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Rock Band guitars don't play nice with Guitar Hero: Aerosmith
While the above image comes from the Xbox 360 port of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, we're fairly certain the same can be said of the Wii version of the game. In all likelihood, it doesn't play nice with your Rock Band guitar. But, considering how gimped Rock Band is for the Wii (let's hope that Rock Band 2 is a more full-fledged port, like Guitar Hero: World Tour), we're sure most of you are enjoying the game with your wireless Les Paul from Guitar Hero III.
The Beatles revival in progress
The biggest and most famous band there ever was -- The Beatles. They have been notably absent in every release from the biggest rhythm games in the world -- Rock Band and Guitar Hero. Hopefully the creators have gotten all that metal nonsense out of their system, because The Beatles might just be on the way to a plastic guitar near you.People have talked about talking about it, but according to the Financial Times, actual representatives for The Beatles have been sitting down with Activision and MTV Games to make some progress. It's entirely possible that the Fab Four might make it to both games, but we'll be getting whichever one features this nifty number. Automatic screamage factor of twelve.%Gallery-23491%[Via MCV]
Guitar Hero World Tour can save DLC to an SD card
Vicarious Visions' Karthik Bala has once again confirmed paid downloadable content in the Wii version of Guitar Hero World Tour, though current Wii guitar games have left us doubtful of any feature. Furthermore, you'll be able to save your songs to a "Rock Archive" on an SD card, and even play songs from the card without copying them over first. But ... but isn't that completely impossible?Bala also confirmed that despite the new guitar's wacky gimmickry, your old Guitar Hero III (or Guitar Hero: Aerosmith) guitar will work just fine, and that "any USB microphone should work." With all these features, Vicarious Visions is going to have to be really creative if they want to disappoint us.%Gallery-23491%
Joystiq rocks out with Guitar Hero: World Tour
Joystiq recently got to check out everyone's new favorite Wii game, Guitar Hero: World Tour. While they didn't actually get to play the game (they were forced to watch RedOctane jam, for some reason), they did get some juicy details for those of you looking for more on the game. So, head on over and check out their write-up.%Gallery-23491%
Guitar Hero: World Tour information blowout!
Holy Guitar Hero: World Tour information blowout! Those lucky monkeys over at IGN somehow convinced Activision to show them everything World Tour and boy oh boy is there a lot of information.Seeing that we can't talk about all the World Tour details (if we did, this blog could be considered a feature article) we'll touch on the highlights. First and foremost IGN posted pictures and details about every instrument including confirmation that the World Tour guitar will feature the rumored touch pad. We also learn that World Tour takes customization to the next level, adding the ability to create your own band member AND customize your instruments as you see fit. We also learn about specifics regarding the game's recording functionality (sorry, no vocal recordings) and the fact that the career mode will modeled after Rock Band's progression. There's just too much info ... go read ... get learned and be surprised. Surprised that Activision may have actually come through with World Tour, pushing the genre to a whole new level.
Guitar Hero World Tour's new gear gets previewed
We've already seen plenty of Guitar Hero World Tour's drums, but while we've heard rumblings of a touchpad for the new guitar, this is the first time we've seen it in the flesh. IGN has a preview of all the new gear, and says the strip will be used for fiddling around with notes during sustains, tapping to play notes, and for interfacing with the new music creator. The guitar is also larger than its other toy guitar predecessors. In other news, the drums are pressure sensitive, the mic is pretty plain, and the music creation software is completely off the chain. Unfortunately, you won't be allowed to record vocals for songs, but otherwise you can pretty much build anything you'd want with the software. In even better news, the Wii version of World Tour will share all these features, and while we promised ourselves we wouldn't install two full sets of fake band gear in our living room, we're starting to get some serious cravings here.
Guitar Hero: World Tour might be the game you always wanted
IGN has an incredibly detailed and lengthy first look at upcoming Guitar Hero: World Tour. First of all, the rumor of touch-sensitive guitars turned out to be true. The new Guitar Hero axe looks really sweet.Outside of the guitar, there is also a close-up look at the drum kit. As previously noted, it looks more like the real deal, is wireless, makes a lot less noise when playing, and should feel more natural to those real drummers out there who want to get their play on. As nice as it is, though, it comes nowhere near the ambitious gameplay features that will be included in every version of Guitar Hero: World Tour, even the Wii installment.%Gallery-23491%
Rumors: Touch-sensitive Guitar Hero guitar, tons of new Spidey games, Bill Nye and more!
Xbox 360 Fanboy found some super secret info about Microsoft's plans for a Mii-like avatar on the site of market survey firm Intellisponse. The X3F story was posted on NeoGAF, whose members then began messing around with the Intellisponse URL. And that's when Internet Magic happened. A wealth of unannounced Microsoft, Activision, and Disney games were revealed in .swf files containing game descriptions.Some of these are clearly just pitches -- see the five million Spidey games -- but given the evidence of Ultimate Band (which we already knew about), some of them are definitely on the way. There aren't any massive megatons like the Xbox got, but unannounced games are always news! Until they're announced! We're marking it all as rumor for now, because we don't know what's real, what's proposed, and what could be some kind of elaborate trap!The site has since been taken down, but we've got most of the text, and you can fill in the gaps with Joystiq's posts on the subject, as well as the NeoGAF thread. Kotaku has a roundup of the Spidey-related titles.The full list follows after the break. Highlights include a touch-sensitive Guitar Hero World Tour (referred to here as Guitar Hero IV) guitar, a Marvel Ultimate Alliance sequel, a Spidey game built around the Balance Board, and -- perhaps most exciting -- a Bill Nye the Science Guy science minigame collection. Weirdest of all, and least likely to be as exciting as it sounds, is Trioxide, some kind of system for playing Wii, PS3, and 360 games on the PC with their original controllers? Streaming video, maybe?
Xbox 360 avatars, new Guitar Hero 4 gear, and more game rumors abound
A ton of supposedly-leaked pre-E3 game info apparently hit the net today; we'll be directing you to Joystiq for the full skinny, but of particular interest to Engadget readers: It looks like Microsoft might be finding some middleground between Nintendo's Miis and PlayStation 3's Home personages. Dubbed Avatars (above), they appear to literally look like the result of a tawdry tryst between your Home character and your Mii. For shame! That "Lips" project you may have heard about from Microsoft is starting to resemble a Singstar-like "music and singing game," with two wireless, motion-sensitive mics, an online store, and the added ability to sing to music from CDs or MP3s. The Guitar Hero World Tour instrument bundle could go for $180, and might include a "touch-sensitive neck slide" (rockin'). It's going to take more than that to top Rock Band (and Rock Band 2), though. A new Tony Hawk title might just land on Xbox 360 and PS3 with a board-like peripheral (perhaps akin to the Balance Board). We're hoping you'll be able to do more with it than faux-skate. Of course, all of this is still strictly in the rumor pile, so keep your pants on until we hit up E3 and have a chance to sort the fact from fiction.Read - Xbox 360 AvatarsRead - "Lips" project to take on SingstarRead - Guitar Hero World Tour gets touch-sensitive guitarRead - Tony Hawk board incoming?
Vicarious Visions confirms DLC for Guitar Hero World Tour
We can't help but be skeptical about the DLC in Guitar Hero World Tour. As Wii owners, we're used to being burned when it comes to this kind of thing, and we hate getting our hopes up. "Fool me once ..." and so on, right?Vicarious Visions is trying to assuage our fears, though, confirming to MTV Multiplayer that Wii version will have downloadable content. According to Karthik Bala, CEO of the company, the DLC will even be actual songs (as opposed to the user-created content that's also a feature in Guitar Hero World Tour).Bala didn't elaborate on that last feature (called GH Tunes), so we're not sure if it will make an appearance on the Wii; the CEO says that more details on GH Tunes are still to come. We do feel better about the downloadable content though -- at least a little bit (old habits die hard). Gallery: Guitar Hero World Tour
Guitar Hero: World Tour on stage debut
At Wall Street Journal's D6 All Things Digital event yesterday, Activision CEO Robert Kotick took the opprotunity to showoff Guitar Hero: World Tour. In the midst of introducing the upcoming game Kotick started to describe World Tour as, "the first time you'll have multiple instruments," before D6 co-host Kara Swisher quickly shot back "it's called Rock Band I think," which sent the crowd into a frenzy of laughter.Whether Kotick meant it was the first time Guitar Hero would have the peripherals or if he was trying to pull a fast one on an audience he expected to have limited gaming knowledge is unknown. What we do know is the people playing the game for the demo, including skateboarder Tony Hawk, could not look more bored.Come on people. You're rocking out! A little passion please.
Guitar Hero World Tour debuted
A little earlier today Activision CEO Bobby Kotick debuted Guitar Hero World Tour to the audience at D -- but he wasn't content doing something trite like picking up a guitar (or drums) and playing himself. Oh no, he trotted out Paula Abdul (to judge), and Tony Hawk and Brody Jenner as the front-men for the virtual band. The video's after the break; it's a little bit front-heavy during the introduction, but there's certainly enough gameplay footage in there to get a basic idea of what to expect: Rock Band.
Activision CEO introduces Guitar Hero World Tour
At the All Things Digital 6 conference, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick took the stage for an interview with Kara Swisher. During the session, Kotick introduced and showed off to the audience Guitar Hero World Tour. "I tried to get [Yahoo and Microsoft execs] Jerry Yang, Steve Ballmer, Sue Decker and Bill Gates to play Guitar Hero, but they weren't interested." Instead, Kotick had Paula Abdul pull four people from the audience -- one of them just happened to be legendary skateboarder (and Activision franchiser) Tony Hawk -- to play an unnamed Lenny Kravitz song (we're guessing "Are You Gonna Go My Way," since it was used in the trailer). We've embedded the video, which features some in-game footage, after the break.
Guitar Hero World Tour drums compatible with drummers
Activision invited some celebrity drummers to be seen playing test the Guitar Hero World Tour drum kit, including The Police's Stewart Copeland, Blink 182's Travis Barker, and The Red Hot Chili Peppers' Chad Smith (who looks exactly like Will Ferrell). The three talk about the more realistic layout of the new drum controller, and, of course, how awesome drumming is. Surprise! They love Guitar Hero, and they love the new drum kit. Anything to lure kids into drumming before they know how their future bandmates will regard them!The video is suspiciously light on footage of the three playing the controller, which leads us to think that maybe they all totally busted it. Barker, who can be seen performing motion capture for the game, mentions that on the expert level the drum charts are virtually identical to the real drum sequences in the original songs, which is actually very cool!
Gamestop prices Guitar Hero: World Tour bundle at $189
In order to remain competitive with Harmonix's pre-existing multi-instrument rockstar simulator, Activision's upcoming entry in their insanely lucrative franchise, Guitar Hero: World Tour, needs to match the price of the game it so closely resembles, Rock Band. According to a recent listing on Gamestop, it'll do just that -- the game alone will cost $59.99 on PS3 and 360 ($49.99 on Wii and PS2), a "guitar kit" bundle will run you $99.99, and the full band kit (which we assume will contain a guitar, a mic, and a drum kit) will run you $189.99 on 360, Wii and PS3, and $179.99 on PS2.If these prices are accurate, you'll be paying $20 more for Activision's bundle than Harmonix's -- perhaps their five-piece drum kit costs more to produce than Rock Band's four-head. We don't mind shelling out the extra Jackson to get our hands on Activision's new skins -- the thousands of dollars we'll spend expanding our living room to contain two fake drum kits and four fake guitars, however, may have a noticeable impact on our finances.[Thanks, Hashbrown Hunter.]
Guitar Hero World Tour priced, given release date
Now that we've been enticed with what Guitar Hero World Tour will look like, GameStop has revealed the upcoming rock simulator's price and release date. $189.99 will get you the Guitar Hero World Tour "Band Kit" with drum kit, guitar, and microphone. Meanwhile, the "Guitar Kit" at $99.99 will come with just the guitar controller. For those of you who want to use your current controller (assuming current controllers will work), the game-only version will run $59.99 (or $49.99 for the PS2 and Wii). The game's ship date, as of now, is set at 10/27/08.
Rockers show off Guitar Hero's velocity-sensitive drum kits
The above Guitar Hero World Tour (the official GHIV title) video shows off the new drum set through testimonial from a few rockers – namely, Red Hot Chili Pepper's Chad Smith, Blink 182's Travis Barker and The Police's Stewart Copeland, all of whom are featured prominently (especially Copeland) on Rock Band and a pretty good sign they'll be on World Tour, too.One interesting detail gleaned from the video is that the drum kit is sensitive to velocity, meaning it can register how hard or soft you hit the pads. We're not shown any gameplay footage so we're not 100% sure how that'll translate to the virtual drumming. All we know is that we can't tell our friends this detail. It's taken us months to teach them not to bang on the set loud enough to wake neighbors six miles away.[Via Xbox 360 Fanboy]
Guitar Hero: World Tour drum kit gets demoed on video
We've already had a few glimpses of the drum kit for the now-official Guitar Hero: World Tour, but if you want a better look at the device that'll be cluttering up your apartment this fall, you may want to hit up the site linked below, which contains a promotional video showing the kit being played by some actual drummers. There's not a lot of new information to be found otherwise, but as none other than Stuart Copeland helpfully reminds us, the kit is in fact wireless. No headband included though, it seems.[Via Xbox 360 Fanboy]
Video: The drums of Guitar Hero World Tour [update]
Update: Thanks to X3F reader Josh, we embedded the drum'tacular World Tour video after the break. You're welcome ...The not at all English website InsiderGamer posted a new Guitar Hero World Tour video that gives us a better look at the game's drum set, the design process behind it and a first look at Blink 182's Travis Barker in a mo-cap suit. For realz! You can view the video after the jump and take in all the World Tour drumming that it has to offer including velocity sensitive drum pads, which we admit are so very next gen. And would it be wrong for us to think that these drums may possibly be better then what Rock Band has to offer? If it is, forget we ever posed such question.[Thanks, L1B3RATION]
Guitar Hero IV gets a name, official features, and release date-ish
When it comes to sussing out info on Guitar Hero IV, we've seen blurry images and scanned pictures, but now Activision is getting all official on us with a Fall release date and complete feature list. So here's what we know: Guitar Hero: World Tour (as it's called) will include a drum kit with cymbals, a new guitar controller, and a microphone. In terms of game modes, look for a Music Studio music creator that will let you compose, record, edit, and share your own music -- fear that -- and an 8-player "Battle of the Bands" should keep things interesting both on and offline. They're calling it "The Guitar Hero experience reinvented" and we can't argue with that, at least until the game actually comes out in Fall 2008 for Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, and PS2. Peep the official trailer and Lenny Kravitz ubiquity after the break.[Via Boy Genius]
