beat Guitar Hero III on expert

How I did it: See "lessons and tips".  That's how I did it.  More generally, I practiced A LOT, and I sought advice from others via the Internet for particularly difficult sections.

Lessons & tips: Firstly, there's no replacement for practice.  I can give you some
advice for managing some of the harder parts, but you simply have to be
at a certain skill level before you can do this.  To handle expert, you
need to learn alt-strumming, hammer-ons, and pull-offs.  If you're
still on Hard, good alt-strumming practice is "Knights of Cydonia" and
good hammer-on/pull-off practice is "Cities on Flame with Rock N'
Roll".  The latter song can be unlocked in quickplay through a cheat
(google it, it's everywhere).  Otherwise, just play a ton, and focus on
harder songs.  If you're comfortable with Hard and have trouble with
Expert, play Expert anyway.  You must challenge yourself to get better.

Here are the 3 hardest parts of Expert career, in my opinion:

1. Guitar Battle vs. Lou - This is the supposedly "easy" way to do
this, but it takes luck and it's not necessarily that easy.  Just make
sure you get the first power up.  If it's a whammy attack, save it for
a few seconds and release it during his fast part.  This will take him
out. If it's not a whammy attack, start over and try again.  He gets an
attack first, so hope it's something not too bad.  Whammy is the best one to get hit with.  Amp Overload is worse but survivable.  Broken
String: possible...a broken green string is no big deal, other strings
can be worse.  Lefty Flip: I can survive, but I usually miss the
power-up. Double Notes: Sorry, game over.  If it's a hard one, just
reload and try again.  When he hits you with something easy (e.g. a
whammy attack), grab the first power-up and pray it's a whammy attack. 

Even with this strategy, you still have to be decent at alt-strumming
and hammer-ons/pull-offs.  You have to be good enough to pick up the
power-up when it comes, good enough to survive long enough to pick it up
and use it, and good enough to complete the "Finish Him" section, so
get plenty of practice on other songs.


2.) Raining Blood - Mosh 1 section - Ignore the green notes in this
section.  Just hit the first note in each scale and use pull-offs on
the rest (except the green - just skip it).  Try to hit the chords and
stray notes if you can.  This section is super-fast, but it's doable
with practice.  If you can survive this section, you should be able to
beat the song.  The "Flood" section isn't as bad as people make out.

3.) One - Beginning of the solo -  Practice the bridge until you can
come into the solo in the green and with full Star Power.  Once you're
in the solo, save Star Power for when you really need it.  For this
section, alt-strum at a moderate pace and roll your fingers over the
frets to match the note chart as accurately as you can.  It's too hard
to use hammer-ons/pull-offs for everything (unless you're very good,
but in this case, you don't need my help).  Alt-strumming causes every

mistake to result in 1 or 2 misses instead of 5 or 10, so I would
consider alt-strumming necessary for all but elite players.  Don't spam the strum
bar though or you'll overstrum and fail out.  Just alt-strum at a
moderate pace...maybe slightly slower than "Knights of Cydonia" speed.

Jul 04, 05:13PM PDT | 3 comments