Tag: Video Game
0 Rev Theory XBox 360 Giveaway! – THIS CONTEST ENDED ON 2008-06-25 at 11:59pm PT.
Rev Theory is revving up to release Light It Up on June 10th. The Brian Howes (Hinder, Puddle of Mudd) and Josh Abraham (Velvet Revolver, Korn) produced album features the raucous single “Hell Yeah” and Wrestle Mania XXIV theme song “Light it Up.”
To celebrate the unleashing of Light It Up, Rev Theory and Hard Rock Hideout are giving one winner an Xbox 360 Elite along with an Xbox 360 Wireless Racing Wheel and Nascar 09 which features a song by Rev Theory.
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.
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.
0 The Answer Secures Prestigious Slot on Guitar Hero IV
Rising British rockers The Answer have won the ultimate rock accolade ‘ their song ‘Never Too Late’ is to be featured on the forthcoming Guitar Hero IV Game, due for release in late 2008.
Through an industry song search held at this year’s international Midem conference and hosted by Activision (the company behind Guitar Hero 3 and other huge games such as Tony Hawk Project 8, Call Of Duty and X-Men), The Answer won the vote from over 200 internationally submitted label and publisher artist tracks to have one of their tracks included in the cult game. The present game, Guitar Hero 3 currently features songs from such legends as Iron Maiden, Slayer, Muse, Guns ‘n’ Roses, Weezer and Rage Against The Machine. Come the summer hordes of front-room axe-wielding wannabes will now be trying their hand at this riff heavy classic from their debut 100,000 selling album ‘Rise’.
The search started with music companies at the recent Midem conference putting forward their bands for possible inclusion. Out of the hundreds of hopefuls, 20 were selected by Activision at a conference ‘Listening Session’, where the tracks were played to an esteemed panel consisting of leading worldwide industry executives.
Says James Cassidy, UK head of Alberts, “This is a tremendous honour and privilege for both The Answer and the Alberts label. With a new album due later this year we look forward to taking the band to a whole new level of international success”
Elsewhere, The Answer’s international success continues to build and after a great year in Japan, they were voted as the No.2 Best New Artist 2007 in Player Magazine’s readers pole. The No.1 is a domestic act, therefore rendering The Answer effectively the No.1 international band for Best New Artist’ ahead of KT Tunstall, Mika and The Fratellis! Not bad for four lads from Northern Ireland who without radio support have built a worldwide reputation like no other debut act.
2007 was an incredible year for The Answer who supported Aerosmith, the Rolling Stones and The Who to name but a few. With their profile continuing to grow and with a new album currently being written, 2008 will see them reach the dizzying heights of superstardom that they deserve.
“It’s all here: fretboard-shredding solos, jet engine vocals, a riff which will propel the internal Beavis and Butthead of anyone with warm blood into devil’s horn salutes. Marvellous.”
You can view the video for Never Too Late below!
1 Guitar Hero Encore – Rocks the 80’s (2007)
Sooner or later, you had to know that a big hair version of Guitar Hero had to hit the stores.
Guitar Hero Encore Rocks the 80’s is the third installment of the Guitar Hero Series.
This game has the best track listing yet, with 16 tracks of 80’s metal, plus 14 additional tunes from the 80’s!
If you have played Guitar Hero II, you will find that the club scenes are exactly the same, which is a bit of a disappointment.
The game itself is quite fun, although a bit too easy (in the easy mode). I was able to whip through the complete song list in a couple of hours, hitting 5 stars on every song, in the first or second try.
I have been playing this game since it first came out, and have enjoyed each new installment. Guitar Hero Encore, Rocks the 80’s is the perfect game for the 80’s hard rock fan.
I can’t think of a better way to get in touch with your inner rock star!
Rating: 
Out of 5
Track Listing:
Quiet Riot – Metal Health
Accept – Balls To the Wall
Skid Row – 18 and Life
Scorpions – No One Like You
White Lion – Radar Love
DIO – Holy Diver
Twisted Sister – I Wanna Rock
Krokus – Ballroom Blitz
RATT – Round and Round
Faster Pussycat – Bathroom Wall
Poison – Nothing But a Good Time
Iron Maiden – Wrathchild
Judas Priest – Electric Eye
Winger – Seventeen
Anthrax – Caught In A Mosh
Extreme – Play With Me
The Dead Kennedys – Police Truck
X – Los Angeles
Billy Squier – Lonely Is The Night
.38 Special – Hold on Loosely
The Police – Synchronicity II
Oingo Boingo – Only a Lad
The Romantics – What I Like About You
The Vapors – Turning Japanese
Scandal – The Warrior
Eddie Money – Shaken’
Asia – Heat of the Moment
Flock of Seagulls – I Ran
The Go Gos – We Got The Beat
Because It’s Midnight – Limozeen
