With everyday music, some can already be pointed out as the calling card of a current or former wrestler. Whenever I hear Enter Sandman by Metallica, right away I envision the Sandman, staggering through the crowd with a kendo stick on one hand a beer in another, and another half dozen cans of beer throughout all of his jean pockets. Straight edge superstar CM Punk set off a frenzy at iTunes once he debuted his new entrance theme, which was a throwback to his time in Ring of Honor. Cult of Personality made an impact on the charts years after it was first released, thanks to the power of CM Punk and the WWE. Some well established bands even helped pen tracks for the sole purpose of promoting a certain wrestler, such as Triple H and the three Motorhead themes he has used over the years (The Game, Line in the Sand for his faction Evolution, and King of Kings) and Edge with Metalingus from Altered Bridge (IMO the greatest entrance theme ever in life.)

If you think having a famous or catchy entrance theme isn’t something worth clamoring over, I direct your attention to probably the single greatest entrance in wrestling history:

Space Channel 5 – Spaceport: Introducing Ulala

Street Fighter Alpha 3 – Shin Bison’s Theme

Lost Odyssey – Roar of the Departed Souls

When I first heard this one, I immediately thought of “The Fallen Angel” Christopher Daniels, mainly from older themes he used in TNA. There are quite a few parallels between this theme and the track from Lost Odyssey, from vocal portions to instrumentals. I would crop the intro about thirty seconds however, which leaves enough time for a build up and an entrance to follow. I’ve heard conflicting reports about Daniels winding down his career though, but in any case, the theme seems to fit him well, both in resemblance to his older entrance theme, to the bit of complexity to its composition representing the kind of in ring move-set and talent that Christopher Daniels showcases week in and week out.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night – Gates of Spirits

Taken as either a demented or a somewhat supernatural type heel theme, this track from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night reminds me a bit of two wrestlers, though one in a faint sort of manner. The first wrestler I think of is Sycho Sid from back in the WWF days. The guy in general seemed like a loon, but if you heard one of his promos, you’d be convinced that he’s been hitting some kind of illegal drug hard. Not Ultimate Warrior hard, but close.  His entrance theme had a psychopathic tinge in it, which for some reason I can see this video game track fitting in well enough. The second guy that the track could fit (in a faint respect) is the Boogeyman. His actual theme is a bit more frantic and unsettling though, but oddly enough, I still thought of this gimmick while I heard this song.

Wrestling entrances can be plausibly linked to the use of video game music. While there may not be a myriad of suitable tracks for the number of talents throughout the industry, they are as logically sound and completely feasible as using a movie soundtrack, or an already established song from the CD of a hugely popular band. Did you know of any video game songs that would fit right in with the persona of a current of former grappler? Lets us know with a comment below and perhaps share a link to these songs!

I began my gaming experiences within music genre playing PaRappa the Rapper and Bust a Groove on the Sony PlayStation. They weren’t necessarily the true beginnings of the genre, but they are what I started with. With each of those games, you either rapped, or danced in tune, using button presses to command the gameplay. Um Jammer Lammy, a spin off to PaRappa the Rapper, featured the same gameplay as PaRappa, but with a guitar instead of rapping. Eventually, the methods used to playing these games would lead to the release of Guitar Hero, a guitar peripheral based game where you use a plastic guitar to play the notes that appear on the screen, as opposed to a standard controller. While a majority of Guitar Hero fans found the second installment to be their favorite, I found Guitar Hero 3 to be the best non spin off, plastic guitar wielding game I’ve played.

Jimi Hendrix? Nope, just a case of imitation being the sincerest form of flattery. Another example of this - Marshall Law from Tekken and Fei Long from Super Street Fighter closely resembling Bruce Lee.

There’s so much going for GH3. The music line up ranges from stellar, more mainstream songs (Knights of Cydonia, Cult of Personality, One) to lesser known, but excellent songs (Take This Life, F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X.). The line up is just phenomenal. More or less, the most important aspect of this game, the soundtrack, succeeds at every possible level. My only gripe with the song list is that the difficulty ramps up significantly at the last two sets of songs. Even though you are almost eased through the first few tiers, learning the ropes and whatnot, the final two tiers seem like a major leap forward. Thankfully, the songs in the final two tiers are just so damn good and fun to play, repeating those songs over and over isn’t a punishment. You can even give a go at completing a co-op career mode, though sadly, you cannot take that fun online.

The controls are spot on. It’s challenging for the novice, and just about perfect for the die hard players, once you learn the ropes. Each difficulty, aside from Expert, will add a new button on the guitar to use with each song . There were some issues with the guitar that came bundled with GH3, due to the fact that the guitar breaks away in two pieces, and the connectors didn’t seem to match up properly with one button. While I never had this issue, newer guitars, or the excellent Xplorer USB guitar, are about flawless and have no such problems. Graphically, the note charts look clear, and the character models and venues, while cartoon like and lacking any major flair, are functional. I find all the complaints about the visuals to be over exaggerated, other than the drummer looking lost in the mix.

About the only things that sour my views on Guitar Hero 3, aside from the sudden ramping up of the difficulty near the end, is the Battle Mode and the lack of downloadable content. While it has an initial excitement, balancing the acquisition of power ups to use against your opponent with trying to counter any detrimental attack they deliver, Battle Mode soon becomes an afterthought to the core game its self. I found that actually playing a versus game straight up, without any sort of gimmicks thrown in, was a ton more fun, and held a considerably stronger longevity.

Sure, these character models and environments don't look ultra realistic or anything, but I'm too busy following the chart to follow the characters and stages.

Compared to Rock Band, the amount of DLC was quite depressing. What little DLC there is, impresses. Metallica’s Death Magnetic album was released in its entirety, and a three pack of Muse, Coldplay and Dragonforce songs were the most notable content released. While those four packs were above and beyond impressive and insanely fun to play, it doesn’t remedy the fact that Guitar Hero 3′s DLC support was beyond mediocre, and even to this day, the Guitar Hero franchise lags behind Rock Band significantly.

While the music genre in general is over saturated and lacking any kind of innovation these days, Guitar Hero 3 was the series most well rounded title. Aside from GH: Metallica, the series went on to decline, rip off and help spread over saturation to the Rock Band series. But with all that aside, Guitar Hero 3 is one of the best games in the music genre, offering a long list of great music on one disc that are all fun to play. Even with the sudden jump in difficulty near the end, it’s extremely fun to play, whether you play by yourself, along with someone, or against someone.

Rating: 8.7