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Guitar Hero II setlist speculation is over
Over the past several weeks, crafty netizens have managed to piece together an almost comprehensive account of Guitar Hero II's setlist, taking most of the wind out of IGN's big exclusive. Yesterday, IGN had the names of all forty songs delivered unto them on a silver platter -- or maybe it was a fax ... probably an email. The missing tracks: Living End's "Carry Me Home" and Suicidal Tendencies' "Institutionalized."Phew. It's over. Now we know all forty songs; all the names, artists, versions, everything. Except the fifteen unlockable bonus tracks that Red Octane claims are being kept under wraps until the game's November 7th release. Alright crafty internet sleuths, you know what you need to do.The rest of you can peep the entire confirmed list after the break.[Via videogamesblogger.com]
Guitar Hero II setlist finds hell with Danzig, et al
MTV Overdrive's video gaming show, The G-Hole, spent some time with Guitar Hero II at Harmonix's studios in Boston and accidentally let their nosy camera spy some of the title's top secret tracks. This isn't the first time MTV let something slip. Last month, MTV's GameTrailers property accidentally revealed Megadeath's "Hangar 18" and Aerosmith's "Last Child" before their video got pulled. Good thing MTV owns Harmonix now too, eh? The G-Hole episode is still online, but all of the unknown tracks have been blurred out ...... but not before one diligent forum-goer copied down the entire list. Included in the newly revealed tracks are Danzig's "Mother," Kansas' "Carry on My Wayward Son," The Stray Cats' "Rock this Town," and more. In total, 38 of the reported 40 licensed songs have been discovered, with 15 more bonus tracks to come.Check out the list, clipped after the break and -- before you have a temper tantrum 'cause your favorite face melter isn't on there -- tell us what's still missing? We'll take this opportunity to formally request some Tenacious D. Make it happen, Harmonix. [Thanks, Supa]More Guitar Hero:MTV snaps up Guitar Hero developerJoystiq interviews Rob Kay of HarmonixActivision paid nearly $100 million for RedOctaneSpotlight on Harmonix Music
MTV snaps up Guitar Hero developer [update 1]
How much is a franchise like Guitar Hero worth? Roughly $275 million. That's what you get when you add the nearly $100 million that Activision paid for publisher RedOctane and the $175 million in cash that MTV is set to pay for developer Harmonix.True, RedOctane also has a modest game rental business and Harmonix is also the developer behind the successful Karaoke Revolution series, but there's no question that Guitar Hero was the game that sent these two companies fortunes into the stratosphere.The MTV deal, as reported by the New York Times, will utilize Harmonix's experience with music-based games to design play-and-remix-and-sing-along experiences for MTV's web, mobile and VMTV virtual world services. That's all well and good, but we'd like to see what this partnership can do with the console-based MTV Music Generator series, which has lagged a bit since CodeMasters took the publishing rights over from... Activision. Hmm...[Update 1: Harmonix has issued a press release with more details about the buyout][Thanks Ben]
Guitar Hero coming to multiple new platforms
According to Eurogamer, Activision CEO Robert Kotick let it drop at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia XV Conference (that's a mouthful) that Guitar Hero would appear "on every significant new format." We can only guess this means whammy-barring on the Xbox 360 is pretty much confirmed, with Gamestation employees hearing earlier this week that they will be getting Guitar Hero II for that console in early 2007. With the Wii, DS, PSP and PS3 being significant new formats, chances are you might be able to jam just about anywhere.
Guitar Hero II's final boss revealed, all 11 solos of it
In the latest issue of EGM, Guitar Hero's resident axman, Marcus Henderson, revealed that we would know the identity of Guitar Hero II's final boss "when it arrives." He gushed, "This is a major, major guitar ass-kicker. It has no less then 11 guitar solos in it." Speculation led one poster on PlayStation Lounge to guess the killer track in question was Megadeth's eleven guitar solo-havin' "Hangar 18" (why not just make it eighteen guitar solos for consistency?).Guitar Hero II hasn't arrived yet, but we've gone the extra step of putting this two and that two together to get four, and we feel pretty comfortable saying that "Hangar 18" will indeed be the final boss in Guitar Hero II. You see, a now mysteriously absent GameTrailers video titled "Staying on Track" had Will Littlejohn, Senior Producer/Mixer at Wavegroup (he records all the songs), revealing that Aerosmith's "Last Child" and Megadeth's "Hangar 18" would be on the sequel, so it's pretty obvious. Of course, fans of the series will recall that Megadeth's "Symphony of Destruction" was "actin' like a robot" on the first installment, so it'll be great to spend some more time with Dave Mustaine & friends. Eleven solos? Sheesh.Read on for the confirmed songs thus far, including Cheap Trick's "Surrender," accidentally left out of 1UP's list.[Thanks, monkeydog and Aaron]
Free Bird in Guitar Hero II
In the original Guitar Hero, one of the loading screen tips warned potential rock gods, "They don't really want you to play Free Bird. They're just heckling you." I guess the guys at Harmonix didn't take the tip to heart, though, because a new video has surfaced showing that the Lynyrd Skynyrd classic "Free Bird" will be playable in Guitar Hero II.This comes on the heels of a recent revelation that Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child of Mine" will be in the game and brings the number of songs confirmed for the game to 14. Can a full list of all 55 songs be far off? Check out the video after the jump.
Guitar Hero rocks out online
Face it, you secretly wish you were a rock star. The girls, glamor and glitz are too much to pass up for strummin' on some chords. That's why Harmonix's Guitar Hero is so addictive. Sure, you're playing with a mass-produced plastic replica of a guitar not unlike a toy axe, but it's fun!Wouldn't it be even better online? Publisher RedOctane's boss Kai Huang says that next-gen installments will include online stuff like "downloading new music or characters or skins or online play features." The last part sounds the best: rocking it out online against your best friend would be priceless. Of course we can only infer what else "online play features" would entail.The allure of being able to download additional content like music begs the question: Would they charge for it? Micro-transactions could be a huge haul for a next-gen music-oriented title. We'll have to wait and see how that gets answered, but in the meantime try and imagine other "Hero" themed music titles for your imitation fix (Bagpipe Hero anyone?). More instrument peripheral games is the next logical step according to the publisher.
Joystiq Review: Guitar Hero (European release)
Note: Guitar Hero has been released in the US for six months, but is a new release in Europe. This review uses the European version of the game. Once, I dreamed of being on stage, lights in my eyes and music in my ears. Yesterday, for five glorious, rock-filled minutes, I was living my dream. Sliding my fingers up and down the fretboard in power chords, using fingers which haven't borne callouses for years, I was creating music… and what music it was! Songs I remembered tentatively picking out came to life, finally, with consummate skill. The fact I was pressing five brightly coloured buttons on a reduced-size guitar that looks like a child's toy is irrelevant. I was engrossed in the music, concentrating hard, picking out notes and chords with a frown when I missed and a smile when I did well, the audience's cheers and boos echoing my success. Welcome to Guitar Hero.
RedOctane CEO: More music games coming
In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, RedOctane CEO Kelly Sumner revealed that the company's "got other products in development" in the music genre.The former Take Two Interactive Europe CEO's statement that he "can't tell you what [these other products] are and when they're coming" would lead us to believe he's not talking about the Guitar Hero sequels (sorta like song expansion packs) already announced.A rhythm line-up to rival Konami's Bemani brand, perhaps? This blogger would love something to take advantage of the RedOctane drum peripherals created for Namco's Taiko Drum Master, and it wouldn't be too hard for Harmonix to work up a karaoke game considering their work on Karaoke Revolution (unless licensing prevents it). Whatever the case, fans of music gaming would love to see what Sumner's got up his sleeve.[Thanks, murph]See also: Guitar Hero readies for European tour A whole range of Guitar Heroes to be available A postmortem on Accordion Hero (with a little info on Guitar Hero, too) RedOctane Guitar Hero Specialty Store [where'd the cherry SG go?!]
A postmortem on Accordion Hero (with a little info on Guitar Hero, too)
Just in case you missed the Guitar Hero parody Accordion Hero reported here on Joystiq a week or two back, Gamasutra has now posted a tongue-in-cheek postmortem on the squeezebox simulator. It's cheeky.You'll learn not only "that accordion players get all the girls" (with female players, of course, getting all the guys), but you'll also get a handle on some detailed developer data such as the number of accordions broken during development (none) and the number set on fire during the same period of time (twenty-three).
Rock out with Guitar Hero, sans game
Now that you've gone and freed your Guitar Hero controller from its wired bondage, it's time to free it from the repetition of working with just the game. It's time to turn that controller into a real guitar! Using a USB to PS2 controller converter, a couple programs, and a PS2 as a makeshift foot pedal, Jason has fashioned an entirely new beast. He writes, "... this new nerdstrument has distanced itself from a guitar. Strumming is not used to generate tones -- fret button presses do this. The strum bar is instead used to change octaves. The controller's start and select buttons are mapped to cycle through instrument voices. " It's seems more like a keytar in this capacity.A warning to prospective jammers: this will remove the illusion that you're a rock god. Jason laments, "It's kind of humbling to go from playing Helmet's 'Unsung' at Guitar Hero's expert level to playing 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star', you know?"[Thanks, Jason]
