FretsOnFire
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Football Hero mod takes Arduino to the Kasabian-approved big leagues (video)
Some folks say less is more, but we'll bet they never saw Guitar Hero being played by kicking footballs against a giant wall. This epic undertaking will give your plastic axe a major inadequacy complex with its huge wall-mounted piezo vibration sensors and absurdly large fretboard projection. An Arduino acts as the conduit between the contact sensors and a PC running the freeware Frets on Fire. The outcome from such a relatively simple setup is pretty astounding, and you can check it out in the videos past the break, including some behind the scenes footage.
Christmas lights synced with Guitar Hero axe
While we already knew Sony's mysterious Rolly got down to holiday tunes, this installation managed to capture our attention just a wee bit more. Rivaled only by the famed TSO project from 2005, this guitar-controlled setup transforms a traditional office into a holiday funhouse by enabling rockers to control the light patterns within the building. Open source software, dubbed Frets on Fire, was modified to generate controls for dozens of light strings around the cubicles, with the corner plant being used to "keep the beat" and the trash can fittingly being lit only when someone missed a note. Click on through to catch this madness in action -- and yeah, it's pretty evident the boss left weeks ago to enjoy the rest of '07 from afar.
Revolutionary: Emulation-ary
Every Tuesday, Mike Sylvester brings you REVOLUTIONARY, a look at the wide world of Wii possibilities. Traditionally, consoles have had to carry over hardware from previous generations in order to offer backward compatibility. This can be thought of as a burden, as the costs of including that hardware might be better used increasing the specs and features of the system for the benefit of new games. This generation marks a change in the method of operations in providing backward compatibility. The Xbox 360, Playstation 3 (in select models and territories), and Wii use a process known as software emulation to provide backward compatibility with their predecessors, so that they don't have to include that old hardware. What emulation does is allow one set of hardware to mimic the functions of another set of hardware. Emulation isn't a new technique, and it isn't exclusive to consoles. In fact, many people have been using it for years to play games on hardware other than for which it was developed.
Xbox 360's Guitar Hero II axe: now shredding in OS X
Ah, the sequence of events is nearly complete. First, we get the Xbox 360 axe rockin' on the console itself, and then comes the inevitable hacks to get it rollin' on Windows, and without further adu, we present the ability to melt those plastic frets on OS X. Thanks to an impressive development from TattieBogle (v0.5), a USB driver which purportedly "allows the use of wired Xbox 360 controllers via USB" on your OS X-based machine is finally available. Apparently, it actually works fairly well to boot, so if you've been pouting over your Mac not being able to enjoy the same face melting Guitar Hero II niceties as the other guys, be sure to hit the read link and get your download on.[Via Joystiq]
360's Guitar Hero II axe working in OS X, Frets on Fire
Though we managed to get Guitar Hero II's USB-enabled X-plorer controller working with Windows XP, we couldn't manage to get it rocking with Mac OS X. Lucky for us, our friends at TUAW wouldn't take no for an answer. They emailed the developer of the open source Xbox 360 controller driver for Mac OS X who was able to implement support for the X-plorer controller in the latest revision, version 0.05 released over the weekend. Of course, the first thing to test out? Frets on Fire which, they happily report, works great with the X-plorer. The best part: the white guitar no doubt matches your shiny white Mac. Now get some white leather pants, and you're in business.[Via TUAW]
USB Guitar Hero II controller for 360 works in Windows
We're sure the hackers would've gotten this up and running sooner or later all the same, but it's nice to know they don't have to: the Xbox 360's new Guitar Hero X-plorer controller works with Windows like a charm. Windows XP and Vista recognize the USB guitar right off the bat, and even offer up a controller testing control panel. Setting up the the Frets on Fire Guitar Hero clone is a breeze, and you should be shredding in no time. Unfortunately, Mac support isn't quite there yet -- the X-plorer is recognized when it's plugged in, but not as an input device. Hopefully some friendly hackers will get some drivers up and running before too long, so our Mac-using rock god wannabes can get in on the Frets on Fire action as well, but until then they'll just have to content themselves with that boring old six string stashed in the closet.[Via Joystiq]
Guitar Hero-esque Frets on Fire working on Mac OS X
Our Mac-obsessed brothers at TUAW pointed out that Frets on Fire -- the free, open-source music game that's more than a little bit like Guitar Hero (let's say it was heavily influenced by) -- is now available for Mac OS X. Before you all scream, "Who plays games on Mac OS anyways? LAWL!" we'd like to point out that the game was previously released for Mac OS ... it just didn't work. Now it's been updated and should be working. We've gotten some random crashes on a MacBook Pro, but otherwise it works great. [Note: Interested gamers should use the Sourceforge mirror; we had some trouble with the download linked in their post.][Via TUAW]
Frets on Fire - OSS Guitar Hero Clone
Guitar Hero was a huge hit for the PlayStation 2 console. Using a special guitar shaped controller you could "play" a variety of rock hits, hitting the fret buttons in time to on-screen cues. Well now there's an Open Source cross platform clone of Guitar Hero called Frets on Fire which includes support for OS X. The program was originally designed to be played with a keyboard, but at least with the Windows version, you can use the actual Guitar Hero controller (along with a PlayStation 2 to USB adapter) to play Frets on Fire on the computer. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to determine if the controller also works with the Mac. So anybody out there "jamming" on the Mac with the Guitar controller?[Edit: those of you having trouble on PPC check out this forum thread]Thanks, Carlo.
