Guitar Hero Wants to Make You a “Warrior of Rock” This Fall

The latest installment in Activision’s “Guitar Hero” series is coming out this fall. A brand-new, story-driven “Quest Mode” leads off the improvements, followed by a redesigned guitar (because you totally needed another one), the largest selection of music on the game disc yet and a new “Quickplay+” mode which lets you add extra challenges to any song in the entire Guitar Hero Music Library. “Warriors of Rock” brings back Party Play and adds the ability to play any combination of instruments. Want a four-guitar band? You can have it. Quest Mode also has the ability to use any combination of instruments, and takes you from the stage of CBGBs in New York City to rivers of molten lava, where you band together to save rock n’ roll, by taking down “The Beast” alongside the Demi-God of Rock (voiced by Gene Simmons). Quickplay+ will add more life to your library, with

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Special Guests Announced for PBS Video Games Live Special Filming April 1

Video Games Live is recording a concert on April 1 to start airing on PBS affiliates on July 31. So if the tour never comes near you, this could be your best chance to see the show. The show they’re taping is in Kenner, LA, and will be available as a DVD, Blu-Ray disc, and CD. This particular production will have more special effects, screens, and…special guests. Guests for this concert include the “father” of video games, Ralph Baer. He will demonstrate his original “brown box” gaming system, and one audience member will be chosen to challenge him, while the Louisiana Philharmonic provides the soundtrack. The meet and greet portion of the evening will include Video Games Live creators Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall, not to mention Marty O’Donnell (Halo), Russell Brower (Blizzard), Gerard Marino (God of War), and Christopher Tin (Civ IV). Special soloists during the concert will include

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Standalone DJ Hero Turntables Hit Shelves Today

I’ll never understand it – games with special peripherals having a two-player mode and no way to buy a secondary controller. Guitar Hero 3 did it, Rock Band did it for a while, and DJ Hero did it. However, they all fixed it eventually, and DJ Hero’s day is today. That’s right, a standalone DJ controller is now available at retail stores, and the first 100,000 standalones bought get an exclusive Shepard Fairey poster that features the entire game’s cast rendered in his unique style. This means that all gameplay modes are now available to you without knowing anyone else who has the game. Now, maybe this game will be the life of the party instead of just something for party mixes.

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What’s Up With Activision? (Facebook Contest)

Some crazy stuff has been going on with Activision lately. News of staff cuts at Neversoft and the drama surrounding Infinity Ward have been the talk of the intertubes. Sounds like something has Bobby Kotick’s knickers in a twist. Well, we still have oodles of love for Neversoft and Infinity Ward, and to show our support we have one copy of Modern Warfare 2 and another of Guitar Hero 5 (both PS3 versions) we want to give away. How can you enter? Be a registered fan of our Facebook group & leave a comment on the Contest Note telling us what you would do if you could replace Mr. Kotick and be the Queen (or King) of Activision. The giveaway will be open until Sunday March 7. We’ll be picking the winners at random on March 8th and will contact them via Facebook. It’s one entry per person and due

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Creators of Guitar Hero and Rock Band Officially “Character Approved”

USA Network recently announced the ten honorees for the second Character Approved Awards, which honor individuals who are changing the face of American culture. Included among the award recipients are Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy, co-founders of Harmonix Music Systems, the group behind Guitar Hero and Rock Band. The two musicians, who met at MIT, founded Harmonix in 1995 to bring the ability to make music to everyone, even those with no musical training. After designing several music games, the duo made it to the big time with the 2005 release of Guitar Hero, followed in 2007 by the equally popular Rock Band. Rigopulos and Egozy’s games inspired impressive growth in the category of music games and earned the two a place on Time Magazine’s 2008 list of the 100 most influential people in the world. “Character Approved is a celebration of the real Characters making an impact on our

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Review: DJ Hero

ESRB: T for Teen Genre: Music Players: One Publisher: Activision-Blizzard Release Date: Oct 27, 2009 BUY! The music game genre is incredibly popular. It only takes one party to realize why. It’s a genre most anyone can relate to and won’t hesitate to pick up and play at a party. I’ve seen non-gamers leave my party and purchase a console and a copy of the rhythm game that they enjoyed. Because of this, we’ll continue to see innovation and attempts at new types of rhythm games. Activision’s DJ Hero had a rough road before it’s release which I believed overshadowed how great this game is. DJ Hero is a music-based game that is rooted in DJ Culture giving gamers an opportunity to scratch and mix some of their favorite songs to dance to. At E3, the energy for DJ Hero was high. An exciting concert was held from Eminem and

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Australia’s first video game bar to open in February 2010!

You may remember me telling you about a TV show named “GameDamage” that was trying to get picked up. Well, two of the men from that show (Yug and Yahtzee) have also joined forces to bring us Aussies another excuse to drink and game at the same time – a brand new bar! The “Mana Bar” is owned by Guy ‘Yug’ Blomberg, Ben ‘Yahtzee’ Croshaw, Pras Moorthy and Shay Leighton. Geeks will flock to this place in droves with the multiple LCD screens and next-gen consoles available to play. They will be catering for those who are casual gamers, as well as those who are hardcore. To enter the venue is free, and you don’t have pay to play the games either. The bar can host up to 50 people and plans to hold many events such as game release parties, Guitar Hero tournaments, trivia nights, launch events, and more.

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Guitar Hero team looking at Natal

It’s not too surprising that various game development companies are looking at using Natal in various ways. Co-founder of RedOctane, Kai Huang told the Seattle Times that the Guitar Hero group is playing with the idea of having a camera track player’s movements. He also confirmed Guitar Hero 6 (like you didn’t know that was coming!). Huang said, “We haven’t made any specific announcements of what we’re doing with new technologies in Guitar Hero 6 and beyond, but one of the areas we’re exploring certainly is camera technology and what you can do — track your movements and maybe have your characters on the screen do certain things you’re doing, or personalize it more so it can look more like you on stage rather than just be an avatar. There are a lot of possibilities that technologies like Natal will bring, and we’re definitely exploring those.”

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Study show music game genre is still rocking

Some may think that the music game genre may be over-saturated and starting to die off, but a new study shows that’s not true. DFC Intelligence used information from GamerDNA for the month of September to monitor the usage of The Beatles: Rock Band and Guitar Hero 5 on the Xbox 360. They looked at how many played the music games and how many played both titles. The figures show that 45% of Guitar Hero 5 users also played The Beatles: Rock Band. The percentage drops abit the other way to 34% of Rock Band users play Guitar Hero 5. Miller claims that “considering that this was only the first month of release for the products this is a surprisingly high overlap, that suggests strong loyalty to the concept of music games in general.” The figures do show that Beatles: Rock Band did attract a new user base to music

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Guitar Hero 5 to support Band Hero

Today we get news from Activision that features not only an expansion of Guitar Hero downloadables but also the ability to import tracks from Guitar Hero 5 and Band Hero into their Guitar Hero music library. On November 5, Guitar Hero fans can import 69 tracks from Guitar Hero 5 into Band Hero or import 61 tracks of Band Hero into Guitar Hero 5. The list of songs and details is here. For Guitar Hero 5 content, we get the music from the sexy, Lenny Kravitz. On November 12 the following three songs will be available for download: “Let Love Rule,” “Lady,” off his seventh studio album Baptism, and “Fly Away”. On November 19 fans will be able to rock it out to a three pack of KISS songs. The pack will feature: “Modern Day Delilah,” the first single off their new album, Sonic Boom, “Lick It Up” the title

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