, young proverbial padawan (or knight, depending on your skill, but you are NOT a master yet if you can’t 100% a single song on expert), so those are you primary concern at this point. It doesn’t matter which songs you unlock from the bonus as long as you understood the basic skills necessary to complete Career mode on the Easy setting.
Next, we shall have the true tour de force in learning to master ANY Guitar Hero song, on 5 buttons or 6. Though I haven’t tried it out on World Tour yet (since I don’t have it) the principles are the same, just two transfers of the fingers across notes from the bottom to the top (or vice versa) instead of one. This will work, if you’re doing it right. Just have faith in yourself and believe you can be a Guitar Hero Rock God!
Now this is where my requests may seem to get a bit unusual. And also, be aware that you’ll need to use your own preference on how long to do what I say to do, and according to how well you are progressing.
It’s time for Expert setting! You heard me right! Now that you’ve unlocked all the main songs in the game and bought some of the bonus songs, the REAL fun begins. You’re going to laugh, cry, and sometimes fall flat on your face in surprise at what will happen when you follow my directions, and maybe even discover a little about yourself in the process. First of all, the reason I'm starting you at expert after just completing easy is simple- It's the least boring of four difficulties, and you'll thank me for it later because you can't go ANY higher than it; it will feel much more rewarding to you than having you finish career mode on medium or hard now, which will likely, to you, feel like the same old song and dance. You see, after career mode is finished on easy, the game will feel way too easy to you and you'll need a challenge worthy of a rock god.
This will indeed give it to you, but beware! This journey into nearly entirely uncharted territory is not for the faint of heart. It will take much practice (and patience, by the way) to be able to rock out on some of Guitar Hero III's hardest songs on expert. You will spend many, many hours on this endeavor, and rightfully so. Unless you are one of the few who can fly through any song with relative ease, perhaps even 100% it with out trying, then you've already become a Guitar Hero rock god, and there is (very likely) nothing left for you to do of interest in the rhythm genre. This is supposed to be difficult and challenging, that's where the fun lies.
So now that I've explained the why, it's time to get down to the stage and rock out. But hold your horses! You don't seriously expect to walk onto the stage and not get booed off your first time, do you? This is where the similarity between playing the real guitar and the guitar hero guitar comes in- practice! Real guitar heroes spend hours upon hours pouring over lyrics and endevouring into scripts full of notes. Fortunately, everything you'll need is included with the full game, so you won't have to worry about anything but playing the notes that pop up onscreen.
And play you will! But only in practice mode. Like was said earlier, you've been through career mode already, and all that has probably left you wanting more. There is only one REAL option for you now- mastery!
Before we go into the basics of how you'll progress, I would like to offer some advice for those who had to follow my previous instructions- which should've been everyone.
1. You will get bored, and you WILL have to take breaks. When you take these breaks, don't think about Guitar Hero the whole time. It'll make it easier to play as you'll come back to the game with a fresh mind towards it, which will make you a more effective player.
2. If you notice any twitches in your fingers after playing a while, this is a sign to stop at the first opportunity. You will feel pain in your fingers, however, while you play on expert, and this is not a sign to stop AT ALL. Play through it- this is your body adapting to the speed necessary, and if you stop playing at that time, you'll never be able to finish so much as one song on expert (or at least, it'll take quite a bit more time).
3. Keep an open and critical mind while playing (I cannot stress this part enough, failure leads to frustration, but it WILL be a part of your routine, so make sure to think, "what did I do wrong, and what can I do to improve it?". Also, learn the proper stance to play in as indicated in the manual- fully upright and on your feet- since this will ensure maximum results. If you have to sit down to play, then you need to build up your stamina until you can actually play standing up. Make sure you have the guitar controller's strap hooked firmly onto the knobs at the right and middle sides (when the guitar controller is facing away from you) so that you don't have to sit down.
4. If you encounter any sudden siezures, that's your sign you shouldn't be playing the game at all.
5. If you can't keep up with the notes, don't fret! Remain calm as you can while playing for maximum results and try to hit the notes you can.
6. Once you get better, you'll find yourself hitting more notes; this is a clear sign that you can handle a harder song than you're playing. Don't play the same song a million times over, but at the same time, don't stop practicing the song you're currently playing until you have at least some major confidence you've improved on it considerably.
One last word of advice.
7. DO NOT PLAY THROUGH THE FIRE AND FLAMES UNTIL YOU'RE ABSOLUTELY READY TO. This will lead to hopeless failure and you won't get any level of satisfaction out of it.
Now that you're ready with my invaluable advice on how to play the game, you're probably wondering, "what's the plan?!" And have one I most certainly do. It's so simple you're going to want to shoot yourself for not thinking of it. PLEASE don't! Sometimes the errors of the few lead to revolutions seldom thought of otherwise. If you did think of this already, then you're going to shoot yourself if you were playing all day, since the above advice mentioned not to.
The simplest way to put it is this (that I can think of, anyway)- Stop your current method first.
Then start playing at normal speed on any of the songs (EXCEPT the aforementioned Through the Fire and Flames). Personally, I chose The Number of the Beast by Iron Maiden in the 7th tour to impove my mastery of chords, (a very necessary thing to play many of the songs in ANY guitar hero game) to master first (still working on it too, I just had to get the method of my madness out before I forgot the method to it!)
Ultimately, it'll be your choice which song you decide to master first. If you're feeling bold, go with my suggestion. If you're not feeling that daring for your first time on expert, then you'll probably want to go with a slower song like Sunshine of Your Love by Cream in the 2nd tour or Slow Ride by Foghat in the 1st tour. Both have fairly slow rhythm speeds but maintain a certain difficulty for expert that will make for a more challenging mastery time than you would expect. If you're feeling somewhere in the middle, I would suggest a mediocre difficulty song like A.F.I.'s Miss Murder to start on. Ultimately, that's where I began my trail to mastery, I just never tried my method on that song (but now I will!).
Once you've been able to get a slight bit of the song (it's important not to do this too early, but I'll let you be the judge of when), switch down to the slowest speed setting in practivce mode so that you can nail all the notes and learn the rhythms and notes properly. The reason I had you do the normal speed first is so that you get the gist of what the song is like and what to expect once you're back at that point- which will be a few plays through yet.
Play it again at slowest speed a couple times until you get the hang of a good portion of the notes (or until you can hit at least 50% of them; if you can already do that, aim for something more in the 60 to 70 percentile). Now, go back to normal speed. You'll either note a considerable difference or be playing worse than you were. Don't worry! This is your brain adapting between speeds.
Repeat playing at normal speed for several more times or until you can't seem to play as well as you were the previous time that you played on normal speed.
Repeat the process of teeter-totter between the slowest and normal speeds until you can get almost all the notes on the slowest speed.
Now it's time to move slowest to slow. Continue the back-and-forth between slow and normal and notice how you probably are hitting less notes on slow than you were on slowest. Once you can hit almost all the notes on slow, advance the lower end to medium. Repeat this until the point where you can 100% the song with relative ease on Normal speed.
If you can do this, it's time for Quick Play mode! This will allow you to play any of the songs you have unlocked on expert without having to play the career mode at that level. You'll have all the features that run the course of the normal career mode gameplay you experienced (what will now seem to be) a great deal of time ago, so make sure to nail the all-important star power segments so you can maximize that score!
And when you finally get that song 100%, try another with the same process. Remember that you can always go back to playing in Practice Mode if your playing needs work.
And that's how you do it! I hope this helps, and answers any questions you may have had!
