Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (PlayStation 2)

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
Developer: Budcat Creations Publisher: Activision Platform: PlayStation 2 Released in JP: March 6, 2008 Released in US: October 28, 2007 Released in EU: November 23, 2007 Released in AU: November 7, 2007 This game has hidden development-related text. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused cinematics. This game has debugging material.

Guitar Hero III is the first game in the series to not be developed by Harmonix and the first to feature actual real life guitarists. Through the fire and the flames, we carry on...

To do: There's remnants of other versions of the game, such as Wii venue data and something to do with the Xbox Live menu. The debug menu's Settings menu needs documenting. While debug mode is active, holding Select on the PS2 version reveals more debug options, though you'll need the guitar for these. (Does this apply to other console versions as well? A star power calibration menu exists, which while used for the Arcade version goes unused normally. There exists model textures for what could be the original HUD as seen in the beta screenshots. These files exist in the PS2 WAD in folder "models\hud".)

Unused Graphics

Full versions of the images of Axel Steel and Casey Lynch which appear on the Options menu version of the credits. The final game uses a completely flat background as opposed to a background with these images overlaid on it. These versions of the images lack the bluish tint that the final has.

A simple placeholder graphic for missing textures. Similar images appear in later games in the series.

Several obvious placeholder images for some of the battle mode's items can be found in the directory with the other battle mode-specific images. Lefty Notes is called Lefty Flip in the final version, like the menu option.

Difficulty Up	Double Notes	Lefty Notes

The texture files gh3image1p.img.ps2 and gh3image2p.img.ps2 in the main WAD file reveal screenshots of a vastly different looking HUD from earlier in development, as well as a different, cruder looking note highway, compared to the final version which uses a 2D HUD instead. The venue Ye Olde Royal Odeon is visible, with all stage characters appearing as Axel Steel. Alongside one of these texture files is also a screenshot of Guitar Hero 2. It's also possible that these screenshots could be concept renders or something Harmonix produced.

The original Whammy texture, which is seen in prerelease media.

Debug Mode

Applying the below code will enable a debug mode that opens a debug menu in the main menu and in the pause screen.

Version	Code
USA	202616DC 24020000

(Source: Punk7890)

DEBUG MENU

Menu Option	Notes
Toggle Bot	Enables the player to automatically hit all notes correctly.
Unlock All	Unlocks everything.
Widescreen	Toggles widescreen.
Progressive Scan	Enables progressive mode.
Repeat Last Song	Repeats the last song played.
Play Song	Allows you to quickly select a song and mode.
Settings	Enters a sub menu.
Debug_Audiable_HitNote	Unknown.
Character Select	Allows changing of characters on-stage.
Skip Into Song	Presumably skips to points in the song.
Save Replay Buffer	Unknown.
Load Replay Buffer	Unknown.
Play Credits	Plays the end credits.

Unused Video

Among the rest of the game's movies (found within the aptly named "movies" folder) is a short, audioless placeholder movie under the name default.pss. The image used in the background of the video is the two player screenshot from above. Additionally, the logo for the game differs slightly from the final version, with the "III" being taller than in the final and having a point on the side that is also not in the final.

Bret Michaels

In the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC versions of the game, Poison singer Bret Michaels acts as the singer on the songs "Talk Dirty to Me" and "Go That Far". He was cut from the PlayStation 2 and Wii versions, but in the laziest way possible: although every mechanic to put him on the stage is there, his model and textures were replaced with a duplicate of the default male singer's. It is unknown why this is the case, though it may have been due to the developer's dissatisfaction with how his downgraded model looked. Strangely enough, his name is misspelled as "Brett" internally.

Build Dates

Two different build dates are present, as with every Guitar Hero game after III.

Date = Sep 18 2007 Time 14:18:55

Dumping from elf built on %s at %s
Apr  5 2008
14:33:59

Development-Related Text

Some strings relating to GameSpy.

c:/nxcommon_gh3c/gamespy/hashtable.cpp
%s.master.gamespy.com
No challenge value was received from the master 

server.
255.255.255.255
final\\queryid\1.1
localip%d
localport
statechanged
gamename
publicip
publicport
c:/nxcommon_gh3c/gamespy/ghttp/ghttpCallbacks.cpp
connection
c:/nxcommon_gh3c/gamespy/ghttp/ghttpConnection.cpp
ghiNumConnections == ghiConnectionsLen
connection
connection->request >= 0
connection->request < ghiConnectionsLen
connection->inUse
request >= 0
request < ghiConnectionsLen
connection->redirectURL
c:/nxcommon_gh3c/gamespy/gp/gpiCallback.cpp

Tony Hawk's Underground 2 and 3 (?!?) related strings are present in every Guitar Hero after III.

http://www.thug3online.com/testmotd.dat
http://www.thug3online.com/motd.dat

THUG2 Viewer

THUG2
Pal
NTSC
THUG2\

Some commented error messages.

who the hell knows???? (skintex)
Don't have a clue.

Ran out of memory... can't play movie %s.
Allocation successful. I am shocked. Shocked!
We appear to be stuck reading the movie data, 
bailing out...
Fatal Error Library version and driver version 
mismatch
Error!!! Library build number  and driver build 
number mismatch. But I will still continue

A small leftover from Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3. Ico is the format for PS2 save icons.

thps3.ico