Ah, Guitar Hero. I personally have spent way too many hours playing this game, working my way up to expert status. The product of a misspent youth, I always say.

Taking into account my devotion to this game, I was overjoyed to attend a launch party for Guitar Hero 3 last night at the Gibson showroom in Hell's Kitchen. Though the game isn't set to come out until late October, the guys from game creators Red Octane showcased a preliminary version that included most of the final features, such as the new Battle mode, which feels a lot like Mario Kart but on guitar.

Playing this game was at least ten times better than playing Guitar Hero 2. Two of the Neversoft programmers (Neversoft is the design firm responsible for GH) are actual guitarists, so this time around, the game noticeably and pretty accurately mimics what playing guitar really feels like. Red Octane PR guy Jordan Dodge told me they opened the time in which a player can hit the notes, and they're manually programming each hammer-on, both of which contributes to the feel of really playing guitar. Neversoft also recently brought in ten of the best GH players in the world for a focus group, so player feedback has a key role in the product.

CE Reviews editor Brian Bennett and I give Guitar Hero 3 a go.

I was worried about the HD lag time, which posed a major problem in Guitar Hero 2. Dodge told me they've tweaked the HD calibrators on the game slightly, but overall there's not much a player can do to correct the problem apart from accurately manually adjusting the lag.

The soundtrack this time around will satisfy any rocker's appetite. Songs by the Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam, the Rolling Stones, Guns 'N Roses, and even Tenacious D round out the main set list. Guitar Hero 3 features almost all original versions also. No more covers! I found the sound quality to be much better than on the other games. Dodge confirmed for me that they found the original master tapes--you got it: analog!--for most of the songs. Of course, more recent songs have only known digital format, but overall, the sound on this version is leagues above that of the other two versions.

My and Brian's scores. I'm the expert; he's on easy, respectively.

The controllers are also redesigned. They're wireless now and come in either the Gibson Les Paul or Kramer model, depending on your system. Also, the guitar simply feels better in hand. There's a small groove at the top of the neck where the thumb rests, and I found this helped considerably with grip and in eliminating hand fatigue.

One thing I was disappointed with was the ease of the songs on the main set list. It was my first time playing Guitar Hero 3 last night, but I was playing on expert. I asked Dodge if there were going to be harder bonus tracks, and he assured me there will be. Apparently, there's a song so hard (Dragonforce's "Through the Fire and Flames") that the guy widely recognized as the best Guitar Hero player in the world continually failed at 1 percent. I played a fair amount of the songs--all on hard or expert--including Tenacious D's "The Metal," Weezer's "My Name is Jonas," The Rolling Stones' "Paint It, Black" and Guns 'N Roses' "Welcome to the Jungle." Everyone was pretty surprised to see a girl wail on the game, on the higher levels no less. I am not ashamed to say that, as the only girl there, I trashed every male I played except for one of the game's programmers.

Guitar Hero 3 will be released for Playstation 3, XBOX 360, Nintendo Wii and Playstation 2; the ballpark release date is late October, between the 23rd and 28th (no information on pricing just yet). Dodge said they didn't want to alienate the Playstation 2 fan base, which has been a huge supporter of the first two games. However, he added that because of the new graphics and features on GH3, he thought the experience was heightened by playing on one of the newer systems.