Avatars in Guitar Hero 5

They tried out Miis in a particular mode of Guitar Hero: World Tour, so I guess it was time to step up the game for Guitar Hero 5, as now you'll be able to rock out as your Xbox 360 Avatars; proved by this video on Xbox's official YouTube page.. which no one seems to have posted else wise:



The feature is pretty cool to see, as not too many games right now actually take advantage of the Avatars. But there's something strange about watching a group of men in business attire singing KISS... and the lip-syncing isn't all too there. Regardless, I'm curious to see if the Wii version will allow gamers to play as Miis in the full game this time around... no clue what to say for Sony gamers though, since the Home characters don't really leave that application.

Guitar Hero 5 brings new logo design

Call me not a fan of constantly released game titles, but sometimes even the subtle changes make me intrigued for better or worse. I mean, something must be going down at Activision when they not only decided to give the game a visual make-over from its previous incarnations, but to give the franchise logo a new look as well.

Subtle? Maybe. But I still noticed it right away when I was checking out RedOctane's press site. I'm just more curious as to why, whoever the powers may be, have decided to make such a change now? Especially with the franchise's key look is already defined for this generation, a mid-moment re-branding seems unnecessary. Perhaps we'll be able to tell once artwork and more show up for the announced Band Hero and DJ Hero titles (by the way, did we need those?).

Rant: What the hell happened?

Over the past 10 years videos games have changed drastically. They have unimaginable graphics, some unbelievable story lines, and innovation that we would have never expected to see 10 years ago. But today I'm not going to talk about any of those things. In fact, I'm going to talk about something that can really piss me off sometimes. Sometimes I wonder just how many people are playing video games just to have some good old fashion F-U-N. You know, that thing Spongebob taught us about back in the day? Games are just too god damned competitive nowadays. And don't get me wrong, I love me some good old fashion competition, me and my friends go way back to Pokemon: Red and Blue (all hail Charizard!). But now it's just gotten way too out of hand. Let me just share with you a few experiences that I've had myself.

Scenario 1:
Me: "Which music game do you like better, Rock Band or Guitar Hero?"
Them: "Well I for one like Guitar Hero better because its songs are more challenging."

Wow, where the hell should I start with this one? This one is probably #1 on my list. Seems kinda weird though. Why would something just as simple as this piss me off so, so, sooooo much?! It's just that I always played Guitar Hero I and II for 90% fun, 10% competition. But then Guitar Hero III came out... let me just clarify that I HATE this game. Call it a grudge against Neversoft, but I really just hate what they've done to the series. It took a complete 180. Now everyone just want's to be the best, they want the toughest songs, it makes me wonder if they are even having fun. If you ask any "real gamer," 90% of the time they will say that they enjoy Rock Band better (at least that's what I've seen from my experiences), why do you think that almost every big game site gave Rock Band 2 a better score then GH:WT? I'll tell you why. Because when you play Rock Band, you play it to have F-U-N, not because it's more challenging.

Scenario 2:
Me: "I think I'll play some Halo 3."
Them: "OMG this guys such a noob! I'm just gonna sit by the Rocket Launcher spawn and wait for it to come. If he gets close, I'll just run up and stick him, because that takes no skill whatsoever." *extremely squeaky voice* "HAHAHA NOOB, DUDE YOUR A STUPID F*CKING NOOB, YOU F*CKING NOOB, YOU SHOULD GO F*CK SH*T BITCH ASS HOLE DICK."

Jesus Christ! How many times have you gone through this? Not only do they use no skill whatsoever to win, but they sound like a 4th grader who just learned how to swear, they always seem to have an extremely squeaky voice and everything. Halo 3 is completely ruined because of people like this. If you've played Halo 3 at all, then you know that this happens more often then you'd think, some people are just complete idiot. I moved to Call of Duty a few months ago, and just decided I would give Halo a try, again. I played one game and quit. People just get too competitive, and then after every game they have to make sure that they rub it in your face that, "You're the loser, and they just whooped your ass." If you challenge them, they will make sure that you know that they're a grade 3 Brigadier, and you stand no chance whatsoever. Oh, and if you beat them, your, and I quote: "A cheap and a f*cking noob who needs to learn how to play the mother f*cking game."

Scenario 3:
Them: "Hey guys, let's play some Nazi Zombies! But instead of actually playing, let's glitch and get to the highest round ever!"

Ugh, I hate glitchers, the only thing I hate more than cheaters are people who agree with cheaters. To me, it's like why even play Nazi Zombies. Good job! You got to round 1,356... now try getting to round 30 without your glitches; now you're getting somewhere. I swear, every time I try to play Nazi Zombies at least one person wants to and/or does glitch. I've never glitched, nor do I ever plan to. If you ARE going to glitch, the least you could do is not brag about it. I've had people brag about how they've gotten to round 100. At this point, you don't even have to ask them if they glitched, it's pretty obvious they did, and you know they only did it because they wanted to beat everyone's score. Which once again brings us to our topic...

Video games are just too damn competitive in today's time. They're becoming more like a race, gotta be 1st, and less like actual games. Guitar Hero is apparently better because the songs are more "challenging" what a stupid reason to think a games better. That's like saying the 360 is better then the Super Ninendo solely because the graphics are better. All I'm really trying to say is that if you're going to play a game, play it for fun, don't play it so that you can beat everyone. Why not get off Xbox Live for a bit and go play a nice 1 player (or possibly co-op) game on the NES for once? Who knows, you might enjoy it.

New Guitar Hero titles coming soon?

If Activision's Guitar Hero press site is to be believed, which I don't know why it wouldn't be, it seems that a new console Guitar Hero title is on the way, as is a new DS title.

I mean ... you can't get much more convincing than that. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the 'Coming Soon' for the console titles is the worst kept secret, Guitar Hero: Metallica. But as for the DS game ... I hope it's not another On Tour title, because those seemed to have been launched within months of each other; and with the GBA slot-less DSi coming, the "Guitar Grip" peripheral will soon be obsolete.

What do you think this means?

Guitar Hero: World Tour Review

Guitar Hero: World Tour was released a few weeks back, and after lots of troublesome issues, not with the game itself, I have finally gotten the time to play the game enough to review. With World Tour, the Guitar Hero brand has expanded from just the guitars to include both vocals and drums, and perhaps one-upping Rock Band, but that is for you to decide.

The first thing I want to discuss is the instruments themselves. The guitar feels very similar to the GHIII guitar, due to the fact that the fret buttons are the same, however, there are many important changes to note. The minor changes include a button below the strum bar that is used to activate star power, although you can still tilt the guitar for the same effect. The whammy bar is also extended and feels good. The main change to the guitar, aside from the shape and color, is the addition of a slider bar, or touch sensor, which is used in a variety of ways. This touch sensor represents each of the fret buttons, but is merely a flat touch surface with no physical buttons. Essentially, the touch sensor is used in special sections of the songs to play notes without having to strum. You can use the touch sensor and not strum when there is a purple line connecting the notes or when the notes are transparent. This is a neat feature, but I find it very difficult to switch from the frets to the touch sensor while in a song, so I just stick to the frets and strumming, but it’s good that there is an option. Also, you can opt to tap the touch sensor instead of strumming, which I found to be interesting. By this, I mean that you can use the frets and tap the touch sensor instead of strumming, which can be done at any time.

The next instrument of note is the drum set. The main drum board houses 3 pads and the various Xbox buttons, and also connects to 2 raised cymbals, for a total of 5 pads, as well as a drum pedal. The drums play very similar to those in Rock Band, except you have an extra pad to work with. The cymbals don’t seem to play very differently from a standard set, but it definitely looks cooler and is still a lot of fun to play. The placement of the pads and cymbals is done well, although I find it somewhat difficult to hit the middle blue pad because I get confused. Also, I sometimes get my drum stick stuck under a cymbal, which causes me to miss a note or two and is frustrating, but it’s something I have to work on and not really anything wrong with the set itself. I found it quite sturdy and didn’t have any problems with it wobbling or anything of the sort. I also want to note that you activate star power by hitting both cymbals at once, which is quite difficult during hard songs, where notes just keep coming, not giving you time to perform this combo.

The last instrument is the microphone, which is pretty standard. It’s a well-built, real microphone, but nothing special. The vocal gameplay is also fairly standard, where you have a line, called the comet, flowing on the screen and when lyrics come up, you want to keep the comet on the line, or tunnel by matching the pitch. There are also special sections where you can pump up the crowd to earn star power and freeform sections where you can sing whatever you like to earn more points. Both the guitar and drums are wireless, powered by 2 AA batteries, while the microphone is wired via a USB port.

Because Guitar Hero: World Tour introduces both new instruments and new features into the series, it will be important to run through the tutorials. The tutorials are split up by instrument and game features, so you can easily navigate to a section you need to learn, such as new guitar features, or band features, etc. Each section is narrated by a different person who puts their own flavor into it, so it makes the tutorials somewhat entertaining. They go step-by-step and you can choose to skip a lesson, which is very useful, as you probably already know what star power is and how to use it.

After you’ve figured out how to play, you’ll want to jump into it, except, you need your own character to rock out with. The customization in World Tour is pretty in-depth, but easy to use. The first thing to customize is your character. There are lots of options to choose from, starting with your facial features, like eyes, nose, eyebrows, mouth, and more. Then you can move to your hairstyle, body type, tattoos, accessories, and clothes. With most options, you can also change the colors from a large color spectrum, which can make things very interesting, such as making your character have bright blue skin. Then you can add some poses and attitudes on your character, so they will rock out how you want them to and have specific mannerisms, which is cool. Luckily, unlike the first Rock Band, this character can be used for all the instruments, as opposed to just one.

On that note, it will be time to customize all 4 of your instruments. With all the instruments, there are a ton of things to customize. For instance, with the guitar, you choose the base, the board, the strings, the styles, the colors, the buttons, EVERYTHING. Interesting enough, as you progress through the game, you unlock new parts, as opposed to new guitars themselves, so if you want a new guitar, you have to make it yourself instead of just choosing a new one, which is kind of weird and makes things a bit more difficult for people who just want to choose a new guitar. There are a ton of pieces to unlock and purchase, from standard looking ones to crazy ones, so you can still make some far-out instruments to give your character some uniqueness.

Now, finally, once you’ve created your perfect character, you are ready to rock out. You can do so in either the single player mode or band mode, but both are practically the same. You go from venue to venue and play a few songs at a time, unlocking more as you go. The menu is set up via fliers of that venue that display the songs that you will be performing. Fortunately, you can change difficulties at any time and continue onwards with your career. So, if you get stuck on a song on Hard, you can change the difficulty to Medium and try that song, without having to worry about starting all over or anything of the sort. Once you complete a song set, you’ll get paid according to how well you did, with certain bonuses for a variety of things, such as your star ranting or never falling into the red, etc. You can also play a head-to-head mode to see who gets the most points.

The online mode is the same as the local modes, where you can either join together with some other members online and form a band to play some venues, or go head-to-head. When I played, I didn’t experience any lag, and the play was like someone was in the room with me playing locally. However, it was semi-difficult to find people to play with, but I’m sure that was just due to the time I was playing, and hopefully more people will be playing now.

Once you’ve played the game for awhile, you might start to get a little bored with the 80+ song library and decide you want to make some of your own, and luckily, with the Music Studio, you can do just that. You can start out in the Music Studio and just jam away and record what you play. Afterward, you can edit your song in GH Mix, where you can make all kinds of alterations to make the song exactly how you like it. There are a ton of tools at your disposal to use, and it is pretty complicated, but luckily, there is a lengthy tutorial you can go over to help you understand how everything works and how to make a perfect song.

Also included is GH Tunes, where you can download user-created songs, or you can upload your own. Here, you can download any number of songs for free and continually get new content. Unfortunately, Activision has taken down any and all awesome copyrighted material, which is a shame, but understandable, so if you want some nostalgic Mario-themed music, you’ll have to create it yourself.

Overall, Guitar Hero: World Tour brings the Guitar Hero experience to the masses via not only the guitar and bass, but also the drums and vocals. World Tour expands on what the series has already created and World Tour just builds on what you’ve already come to know and enjoy. The customization and song library are great, and with the ability to download user-created content and with Activision putting out new songs very frequently, you can always find something new to play.

Overall Score: 8.8/10

Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades review

I hope you're ready to pull out those guitar grips and slide them back into your DS because Guitar Hero is back with On Tour: Decades for the Nintendo DS, bringing with it 28 new songs to jam out to.

As the title suggests, the game's venues are broken down into decades, starting with the modern times and moving from the 2000 to the 1970's, making up a total of 5 venues, each housing 5 songs from the era, with those 3 extra songs labeled as “victory songs”, which you unlock as you complete the Career mode. Decades has some really good music this time around, with almost every song being easily recognizable and fun to play. Medium difficulty is rather easy, where I could get 5 stars without too much effort, and almost 100% on every song. The difficulty doesn't ramp up too much between venues, however, there is a huge difficulty leap from Medium to Hard, like there was in the original On Tour, so practice up before making the jump.

For the single-player career mode, there are three options to choose from: guitar, bass/rhythm, and guitar duels, each of which uses their own music sets, so you can't play half the songs with the guitar, and then switch over to the bass. However, finally, you can play a song on say, Hard, and if you complete it, you will also get credit for beating it on both Medium and Easy, which is very useful. For instance, if you start on Hard and beat a few songs, but then hit a wall, you can switch over to Medium and continue where you left off, as opposed to starting all over. Keep note that the opposite is not true. You can't get stuck on a song on Hard, play it on Medium, and then continue on Hard. Anyways, the guitar and bass play the same, except they play a different set of notes, but the guitar duel has you battling another guitarist; whoever has the most points at the end wins. Like On Tour and other Guitar Hero games, the duels feature weapons and items you can use if you complete a specific rift, like for Star Power, and then you can choose to use that weapon by tapping its icon on the touch screen. These attacks are the exact same as the ones in On Tour, so don't except any changes here; you have the fire, cut string, shield, up difficulty, autographing, and things of that nature, all of which are countered via the touch screen or microphone and are fun to play around with.

You have the same 5 or so characters to choose from, but you have a few more costumes and outfits to put them in. This time, their outfits are themed with the different decades in the game, so each character has a variety of outfits that they can wear, and many of them greatly change their appearance, due to the era in which the clothes and styles are set, so it's fun to experiment with those and find some you really like, Axel Steel's disco gear or Judy Nails' hippie getup. There is also some good “customization” with the guitars, where there are a decent number of different guitars, and then many have alternate colors and styles, making for a good variety and some pretty cool instruments.

Overall, Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades is another good music game for the DS. There aren't any major changes, or any changes really from the first On Tour title, but there is of course all-new music to enjoy. The game features 3 modes to play in, as well as multiplayer, where you can play with the On Tour music as well if another player has that cart, so there is plenty to do, although you can play through all 25 songs in a few hours. It would be nice to see the next game have more songs, but the gameplay is still rock solid and it's the perfect portable Guitar Hero experience.

Overall Score: 8.9/10

Guitar Hero: World Tour - Billy Corgan

Just put u a new video I got from Activision for Guitar Hero: World Tour. In addition to the recent announcement of Ozzy Osborne and Zakk Wylde as characters in the game, they're also bringing in Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan. Take a look:

I guess it's sort of nice to see musicians I respect in the game, instead of say ... Brett Michaels who was in Guitar Hero III. But there's also the sellout factor, at least in my eyes. Personally, I'd rather get Rock Band 2 given the choice. It's not that I don't like Guitar Hero, but when you're name's GUITAR Hero ... maybe you should stick to that instead of bringing in other elements for a quick buck. Plus, I'm sure "Band Heroes" or something like isn't that hard to trademark...

Guitar Hero World Tour Boxart

Here's the Xbox 360 boxart for Activision's Rock Band ... Guitar Hero World Tour. I can't help but think I've seen box art like this before, with the real silhouettes, but when I saw it last it was blue...

Huh, how'd that get there?

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith Review

Hey there again. Just wanted to let you know that the Guitar Hero: Aerosmith Review is up on the VFH main site.

Pretty good game, but not a super lot of songs, and obviously if you don't care for the band, then you shouldn't waste your time or money.

Anyways, keep your eyes on the site, as it is sure to get flooded with news next week when E3 kicks off on Monday with Microsoft's Conference. Should be exciting.
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UPDATE (3/22/10): VFH Classic is dead, sadly, this review was unrestorable.

Rooooock!!! (Band 2)

Over at Kotaku there's rumors of the Rock Band 2 track list. While theirs not much in the way confirmation, it is mentioned that an IGN interview revealed that all the original Rock Band songs will be available for download on the sequel. This seems like a risky move to me. Why buy one if you can get everything with two? This might make fans a little upset, like they bought the first Rock Band for nothing. Personally the promise of so many songs is enough to warrant my forgiveness.

It's still left to be seen how Rock Band will fare with Guitar Heroes' adoption of the full band playing style. Will the enormous library of songs make up for the lack of a song creation feature? My bet is on no, sadly. As much as I love Rock Band and Harmonix, I don't think their talent is enough to compete with the brand recognition of guitar hero along with the create a song mode. Still, my plan is to get the Guitar Hero game with instruments, and the Rock Band game disk. It just seems like the way to go, and I've always liked Guitar Heroes guitars feel better anyways. I just hope that Rock Bands' sales are still decent, Harmonix deserves it.

Information via Kotaku

Images from the original Rock Band, from IGN

Guitar Hero: On Tour Review

Hey you guys, just finished up my Guitar Hero: On Tour Review which is of course up over at the VFH main site, where you can read many of our reviews that span all the major gaming consoles and handhelds.

Anyhoo, it's a really fun game and plays just like any GH game, so if you are into that, then you should definitely check it out.
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UPDATE (3/22/10) VFH Classic is dead

I have to be honest, I was a bit leery at first about Guitar Hero: On Tour, but still excited to try it out for myself. After checking everything out and plugging in the peripheral and checking out the tutorials, I was ready to go, and to my surprise, it seemed that the game featured everything from its console brethren and played just as well. Let me tell you a little bit about it.

The first thing you’re going to notice of course is the fact that the game box is much larger than normal. This is of course due to the fact that the game comes with a grip peripheral, which comes at a premium, brining the total of the game to $49.99. If you aren’t as hip as the rest of us and still have the old DS, then don’t you worry, as you can put in a special adapter so you can still play the game. Once that is done, you can simply slide in and out the peripheral into the GBA slot. The grip comes with a hand strap thing so you can secure it to your hand. Interestingly enough, it also comes with a plethora of stickers, just like for the guitar, and you can even change the face plate, so when new ones come out, you can exchange them for a specialized look, which is pretty cool. It is true that the grip only has four color buttons, instead of the normal five, but this is essentially the only way it could have been done, and you don’t lose any difficulty or fun because of this. Overall, the peripheral and buttons are very solid and well built and it feels just like the guitar. It is definitely a fine piece of work and something that will stand up against the test of time. Because of the way the peripheral is set up, you have to hold it sideways, in the book form, which works out very well. However, it will take some time to get used to as your wrist will start hurting after the first couple songs, however, this was also the case with using the actual guitar. You just have to get those wrist muscles strong and pace yourself, taking breaks after every couple of songs.


Here, you can see the grip peripheral from the back with the adjustable hand strap. It rests in your hand with your fingers on the buttons.

Like I said, the game is played in the book form, with the notes and performance going on on the left screen, while all your stats and guitar are on the right. The left side plays out exactly like regular guitar hero, with the notes scrolling downwards while your character is dancing around on stage. On the right, you have a variety of things, including your score, star power meter, combo multiplier, note streak, and of course your virtual guitar. However, it is near impossible to follow these things on the right, as you will have to keep your attention on the notes on the left, and glances, however quickly, to the right will throw most players off and cause you to miss a few notes, if not many more through the confusion. Luckily, you don’t really need to look at the right at all though, so don’t worry about it.


Upper left of the right screen is the Rock Meter, which shows you how well you are doing, and if it reaches the end in the red, then you fail and must start over. The blue gauge on the left is the star power meter and once it is half-way full, you can activate and use it to double your multiplier which is shown below it. As you can see, the guitar is shown on-screen, however, you don't have to strum directly on the strings, nor do you have to have your stylus on the whammy bar to use it. Also, on the right, you can see that the first green note that you are about to play doesn't have a black circle around the white center, meaning you can either hammer-on or pull-off the note so you don't have to strum it.

The controls have been done right, although because of it, can lead to a bit simpler time if you know what you’re doing. The rules are all the same here, except strumming and especially whamming are a little easier. To do either, simply swipe anywhere on the right/touch screen with your pick stylus that they give you, which is really cool actually and very ergonomic. For this reason, if there are notes that are really close together, you can simply continue to swipe away at the touch screen, as opposed to breaking away contact first, however, this is just a skill you must learn and doesn’t detract from the difficulty or fun of the game. While this seems different from using a strum bar, it is actually very similar and it feels good to do and natural. Also, the touch screen with the strumming, and the rest of the controls, are very, very responsive, so you don’t have to worry about the game not picking up your strums or anything of the sort. You can pretty much activate star power anyway you like. You can tap on the star power meter, scream something into the microphone, blow into the microphone, or press any of the DS’s buttons. I prefer the blowing, although sometimes this still throws me off a bit and causes me to miss a note, but it’s the easiest, least embarrassing way to do it I think.


Here, you can see how to hold and view the DS and game, and how the peripheral looks like when attached. You can also see the pick that comes with the game, which is stored inside the peripheral and has nice finger grips to ensure you hold on to it. I prefer the pick to the actual stylus, as it makes strumming easier.

The game offers up two main modes, being Single Player and Multiplayer. In Single Player, aside from quick play, practice, and the tutorials, you have your Career and Guitar Duels modes. The single player mode plays out just like the console version, where you have five tiers, each consisting of five songs, and you have to complete all five songs to move on to the next tier. You can play each song in the standard Easy, Medium, Hard, and Expert difficulties, and at the end of the song you are given your star rating, as well as all the normal stats, including your max combo, score, and the breakdown of how well you did in each section. There is even a high scores section where you can put down your initials if you did well.

Guitar Duels plays the same way as the Career mode, except you are dueling someone, as if you were actually playing a real person in Multiplayer. You play the song as you normally would, except some sections that would be star power are now the special weapon sections, where if you hit all the notes, you gain a weapon to use against your opponent. Of course they can throw weapons at you too. The player with the highest score at the end wins. The attacks, by the way, are all pretty cool and use the DS’s abilities in some way. The scissor attacks cuts the one of the guitar strings on your opponent’s guitar, so they must use the stylus to connect both the ends together to fix it, while the autograph attack sends a fan to your enemy in which they must sign some item before the fan will go away. There is also an attack which causes a fire and requires that you blow into the mic, while there are others that raise their difficulty level or decrease yours and many others, which are all fun and inventive, making for entertaining and exciting battles.

The Multiplayer section contains three main modes, including regular face-off to see who can rack up the most points; guitar duel to see who can get the most points, but with the aforementioned attacks implemented; and co-op, where you play together, with one person playing lead and the other playing either rhythm or bass. I haven’t personally gotten a chance to play these modes, but the standard gameplay obviously hasn’t changed, and given three modes as opposed to just one will improve replay ability and bring out more enjoyment into the title. It’s good to know that they didn’t skimp on the multiplayer and only offer one mode.


The dueling mode. Currently, I am under attack by the fire, which I must blow out before I can hit anymore notes. You can see who is winning by looking at the bar on the top of the right screen, as well as look at and use your items which are on the left of the right screen.

The feature list seems a little lacking, but is overall decent enough. You can choose to play as one of six different characters, all of which are series favorites, including Judy Nails, Johnny Napalm, Axel Steel, Lars Umlaut, and others. You also have your choice of ten different guitars, although seven of them are locked at the beginning of the game. There are also a variety of different colors and outfits you can buy from the store for both your character and guitar, which gives a good variety. On Tour also features 25 songs to play, including a secret unlockable track or two. The track list is pretty diverse, including some good songs, and some not so good songs. Because I’m nice, I’ll list all the songs and let you decide for yourself (Note: Some songs are covered):

• Ok Go - "Do What You Want"
• No Doubt - "Spiderwebs"
• Jet - "Are You Gonna Be my Girl"
• Blink 182 - "All the Small Things"
• Twisted Sister - "We're Not Gonna Take it"
• Nirvana - "Breed"
• Smash Mouth - "All Star"
• Rick Springfield - "Jessie's Girl"
• Pat Benatar - "Hit Me With Your Best Shot"
• Maroon 5 - "This Love"
• Los Lonely Boys - "Heaven"
• Bloc Party - "Helicopter"
• The Doobie Brothers - "China Grove"
• KISS (cover by Line 6) - "Rock and Roll All Nite"
• Daughtry - "What I Want"
• Steve Miller Band (cover by Wavegroup) - "Jet Airliner"
• Santana (cover by Line 6) - "Black Magic Woman"
• Stray Cats - "Stray Cat Strut"
• ZZ Top (cover by Line 6) - "La Grange"
• Skid Row (cover by Wavegroup) - "Youth Gone Wild"
• Ozzy Osbourne - "I Don't Want to Stop"
• Incubus - "Anna Molly"
• Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Knock me Down"
• Stevie Ray Vaughan - "Pride And Joy"
• Lynyrd Skynyrd (cover by Wavegroup) - "I Know A Little"

Guitar Hero: On Tour is a fantastic expansion of the series onto the Nintendo DS, with everything you come to expect and enjoy out of a Guitar Hero game. The game features everything the console versions have, with a decent track list and two single player modes that will keep you busy for awhile, and once you find a friend with the game, you can enjoy battling each other for days and days. The hand grip peripheral is very well built and the buttons feel like the ones on the guitar peripheral. While there are only four buttons instead of the usual five, nothing is lost, as the game is still insanely fun and addictive to play, as well as very difficult and rewarding on Hard and Expert difficulties. And if you happened to be left-handed, then don’t worry, as there is an option for that. So, if you have the money to spare, and are a fan of the series, then there is no reason for you not to pick up On Tour, as it is the perfect portable music game.

9/10

Looks like I was wrong

So Activision just released some nice clear images of the Guitar Hero: World Tour instruments. It turns out that the guitar isn't a Gibson Longhorn... in fact it's not even a Gibson! It's nothing! I don't know what this means for the series and what guitars they'll even play to showcase, but this all smells like cheap and sell out to me...

via IGN

Guitar Hero III: God of War teaser

That God of War song that was previously announced exclusively for the Playstation 3 edition of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock now has a teaser video. Before watching this I don't think many people could have told you a memorable track from God of War.. but Sony needed to compete with the Xbox 360's exclusive Halo track some how. But after watching the tune is a little more familiar, albeit a little forced, but it's FREE and there's no argument about that.



via Playstation.Blog

A couple of IGN videos

I didn't want to have two separate updates so i'm just putting both into one.

First off is a hands-on preview of Guitar Hero: On Tour. I was a little ashamed at Activision for milking the franchise all the way to this, especially with that new How To video they released, but seeing the game in action, and knowing they're including an adapter for those still with the DS Phat has me a little more optimistic. Here's the vid:



And also, I wanted to post their video review of Ninja Gaiden II for the Xbox 360 (and exclusively for that, sadly), just to show the love.



Hope you enjoy!

First trailer for Guitar Hero: World Tour

Here it is, the first teaser for Guitar Hero: World Tour


What can I gather from the trailer? Well, it looks like the Drum Controller is big... And I really doubt that big disc that has no effect other than be the silhouette of a base drum will be included in the final set. But the guitar, it looks to be a Sunburst color Gibson Longhorn.

(A real Gibson Longhorn)

Also, I wonder if this title has any relation to the DS game, Guitar Hero: On Tour?

Game Informer Details

The newest game informer magazine apparently has a load of details about upcoming games. This is big stuff, and I personally am excited for Banjo Kazooie. Sounds amazing.

Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts (360)
- You create vehicles with parts you find around the levels.
- RARE showed them a vehicle that was a monster truck that was able to detach its chasis to become a mini bike. When the bike ramped off a cliff it revealed collapsible glider wings and started flying.
- GI says that despite the large focus on vehicles it still features platform elements from the previous games like traditional platforming, tight rope walking and jiggy piece collecting.
- Showdown Town is 16 times larger than anything RARE has created before.

Guitar Hero 4 (PS3, 360, Wii, PS2)
- Drums, bass, vocals, guitar
- Create a song. Although these exclude vocals due to storage and possible copyright issues.
- You'll be able to name your song as well as creating album art. After you've done all that you can upload it to GH Tunes where anyone can download it.

More details on those two, the new Prince of Persia, Resident Evil 5, and Viva Pinata via the link below.

Game Informer Info

New Microsoft and Nintendo consoles in 2010? Too soon. :(