10 things they forgot to put in Guitar Hero III

1. Pedal accessory
Everyone was excited when they picked up their Guitar Hero II games for the 360 because it had an expansion port on it. The game even came with a diagram that labeled it as the “pedal expansion port.” If it’s not in GH II or in GH III, when are we going to see this? Rock Band lets you change the guitar effects right on your axe, so where’s our pedal?

2. Cheaper DLC
If you look back to the interview I did with Bryan Lam from Red Octane, you’ll see I delved pretty deeply into the price per song of the various guitar/rhythm games on the market. Downloadable songs cost you twice as much: over $2 per song! I guess Red Octane and Neversoft are making serious money at that price point and a lot of people are buying the songs because I don’t see a change in this any time soon.

3. Online Co-op
Okay, I’m a geek. I know it. And geeks don’t have many friends so it’s hard for me to find someone to play co-op career mode with. I want the co-op achievements, too. I want to make more in-game money. Sadly, until I find another person who actually wants to play Guitar Hero with me in person, I’m stuck in single player

4. Playable Devil Went Down to Georgia
Wow, what a kick-ass song! I got more of a kick playing this than just about any other song in any of the games. Why isn’t it in quickplay? You obviously had someone perform it, so why can’t I play it without battling? Would that have compromised the gameplay too much? This is one of those developer choices that I simply can’t find any good reason for.

5. Full song availability in single player
So I can’t play Beastie Boys, The Strokes, Red Hot Chili Peppers or Blue Oyster Cult? Why? I don’t have anyone to play co-op with. That’s why. Even if you beat and win the song in online play you still can’t play it in quickplay. Who made this decision?

6. Online voice chat
Hello? Hellooo? Why can I plug my headset into the guitar but I can’t actually talk to anyone while I’m playing? Why is that port on there? What if I want to talk to someone online? Are you saying that Guitar Hero III 1v1 online has more going on than Halo 3 8v8 and that’s why there’s no chat? Maybe those Neversoft guys just don’t like to talk?

7. Led Zeppelin or The Beatles
I know everyone has been desperate to play some songs from these bands. I know they’re hard to get – you can’t even buy them on iTunes. But if Cadillac can score Led Zeppelin and Verizon can get the rights to a Beatles song, wouldn’t their respective estates be more than eager to get the songs in the game? What happened here?

8. Jimi Hendrix
He was in the first game with Spanish Castle Magic. Somehow in the three Guitar Hero games that have been released since then, we haven’t had a single Hendrix track. No DLC, no bonus, no boss, no nothing. I guess that was the only good guitar song Jimi had? If you really need your fix you can install around ten programs to hack your disk, put in your own songs and then reburn your ISO for a hacked PS2 machine. Sounds easy… NOT

9. Freezepop
Don’t tell me Harmonix got an exclusive contract with the synth-pop masters. Freezepop has always been one of the best bonus artists in the Guitar Hero games and it’s a shame to not see them in this game. In fact, there’s not one interesting bonus song in the whole game. At least we got Trogdor last year.

10. Free Play
The only way you’ll get your axe to play a note not in a song is by downloading a couple of programs to your computer and plugging your guitar in the USB port. It’s not that I don’t love playing most of the songs they’ve chosen; I’d just like to wail on it from time to time. Rock Band has a feature like this in the game, but unfortunately it’s still built into the songs.