Tag: Guitar Hero
1 New KISS Guitar Hero & Rock Band Guitar
Check out the new limited edition KISS AG RiffMaster™ wireless guitar controllers created by Art Guitar! Controllers are genuine wood and are compatible with both Guitar Hero® & Rock Band® video games on PS2 and PS3. Rock away in KISS style!
0 Black Sabbath Tracks Hit Guitar Hero
Black Sabbath joins Guitar Hero with three of their most head bang-worthy tracks: “After Forever,” “Into The Void” and “Sweet Leaf.” These will be the first Black Sabbath master tracks for any music video game! Black Sabbath won’t take center stage until April 29th, but there’s plenty in the line up to keep your fingers ready for the heavy metal assault, including Lynyrd Skynyrd, Fall Out Boy, The All-American Rejects, Blur, Saving Abel and Phoenix. All tracks are available for Guitar Hero® 5 and Band Hero™.
The Guitar Hero music library has over 200 of the most fun to play/most challenging/most l33t/most (fill in the blank) tracks to download and rock out to! Connect your console and start building your collection!
0 KISS Guitar Hero 5 Tracks Announced
Look for KISS to headline the Guitar Hero stage on November 19 with a three song track pack that’s sure to satiate the KISS fan in everyone. The track pack will feature “Modern Day Delilah,” the first single off their new album, Sonic Boom, “Lick It Up,” the title track from their 1983 album, Lick it Up, and “I Was Made for Loving You,” KISS’s second Gold single.
KISS Track Packs will be available on 11/19/09 via Xbox Live Marketplace for Xbox 360 for 440 Microsoft Points, on the PlayStation Store for the PS3 for $5.49 and for Wii for 550 Wii Points. In addition, all songs in the KISS Track Pack will be released as downloadable singles for Xbox 360 for 160 Microsoft Points each, PS3 for $1.99 each and Wii for 200 Wii Points each.
While you wait, you can also rock out to KISS right now in GH5, which features “Shout It Out Loud!” For more information, visit www.guitarhero.com.
0 Heavy Metal Frontman King Diamond to Join the Digital Cast of Guitar Hero Metallica
Having united forces with rock ‘n’ roll legends Metallica for encore performances and recordings throughout the years, GRAMMY(R) Award-nominated heavy metal vocalist and Mercyful Fate frontman King Diamond will take to the cyber-stage with Metallica this spring in Activision Publishing Inc.’s Guitar Hero(R) Metallica(R).
Fans, stagehands and groupies alike will have the opportunity to shred and drum with or wail as the digital King Diamond during performances of “Evil.” The song, which originally was recorded in 1983 and is one of the Mercyful Fate songs that comprise Metallica’s “Mercyful Fate” medley, was re-recorded by four of the five original band members for Guitar Hero Metallica. The recording session was overseen by guitarist Hank Shermann in the band’s native Denmark; after which King Diamond laid down his vocals in Dallas, Texas, and mixed the song with J.T. Longoria.
“It’s been absolutely amazing to be a part of this Guitar Hero experience. It was quite a trip to re-record the song ‘Evil’ almost 25 years after the original recording took place. The end result with four out of the five original musicians turned out so much better than I would ever have hoped for,” said King Diamond. “Seeing my animated character take form was totally eerie in a very good way. It’s so strange to see yourself animated in such perfect detail – cross bone microphone, Eye necklace and all. This game looks and sounds METAL all the way. HORNS UP!!!”
“Ride the Lightning” with musical icons Metallica and 21 other rockin’ acts in an all new Guitar Hero(R) experience – Guitar Hero Metallica. Enter the world of Lars Ulrich, James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett and Robert Trujillo and experience the intensity and skill of one of the greatest bands of all time. Shred on the guitar controller, rip on the drum kit controller and wail on the mic to a set list featuring over 45 explosive hits from Metallica’s illustrious career and a wide variety of other legendary artists personally selected by the band, such as Alice In Chains, Bob Seger, Foo Fighters, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Queen. Fans will be able to rock as Metallica while performing in venues reminiscent of the band’s epic album covers, themes from their music and real world locales.
Guitar Hero Metallica is being developed by Neversoft Entertainment for the Xbox 360(R) video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and the PLAYSTATION(R)3 computer entertainment system. The Wii(TM) home video game system from Nintendo and the PlayStation(R)2 computer entertainment system versions are being developed by Budcat. The game is rated “T” for Teen by the ESRB. For more information about Guitar Hero Metallica, please visit guitarhero.com.
0 Did You Get A New Game System For Christmas?
Here is a game for you to look forward to in 2009!
0 Guitar Hero Metallica Coming in 2009!
Metallica has finally confirmed “the worst-kept secret in rock’n’roll” and unveiled details of the upcoming “Guitar Hero” game devoted to the band.
According to Metallica’s Web site, the game “allows you to play as us in either single instrument or band career game modes” and will likely be released in the first half of next year.
Adding to the atmosphere will be famous setting associated with the band’s career, including Moscow’s Tushino Airfield, the site of the 1991 Monsters of Rock concert, and “new venues with in-the-round staging.”
There will be 28 Metallica songs in all, although the full list has not yet been announced. Songs from Alice In Chains, Foo Fighters, Slayer, Machine Head and Queen can also be played.
Lastly, in a feature sure to thrill Lars Ulrich devotees, “Guitar Hero: Metallica” will boast an “expert” difficulty level that employs two bass drum kick pedals. The Metallica edition follows an Aerosmith-dedicated “Guitar Hero,” which was released in June.
0 Death Magnetic For Guitar Hero Coming Friday!
Metallica’s “Death Magnetic,” the entire album, available for Guitar Hero too!
The simultaneous release of the album and “downloadable content” for your Guitar Hero game. Anytime after 2:00 AM PDT on Friday, September 12, you can get “Death Magnetic” for GHIII at the Xbox LIVE Marketplace for a cost of 1,440 Microsoft Points and in the Playstation store for PS3 at a cost of $17.99.
Each download contains two different versions of “Suicide & Redemption.” One version is James only solo, and the other is Kirk only solo. The download will be forward compatible with Guitar Hero World Tour when it comes out in October.
1 Jimi Hendrix Heading to Guitar Hero
Jimi Hendrix is coming to Guitar Hero.
The Seattle-based company Experience Hendrix, which controls the rock icon’s musical legacy, is providing Hendrix’s music and likeness for the latest “Guitar Hero” video game, Aaron Grant, a spokesman for publisher and developer Activision and Red Octane, told the Associated Press.
It’s the first time Hendrix’s likeness will be showcased in the game.
An avatar of Hendrix, as well as the song “The Wind Cries Mary” and a live version of “Purple Haze” recorded in 1969 at the San Diego Sports Arena, will be included on “Guitar Hero World Tour.” The fourth edition of the popular game franchise is scheduled for release Oct. 27.
“World Tour” will be the first “Guitar Hero” to feature playable drums and a microphone.
Besides the in-game songs, Experience Hendrix provided Activision and Red Octane with tunes that will be released in the future as downloadable content, Grant said.
14 New Disturbed Indestructible Video Game!
Disturbed have just released a new video game widget to celebrate the upcoming release of their album, Indestructible. Much like Guitar Hero and Rock Band, the game tests your hand and coordination while you rock out to new tracks, “Inside the Fire” and “Perfect Insanity” from the Chicago hard rockers!
Click on the Album Cover below, to play the game!!!
Indestructible will be in stores on June 3rd through Reprise Records.
1 Guitar Hero: Aerosmith?!
Fire up the fret board, crank the amp to 11 and get ready to rock this way with Activision, Inc.’s Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, the first game built around the legendary music of America’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll band: Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Brad Whitford, Tom Hamilton and Joey Kramer. Slated for release this June, this latest installment from the franchise with the #1 best-selling video game in 2007, puts players in the shoes of Perry (guitar), Whitford (guitar) and Hamilton (bass), as they rock out alongside frontman Tyler and drummer Kramer. Gamers will experience AEROSMITH’s Grammy-winning career, from their first gig to becoming rock royalty, in a way that no other entertainment vehicle offers.
To celebrate this historic, ground-breaking collaboration, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock fans will have the opportunity to download and jam to AEROSMITH’s “Dream On”. The song will be available for free from February 16-18 on Xbox LIVE Marketplace for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and Playstation Store for the Playstation 3 computer entertainment system.
“Having a game built around AEROSMITH has been a huge honor and really a great experience for us,” says Joe Perry. “We’ve put a lot of ideas into the game so that fans can have fun interacting with our music, getting inside our body of work and learning about the band’s history.”
Steven Tyler says, “Any band that can go from ‘Don’t Want to Miss A Thing’ (AEROSMITH’s #1 smash hit) to the ass-kicking ‘Sweet Emotion’ to the cheekiness of ‘Love in an Elevator’, to the classic ballad ‘Dream On’ shows why Activision chose us to headline this game based on the diversity of the AEROSMITH catalog. Not only is songwriting a bitch, but then it goes and has puppies.”
Perry adds, “On a larger scale, it’s cool for us to be pioneers helping to rebuild the music industry through a format like video games. It’s great for rock since the record companies are struggling to make sense of how things are changing. Fans want to get and experience music in new formats — and there are going to be some of them who will play the game, then pick up the guitar for real and start bands. It’s what’s happening now, and it’s only going to build more momentum in the future. It’s a massive change for the music business.”
“We are extremely excited that AEROSMITH chose to team up with Guitar Hero, bringing one of the world’s all-time best-selling artists together with one of the biggest video game brands, to deliver a new and unique interactive way for our customers to connect with artists and their music,” said Dusty Welch, head of publishing for Activision/RedOctane. “This partnership will give AEROSMITH, a band that has sold more than 150 million albums worldwide, a powerful and innovative platform to reach their fans and new audiences.”
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith brings these quintessential rock legends to the interactive realm to create the ultimate gaming experience. As fans progress through their careers in the game, they can rock out to scores of AEROSMITH’s greatest hits, as well as songs from celebrated artists that the band has either performed with or has been inspired by in some way. Venues from historical moments during the band’s illustrious career offer the experience of “sweet emotion” and further capture the essence of the band’s rise to fame.
2 Guitar Hero helps Hard Rock Sales
DragonForce guitarist Herman Li and his speed metal bandmates used to play the video game Guitar Hero. Now, fans are flocking to the band after finding their song Through the Fire and Flames in the latest installment of the game, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock.
“Our CD sales have gone up, and we are high up the charts on digital downloads,” Li says. “It’s great. We don’t play commercial music. It took everyone by surprise.”
More fans were converted last month when Ellen DeGeneres invited a young Guitar Hero expert onto her talk show to play DragonForce’s song, considered to be the toughest of all songs to play. (Go to YouTube and search for “Ellen” and “guitar hero”; you can also find her playing the game herself.)
“Somehow it seems our music really connects with the younger generation, gamers and non-gamers,” says Li, 29. “This is a game that is driving music sales when everybody is complaining about the video game industry taking money from movies and music.”
The Guitar Hero effect is real. DragonForce saw digital sales of Through the Fire rise from fewer than 2,000 weekly to a high of 37,825 the week ending Dec. 30, a week when many who got the game as a holiday gift were playing it. (Only one GH III song sold more, Guns N’ Roses‘ Welcome to the Jungle at 38,330.)
Also since the game came out in late October, DragonForce’s album Inhuman Rampage has been atop Billboard magazine’s Top Heatseekers chart four times (it dropped to No. 4 this week). Overall sales of the album have reached 230,000, much more than the 75,000 sold in the band’s adopted home, the United Kingdom.
“There has been a steady buzz on the band, and you could just feel their star rising. Then (Guitar Hero III) hit, and it catapulted it to an entirely new level,” says Jonas Nachsin, president of DragonForce’s label, Roadrunner Records.
Two other Roadrunner artists, Slipknot and Kill Switch Engage, have seen increased sales from inclusion in the game. “You might be surprised. It’s not only digital sales but significant full-length sales of CDs,” Nachsin says. “Competition (to be in future games) will probably be more fierce because everyone can see what it does for a band.”
Even though previous Guitar Hero games relied almost exclusively on cover versions of most songs, original artists still saw increased song sales from inclusion in Guitar Hero II, released in October 2006 for the Sony PlayStation 2 and in April 2007 for the Microsoft Xbox 360.
A look at Nielsen SoundScan data for a dozen Guitar Hero II songs found that 11 out of 12 had increased sales in 2007, including:
• Cheap Trick’s Surrender nearly tripled from 58,000 digital sales in 2006 to 161,000 in 2007.
• Kiss’ Strutter went from 11,000 to 63,000 sold.
• The Pretenders’ Tattooed Love Boys rose from 5,000 to 16,000.
• Only Danzig’s Mother showed a drop, from 28,000 to 16,000.
“A lot of it is the classic guitar-type rock stuff form the Skynyrds to the new big monster bands like Queens of the Stone Age and Wolfmother,” says Mike Davis of Universal Music (Bon Jovi, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Who). “Old and new with the classic rock sound seems to be the stuff that is doing super well. … It’s a pretty hot subject these days.”
Rich Williams, guitarist for the classic rock band Kansas, says that after the release of Guitar Hero II, which included the band’s song Carry On Wayward Son, “the front row of almost every show we did was filled with young teenagers. It’s all due to that. It’s brought us a whole new fan base.”
Digital sales of the song rose from 119,000 in 2006 to 297,000 in 2007. “It’s been a positive influence for us,” he says. “It brought a younger crowd to us that otherwise might not have come in.”
The Guitar Hero effect has been sharpened in Guitar Hero III, which features original artist recordings for more than three-fourths of the songs. Every GH III song tracked by Nielsen SoundScan (62 of the 70) saw an increase in digital sales during the post-holiday week, and nearly all saw boosts immediately after the game’s October release.
“It’s such a dark time for the record business. This is one of the bits of truly great news we’ve seen in a long time,” says Marc Reiter of Q Prime management, whose clients Metallica, Muse and the Red Hot Chili Peppers have songs in the game.
Sales of Metallica’s One increased from just more than 2,000 weekly before GH III’s release to more than 6,000 in the weeks afterward and spiked at 27,605 in the post-holiday week. Muse and the Chili Peppers saw similar but more modest hikes in sales of Knights of Cydonia and Suck My Kiss.
“Those tracks didn’t have any (other) activity surrounding them at the time,” Reiter says. ” I really do believe we have only begun to scratch the surface of the impact (video games) can have on artists and instrument sales.”
Courtesy of USA Today.
