We talked about the Peak controller last month and now it’s making the rounds. We were lucky enough to get a thorough hands on and I’m happy to report that if you don’t like strum games like Guitar Hero the Peak could help you change your mind. The guitar is styled on a full-sized electric with wooden neck and a nice strap. There are higher and lower buttons along with a Star Power button near the strum bar. Because it’s not hollow it doesn’t sound like maracas shaking when you strum. I personally hate strum games but this would make me reconsider. They’ll be selling literally any minute now at Go-Peak.com for $180. More photos after the jump. → Read More
This is solely based on conjecture from my meeting with Activision the other week where I demoed a slew of games including GH:WT, but after Harmonix’s announcement that you’d be able to export RB1 tracks to RB2, it got me thinking. Prior to my meeting with Activision I was chatting it up with a few guys from Rockstar Games and were generally nerding out about upcoming video games. One of the chaps from R* mentioned that he was pissed off that the tracks he purchased in previous GH titles were now useless since he’d moved on to the newer titles and I know this is how many of you feel about it. Anyway, I asked the product managers of GH:WT if we’d be able to import tracks we’ve all previously purchased in past editions. They said they weren’t ready to talk about it just now, so I’m led to believe that something is in the works. → Read More
The September issue of Stuff Magazine contains a four-page spread on Activision’s upcoming GH title and while 90 percent of what was documented has been public knowledge for some time, several new tracks were made known and one clever GH forum member scanned in the piece for the rest of us to see. Six new tracks and five other artists with unknown tracks were listed. The other rumored tracks can be found here. → Read More
Guitar Hero addicts now have another title to tame the shakes in “Guitar Hero III: Backstage Pass” for mobile phones. The game is similar to past mobile GH offerings except that this time, “there is an added element of working to get gigs and seeing what it’s really like for an artist to work their way to the top," said Niccolo de Masi, President of Hands-On Mobile. So aside from just rocking out, you’ll also handle some behind-the-scenes stuff like generating buzz, making demo tapes, doing press interviews, signing recording contracts, and so forth. All in all, there’s about 25 hours of gameplay and you can download new guitars and music by joining the Backstage Pass community online. The game is available today and can apparently be downloaded on most phones and carriers by either texting STAGE or BSP to 46966, although I kept getting an error. Prices vary by carrier. Guitar Hero: Backstage Pass [bsp.guitarheromobile.com] → Read More
Here’s the quick rundown on this 20+ minute video. Rock Band guitars and drums will be compatible with GH:WT. Brand new guitar with a dedicated Star Power button. Longer strum bar. Slider bar on the neck that’s touch sensitive: tap strum and a wah-wah effect. Non-Guitar Hero guitars can be played up on the frets without actually strumming. Drums are precise and allows real drummers to just close their eyes and smack away. The drum heads have a thicker layer of silicon to reduce noise, but give a bit of feedback for rolls. A y-splitter let’s you play with two kick drums. MIDI in-jack allows for real drum kits or beat boxes or whatever else. Logitech microphone that’s wired to reduce latency. Travis Barker says the ease of use on the drums is great for right or left handed drummers and it’s super realistic. There’s also a live performance by the Neversoft team. → Read More
If you find yourself feeling like half a man while using the sorta-cheap standard-issue Guitar Hero and Rock Band guitars BUT you don’t think you’re quite ready for the responsibility of owning and learning to play a real guitar, here’s a nice little baby-step along your path to self-realization. It’s a real-feeling, full-size guitar for Guitar Hero and/or Rock Band (the PS2 or PS3 versions only). It’s called the “Starpex” – huh? — and it features “an instrument-quality, high-gloss lacquered finish with a hardwood body, neck, and headstock handcrafted by a leading guitar manufacturer giving the authentic guitar experience that Guitar Hero and Rock Band enthusiasts crave.” → Read More
Oh, look at me! I’m DeepNote! I’m the best Guitar Hero player in the world! Jealous? I score perfectly in every game. Watch me beat Cult of Personality on expert mode! I kid, I kid. DeepNote is cool. It’s a robotic whatsit that uses diodes as eyeballs and can tell what color’s coming when in Guitar Hero. Watching this video just goes to show you how long it takes your own human eyes to process something visually and then translate it into dextrous hand movements. Robots are much faster. via NWFB → Read More
Flickr’d, a real rock band Konami has sued Harmonix, alleging that Rock Band infringes on several of its music game-related patents. Karaoke Revolution first came out in North America in 2003, several years before both Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Now Konami wants Harmonix to pay up. Apparently Harmonix hasn’t received the official complaint yet, so it hasn’t said anything in its defense. Fact: I still see kids playing Dance Dance Revolution in malls. via Next Generation → Read More
Image via Reuters Yeah, I was supposed to go to the launch earlier today in Times Square for GH:Aerosmith, but that clearly didn’t happen since I’m not using my own photos. Anyway, the game will be available on the 29th. → Read More
It is their music, after all. They’ve historically been pretty slow to take advantage of new avenues of distributing their music, probably because the world is already mostly saturated with it. But Beatles reps were in talks with both MTV Games and Activision, so you could be singing selections from their catalog in Guitar Hero or Rock Band some time soon. The thing is, it first has to be approved by the Apple Corps, made up of Paul, Ringo, Yoko Ono, and Olivia Harrison, and that’ll be a tough sell. I would imagine they’d be skeptical of the artistic worth of a game where their songs can be played any which way and modified far beyond their original state. Boy, if “I Feel Fine” was in the song list of one of these games, I might actually have to start playing. The drum parts should be pretty easy (take that, Ringo). → Read More
Various tracks from the upcoming “Guitar Hero: Aerosmith” game have been trickling out, but we finally have the definitive list of the 40+ tracks that’ll be included when the title ships on June 29th. Of the notable non-Aerosmith tunes: King of Rock by Run DMC, She Sells Sanctuary by The Cult, Hard to Handle by the Black Crowes, Cat Scratch Fever by Ted Nugent, and Sex Type Thing by Stone Temple Pilots. → Read More
I like the look of this thing better. Looks more like my guitar, which I think is good because my guitar is good-looking, even if I can’t play it worth a damn. As you can see, it’s got a knob to serve as a whammy bar (I’m guessing), as well as a touch-sensitive bar for bending and sliding notes and even an accelerometer to activate your thrashing super powers. Nice little racket they’ve got going on here! New game, new controllers, new accessories. I think console owners just lost the right to complain about the cost of PC upgrades. → Read More
Yesterday we brought news of a desktop version of Rock Band for Facebook that was mediocre at best. And today, we have Frets on Fire, an open-source Guitar Hero clone that looks like it could actually be pretty badass. You can play along to the included songs, or you can import your own from Guitar Hero 1 or 2 discs, a neat trick. Or you can create your own with the in-game song creator. Or, and this is the part that’s fun, you can import songs from other instrumentoke sites like Keyboards on Fire. We haven’t tried it out yet, but apparently with some hacking it’ll work with a Guitar Hero controller, but because the Xbox 360 version is USB-based, and pirate drivers are already out for Windows and OSX for them, you should be able to tweak it to to work without too much hassle. Just keep your office shredding to a minimum, because that would just be dumb. → Read More
Set to launch June 22 is Activision’s DS Lite version of their popular Guitar Hero series. I’m a big fan of the game, but like I said in a previous GHOT post, I’m not at all impressed by this version. At least there’s a special edition silver and black DS. The bundle will retail for $180. via 1up → Read More
Because of the Wii’s rather silly amount of storage space available (512MB), developers have been loath to plan on downloadable content for the system. But Vicarious, the developers for the upcoming Guitar Hero 4, understand that to make the most of the Wii market may be the difference between a success and a smashing success, so they’re doing it anyway. They’re not revealing how they’re going to store all those songs; the Wii won’t access them if they’re on an SD card and 512mb would fill up mighty fast. So what’s a developer to do? Allow me to speculate wildly: a gig or more of space built into the next-generation Guitar Hero controller. Why not? You can get 1GB SD cards for five bucks these days, and in bulk they could probably include a couple gigs of space for less than $10 extra on top of the controller price. Mark my words, it’s gonna happen. → Read More
http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?umid=222607 This is a joke, right? I’m not even talking about the d-bag singing in the background. I was wondering how this would work on the DS and now I’m a little bit disappointed. I think I’ll pass, I prefer the console version. → Read More
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