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Guitar Hero III demo disc online, magically works on any 360
We're but simple bloggers, unfamiliar with the illicit, seedy underbelly of pirating video games, so we won't pretend to understand how all of this works. What we do know is that the demo for Guitar Hero III – which came bundled in with Tony Hawk Proving Ground and the December issue of OXM – isn't on the Xbox Live Marketplace but if you burn this magical disc you can play it on your regular old 360. No soldering, no flashing ROMs, or any of that other stuff we're vaguely familiar with from peeking around inappropriate internet sites. Just burn and shred. Now that we've got your attention, here's the track list for the curious amongst you. "Hit Me with Your Best Shot" – Pat Benetar "Lay Down" – Priestess "Even Flow" – Pearl Jam "Rock You Like a Hurricane" – Scorpions "The Metal" by Tenacious D
Guitar Hero II DLC goes multi-platinum
Apparently some of you are not sufficiently outraged at paying $6.25 for three new Guitar Hero II songs. Activision announced today that 2 million individual tracks have been downloaded via over 650,000 downloadable Xbox Live packs. The number includes 50,000 downloads for the recent My Chemical Romance pack in its first week of availability and 300,000 sales for the three original Guitar Hero packs through early July.Activision also used the opportunity to talk up the impending release of Guitar Hero 3 and its "vast array of downloadable content including songs from some of the most popular European bands." Do we smell an ABBA song pack in the works? We can only hope and pray.
World Series of Video Games to air on CBS
Because you can't spell "boredom stricken" without CBS. Thanks to that venerable network, you'll be able to watch gamers from across the globe play Quake 4, Guitar Hero 2, Fight Night Round 3 and World of Warcraft from the comfort of your couch in ... Video Game ARMAGEDDON! No, it's the World Series of Video Games. But we can dream, right? The tournaments start filming soon and will air on four weekend days this year, the first being July 29. The play-by-play will be done by Greg Amsinger, who two of you may know is returning after calling the WSVG Finals on College Sports Television.We jest, but we'll probably end up checking it out. But we make no promises that we won't remember after five minutes that video games are fun to play and be forced to abandon the WSVG for more interactive pursuits. If you'd like to have your five minutes of fame, more information is available on the WSVG Web site, though it seems to be having some troubles at the moment.
Joystiq Review: Pelican PS2 to PS3 controller adapter
The whole point of backward compatibility for most PS3 owners is being able to get rid of that PS2 in the old entertainment center. Yet many PS3 owners have had to keep their PS2 units hooked up for a few reasons, namely: Support for our old memory card saves. Support for rumbling controllers. Support for the Guitar Hero controller. The first problem is solved by an official Sony adapter which you can buy for $15, use once, and then throw away, we suppose. The second problem is solved by the recent firmware update 1.7, which added rumble support for old controllers hooked up via any number of USB to PlayStation controller adapters. Yet the third and most important problem remained -- if you want to play Guitar Hero, you need to keep a PS2 handy. Pelican's new controller adapter promises to fix this final problem, but the execution is less than perfect.
Thank you, Pelican PS2 to PS3 adapter
If you were unfortunate enough to sell your PS2 before reading about the failed attempts to play the original Guitar Hero on PS3, you aren't alone. In fact, upon first hearing the news of this little gadget, you probably jumped up for extreme joy and knocked yourself out on a low-hanging ceiling fan. Jeesh, be more careful! Now, we've all been patiently awaiting this very product since it was known to be in the works since November. Thanks to Pelican and their beautiful PS2 to PS3 adapting magic, we can finally rejoice, hold our original Guitar Hero controllers high, and rock ourselves out silly.See, some of us actually made the tragic mistake of assuming everything would be fine, without bothering to physically check adapters or reading any news about incompatibility. And so, with rage-like Hulk powers, we may very well have smashed everything in our living rooms when we realized the horrible, staggering truth. While most of our audience was probably savvy enough to avoid this type of disastrous end, we were stubbornly unwilling to part with this cherished product that literally, brought us tears of joy. Yes, tears of joy. Game on, beautiful rock stars of the gaming world. Game on.[Via Joystiq]
First tracks from Guitar Hero: Rocks the 80's revealed
An alarming abundance of outrageous attitudes? Check. Enormous shoulder pads and poor color coordination? Check. Extravagantly large hair and excessively shiny accessories? Check. With this Summer's upcoming Guitar Hero expansion, Rocks the 80's, publisher Activision is dangerously close to delivering their first Japanese RPG. Thankfully, Opposable Thumbs reminds us that it's all about the music and lists the first seven tracks from the game's 30-strong list. I Wanna Rock (by Twisted Sister) I Ran (by Flock of Seagulls) Round and Round (as made famous by Ratt) I Want Candy (as made famous by Bow Wow Wow) Metal Health (as made famous by Quiet Riot) Holy Diver (as made famous by Dio) Heat Of The Moment (as made famous by Asia) Given the lack of the "as made famous" bit, it seems original recordings are provided by everybody's favorite contorted siblings and maritime birds. Curiously, Opposable Thumbs notes that Guitar Hero: Rocks the 80's will be "exclusive" to the PlayStation 2. Does that imply exclusivity for the in-store version, with the Xbox 360 receiving the expansion in downloadable form? Why would Activision limit the game's reach? After all, the pricing of Guitar Hero's online tracks makes it pretty clear that the publisher enjoys making money.[Thanks, Jess]
RedOctane promises new Guitar Hero every year
Tina Turner be damned, you're getting a new Guitar Hero game every year. In a Eurogamer interview, RedOctane co-founder and president, Kai Huang, reveals that every guitar freak's favorite franchise will soon have something in common with large men tossing balls and slamming into each other. "I think that fans can definitely expect that we're going to have one major release a year," says Kai. Following that, the peripheral manufacturer plans to "release update packs and content packs so there's more songs." And what about the controversial pricing of already released song packs? The pricing's "competitive," says Huang, though his comment may have been slightly garbled due to the degradation of interplanetary transmissions. "We've done a lot of evaluation on the pricing and the costs for each of the songs and how they work for each of the packs, and we think that they're priced competitively, but certainly we listen to the fans and we take that feedback, and if that's something we'll need to evaluate we'll do that."An annual release of Guitar Hero is hardly something we'd consider to be terrible news, but one caveat certainly needs to be heard -- not many franchises keep their sparkle on a yearly release schedule. Even fellow music maniac, Dance Dance Revolution, has taken a few bad steps in its rapid-fire career. We cringe at the thought of seeing a great franchise doing a power slide... down a set of stairs.
Red Octane 'looking into' Guitar Hero II patch problems
"We're aware of the problem and we're looking into it." So says RedOctane in response to complaints of a Guitar Hero II patch leaving Xbox 360s paralyzed by the dreaded red ring of death. A string of users have posted their tales of woe on the official Xbox forums, noting post-patch game freezes, startup glitches and eventual system lockups. The patch was initially issued to correct unresponsive whammy bars in some guitar controllers.Though Red Octane doesn't divulge to Eurogamer just exactly what "we're looking into it" entails, there's little hope that a further software patch could repair completely inoperative consoles. There's also no direct evidence to suggest that the patch itself is causing the Xbox 360 hardware to malfunction. The operating system might be fooled into thinking there is, however, which isn't much better than a physical malfunction. This occurrence is awfully similar to what transpires whenever a new Xbox 360 game is released -- is software causing a new problem, or is it letting you know that you had a rotten system to begin with?We'll let you know as soon as RedOctane or Microsoft comment further.
GHII problems software based, patch inbound
Guitar Hero II, we've been writing about it nonstop since it was released. It was the major topic of our most recent Fancast. The song packs have outraged us. The game itself, however, is basically pure gaming gold. At least, it's gold so long as you have a functional guitar. Our own David Dreger, for example, has a broken whammy bar. Or does he? According to a recent statement from Activision, it looks like the whammy bar issue may actually stem from software, not hardware. Activision and Red Octane's support pages note that the issue is caused by an element of Guitar Hero II that was added to "ensure accurate scoring". In other words, it was placed there to prevent cheating. Activision plans to release a patch that should rectify the issue within the coming weeks. So, if you were planning on fixing that guitar yourself, you may want to wait for the patch. After all, if you fix your guitar, and then Activision patches the game, you may wind up with the same problem all over again.
First wave of Guitar Hero II songs rock Marketplace
3 sets of 3 songs from the original Guitar Hero have landed on Xbox Live Marketplace for GHII. Track Pack 1 has Ozzy's "Bark at the Moon", "Ace of Spades" by Motörhead, and The Exies' "Hey You". Pack numero dos is rockin' "Killer Queen" by Queen, The Donnas' "Take it Off", and "Frankenstein" by The Edward Winter Group. Finally, the third Pack gives you "Higher Ground" by Red Hot Chili Peppers, Incubus' "Stellar", and "Infected" by Bad Religion. Note that all of these songs are covers and not master tracks, like they were before. Each pack weighs in a 500 MS points. That means, at this price point, to get all 47 of the original Guitar Hero tracks, it would cost you roughly 7,850 MS Points or $98.09 USD. So, will you be picking up any of these packs, if so, which one?
Guitar Hero II song packs now Live, pricey
Good news: Just a week after the release of Guitar Hero II on the 360, a handful of songs from the original Guitar Hero have now become available as DLC on Xbox Live. Crappy news: You can pick up one of the three-song packs for the low, low price of ... $6.25! Hold on, we just choked on our picks.In exchange for 500 points you can get one of the following three clusters, for just over $2 per song: Pack 1: "Bark at the Moon," "Hey You," "Ace of Spades" Pack 2: "Killer Queen," "Take it Off," "Frankenstein" Pack 3: "Higher Ground," "Infected," "Stellar" Is that a fair price for songs that were released in 2005 and have already been played by a hojillion PS2 Guitar Hero fans? Or is that just the highest possible dollar figure that could be charged without causing people to involuntarily throw up on themselves? By this standard, the 48 songs of GH (selling for $40 new on PS2) would cost you just under $100 on Live. We'd make a joke that this a great way to repay people for selling them broken guitars, but we already know that it's Microsoft's hand on the insanity-dispensing Live pricing gun.
Guitar Hero III60 encore this fall
RedOctane's Support Center has an interesting tidbit of information regarding the next installment of Guitar Hero, and it's release schedule. The PS2, PS3, Wii, and Xbox 360 can expect to be rocking out to a new set of songs to unlock in Guitar Hero III this Fall (for North America). This also will be Neversoft's first shot at the game, so it will interesting to see what direction they take the series, and if the pedal jack will be used or not. Do you think that this is too soon for the next game? Or is it justified as the PS2 release was back in November?[Via QJ.net]
GHII guitar works on Windows, Frets on Fire
As if Guitar Hero II wasn't enough on its own, it seems the X-plorer guitar does even more than expected. Our overlords and fellow slaves of rock at Joystiq have discovered that the X-plorer guitar controller that ships with the Xbox 360 version of Guitar Hero II works flawlessly with Windows. The device reportedly works in both Windows XP and Vista. The fret buttons correspond to buttons 1 through 5, back and start control 7 and 8, the D-pad and strummer control the Point of View Hat, the whammy bar controls X rotation, star power controls Y rotation and the Z-axis moves as you move the guitar.With some control configuration, the peeps at Joystiq even managed to get the guitar up and running with the freeware PC Guitar Hero clone, Frets on Fire. Getting the guitar to control a guitar game is interesting, but we're not satisfied. No, we won't be satisfied until we're pulling off headshots with our guitar. Even better, we'd like to see someone rig a music program to use the guitar as an actual instrument. Maybe someone could whip something up with Game Studio Express. Anyone care to take up the challenge?[Via Joystiq]
Guitar Hero II Rocks out today
We've waited for months for this day, and lo, it has arrived. Guitar Hero II is out and ready to allow you to jam to the likes of Aerosmith, KISS, Alice Cooper, Stone Temple Pilots, and even shed a tear for My Chemical Romance. Packed with 74 songs and downloadable content available in the coming weeks, this spring is starting off with a bang. So here at Fanboy Towers, only two Fanbloggers have the intention of getting the game, half of which are able to pick it up today, and we'll let you take the wild guess who's who in that situation. But the situation we want to know is whether any of you, dear readers, are planning on busting out the tunes today. Who here is going to rock out and grab GHII today? How about later?
Instruction Manual confirms pedal for Guitar Hero's future
When you get your hands on a copy of Guitar Hero II, tomorrow, you'll find in the instruction manual the answer to the question which many inquisitive gamers have been pondering: What's that port on the bottom of the axe for? While it's been rumored for an effects pedal since the first shots showing it were released, it can now be confirmed. The manual explicitly states three things, first that it's for an effects pedal. Secondly, it will, naturally, be sold separately, and finally, that the feature is currently unavailable. We'll probably see it get use in the next iteration of Guitar Hero's series. Would you welcome some footwork when rocking out?
Guitar Hero Effects Pedal confirmed in 360 instructions
var digg_url = 'http://www.digg.com/gaming_news/Guitar_Hero_II_Effects_Pedal_Confirmed'; Praise be to the Circuit City's and Wal-Mart's of the world as Guitar Hero II for the Xbox 360 has arrived a few, scant days early on Mount Joystiq. What? You actually go to a game store to buy your games? You should probably stop doing that. After shredding it up like only nerds with tiny, plastic toy guitars can, we actually took a look at the instruction manual, curious as to any information regarding the mystery port found at the base of the X-Plorer.The gods of rock shined upon us as it is now clearly labeled the Effects Pedal port, as seen above. Opposite the page is an explanation of all the buttons and gadgets found on the guitar, including an explanation of the Effects Pedal port. How dost thou rocketh mighty ports of pedals?(Feature currently not available.)Rockin'! Now that we know for sure that it's for some sort of effects pedal, we curl up into the fetal position. We've been scorned in the past by these sorts of shenanigans. We're looking at you, Konami! We still want our Beatmania III pedal!(Update - Because everyone is insane and paranoid about April Fools, we've included some actual pictures of the manual in question behind the cut. We even threw in some Mudkip because we heard that you like him so much.)
Guitar Hero II tourney in Florida April 7th
With Guitar Hero II mere weeks away from release, competitions were bound to start to get planned. GameHQ is holding a tournament on April 7th, sponsored by Red Octane. The catch, of course, is that it takes place in Deland, Florida at the Sunshine Bowling Center. Festivities start at 7:00 pm and there are unspecified prizes to be given to true rockers. We do like the name of the group, though: G.H.O.U.L., the Guitar Hero Organized Underground League. So, if you live in that region of America's wang, are you going to see what all the fuss is about? If so, will you start practicing now on the PS2's version, or wait until you pick it up for 360?
Guitar Hero II hits UK on Good Friday
So on Friday, or maybe it was Thursday, we told you that Guitar Hero II was releasing on April 3rd in North America. Well, fortunately the blokes over in the UK won't have to wait too much longer after the fact to get their grubby hands on a guitar controller. According to Eurogamer, Activision US also announced that the UK should have Guitar Hero II hit store shelves on April 6th, Good Friday. Hopefully there will some stores open for business to sell it to eager gamers looking to rock out on the long weekend. [Via QJ.net]
Guitar Hero II rocks 360 on April 3rd
Screw Guitar Hero II demo stations! Why waste time with a puny demo station when you can bag the real thing in just two weeks? That's right, Activision has officially announced that Guitar Hero II will release on April 3rd. Wait a minute, that sounds awfully familiar. Oh, that's because we reported it two months ago, booyah!At any rate, in just over two weeks, budding 360 rockers will finally get to lay down some righteous chops with the best of them. The 360 version of GHII features the all new X-plorer guitar, updated graphics, and 10 exclusive new songs. Not only that, but Red Octane already has a ton of downloadable content in the pipeline.So, 360 fanboys, we ask you: are you ready to RAWK?![Via Joystiq]
Badges of Honour back at Blockbuster
For you fellow Canadian fanboys out there, Blockbuster Video is carrying the "Badges of Honour". For a toonie, you can get your hands on one of five limited edition badges, from GRAW 2, to Guitar Hero II to Halo 3. Proceeds are going to be donated to the Children's Miracle Network, so its definitely for a good cause. They will only be available until Sunday, April 1st, 2007, so next time you're renting something over at Blockbuster, pick up a couple badges to help show gamers care.[Thanks, DjDATZ]
