For the Love of Geeks

There has been a lot of buzz surrounding the upcoming release of Guitar Hero : World Tour.  Unfortunately for Activision, Harmonix will be releasing Rockband 2 first.  Frankly, it is a whole big plate of awesome, and is full of WIN.

Harmonix made the [ announcement ], but didn’t give a ton of details.. So IGN went the next step and interviewed the lead developer [ Dan Teasdale ].

The highlights?

• DLC (Downloaded Content) will be transferrable from RB1 to RB2 and any new RB2 DLC will be backwards compatible to RB1.   ROCK!

• New instruments will be quieter and more realistic, but old instruments will be usable.

• Band Tour will be improved.  This is cool too me since the random set list often had unrealistic expectations based on how long and what level people where playing at.   Enter Sandman in the 3rd set is just mean.. LOL

• Full Master recordings on the disk.

There is a ton more, so go read the article.

I am impressed at Harmonix.  I was very vry excited for the GH4 release, and quite frankly, Activision really missed the boat focusing thier energy releasing Aerosmith and the stupid DS version of GH.  They should have been pushing GH4 out for an early summer release because by the time Christmas rolls around RockBand 2 will already be p0wning GH4 before it is even released.

The lucky bastards over at [ IGN ] recently got to play with the newest version of Guitar Hero.  Did I mention that they are lucky bastards, oh yeah… ok, and while we are all still dreading the day that our living rooms are completely filled with plastic instruments, the new GH4 guitar has got some additions that will make even the most die-hard Rockband fan consider getting both.

According to their review :

“The biggest addition to the new guitar is the touch pad located on the neck. While playing a song, this touch sensitive strip allows you to alter notes during sustains by sliding up and down the strip (giving more freedom and options than what you had before with just a whammy bar). It can also be used for tapping to play notes, particularly awesome if you want to mimic a slap bass. The real power of the touch pad comes in the music creator.”

I feel like jumping up and down like a gleeful 14 year old … ok, I am actually doing that, but can you really blame me.

The back/select button has been more tightly integrated into the bridge of the guitar and makes it easier to use to go into overdrive, and makes the overall look and feel of the guitar more realistic.  The guitar is also bigger which will also help that feeling of realism.

Like I have said in earlier posts, the guiatar is also wireless, and has changeable face plates.

Activision, I know you are reading, so listen carefully.  Dump the Aerosmith crap, and get this game released.. I want it… I WANT NOW!!

I have covered as much as I can about the upcoming GH4 game, since I really think it is going to be the best of all the GH and Rockband games, and even though a large portion of gamers will not likely want to buy a whole other set of plastic instruments, the added features of GH4 will just as likely convince many to make the leap.

However, in this month’s Game Informer, they reported that the game’s Jam Mode is now a thing of the past.

“The now officially titled Guitar Hero: World Tour has lost one major feature that was discussed in our June cover store on the game (issue # 182). The games Jam Mode, which would have allowed players to freely improvise over chord changes and scales from the games soundtracks has been removed. Thankfully, the games more complex music creation studio mode will still be included in the game, allowing players to create their own original GH tracks.”

I really think that would have been a cool feature of the game play, and so I am little disappointed to see it go.  I am happy that they are not taking out the song creation process, but I am going to reserve judgment on that until I can try it out.

The additional features of GH4 are what is going to make or break this game, so I hope that Activision keeps the rest of the game off the chopping block.

From the get go, I have thought that the “Aerosmith” version of Guitar Hero was laughable, and should have just been a downloadable update of songs… but whatever, Activision stopped taking my calls on that particular topic..

Here is the track list for you Steven Tyler fan boys and girls.

Nipmuc High School

1. Mott the Hoople - “All the Young Dudes”*
2. Cheap Trick - “Dream Police”
3. Aerosmith - “Make It”
4. Aerosmith - “Uncle Salty”
5. Aerosmith - “Draw the Line”

Max’s Kansas City

1. Joan Jett - “I Hate Myself for Loving You”
2. The Kinks - “All Day and All of the Night”*
3. Aerosmith - “Movin’ Out”
4. Aerosmith - “No Surprize”
5. Aerosmith - “Sweet Emotion”

The Orpheum Theater

1. The Clash - “Complete Control”
2. New York Dolls - “Personality Crisis”*
3. Aerosmith - “Livin’ on the Edge”
4. Aersomith - “Ragdol”l
5. Aerosmith - “Love in an Elevator”

Half Time Show

1. Lenny Kravitz - “Always on the Run
2. Black Crowes - “Hard to Handle”*
3. Aerosmith - “Back in the Saddle”
4. Aerosmith - “Beyond Beautiful”
5. Aerosmith - “Dream On”

Moscow

1. The Cult - “She Sells Sanctuary”
2. Run DMC - “King of Rock”
3. Aerosmith - “Bright Light Fright”
4. Aerosmith - “Nobody’s Fault”
5. Run DMC featuring Aerosmith - “Walk This Way”

Apparently Nipmuc High School was the very first venue that Aerosmith ever played, so you start there too..

I will admit that there are several cool songs in the line-up and I wish/hope they would be available for Guitar Hero 3… Let’s face it though, that much Aerosmith can’t be good for anyone.

Activision’s CEO Bobby Kotick debuted Guitar HEro World Tour to the masses at “All Things D” convention, and instead of just showing off his wares he brought out a talent judge (Paula Abdul) and had Tony Hawk and Brody Jenner as front men for the band and they put on a little mini concert for the crowd … check out the video and comments follow.

I absolutely despise Lenny Kravitz, so I wish they would have played a different song, but the interface looks a lot cleaner then the previous guitar hero setups, and the drums look pretty cool, I even think that the fake bass drum in the front gives it a better look then the RockBand drums.

Getting even more excited everytime I see something new.

After the release of the video trailer for the newest installment of the Guitar Hero video game, Activision has leaked out a few in-game screen shots to whet our appetites a little more, and truth be told, it is getting harder and harder to resist the purchase.

First of all, the music making aspect of the game looks pretty awesome.

Players can create and upload songs to GHTunes, which is an aspect of gameplay never really explored before. From the screen shot, a sizable learning curve seems to exist, especially if you are new to mixing and creating music, but given that my 14 year old nephew master Rock Band drums on hard in less then two weeks, I can only imagine the level of creativity some of these kids will come up with, and it makes me wonder if this will lead to a whole new type of musician being created.

Drums, will have presets available to assist in setting the tempo, like Hard Rock, and Hip Hop.  Speaking of the drums.  New information about [ the game's drums ] were also leaked out. The drum pads are “larger and quieter,” and velocity-sensitive. That means that the game will be taking advantage of the fact that the drums detect how hard they are being hit: perhaps making the drum beats louder.

It also seems that GH4 : World Tour will be providing the user a more detailed character creation process, allowing gamers to fine tune and create characters that could possibly resemble the gamer, although I am hoping that is not what is happening in this screen shot.

Overall, I am beginning to think that this will be a very loud response to RockBand, and other rumors are still being leaked that GH4 will include songs by Dream Theater, which would simply be AWESOME!