The rhythm music genre has become stagnant. This year, all of the big names are making tweaks to the framework in an attempt to entice new and old gamers to buy their next iterations and keep music gaming in the forefront of everyone’s minds. Activision has chosen the semi-RPG route with Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, giving you a Quest Mode as opposed to the standard single player fare. With other changes and updates in store, is the game a platinum album or a one hit wonder? Read on, friends.
Soundgarden and grunge music sort of disbanded after the death of Kurt Kobain in the late 90′s. The only whole band to carry the torch from the epic music era is Pearl Jam. Chris Cornell has also gone on to do some of his own solo projects, teaming up with the likes of Audioslave to create some great rock albums, but his later projects just didn’t sound the same. They didn’t capture the same edge of songs like “My Wave” or “The Day I Tried To Live” from Superunknown. As you can tell, I’m a big Soundgarden fan, so this news comes as a great surprise to me that Soundgarden has actually reunited and will be releasing their first new album in over 10 years.
Okay, so I think you are all pretty familiar with Guitar Hero, and the millions of spin-offs available for the iPhone. From Tap-Tap Revenge, to Delicious Vinyl DJ, how do they stack up to the original? Find out after the jump.
Yes sir, we here at Loot Ninja have heard rumors that Activision is being hit with layoffs over the last few days, and now it seems the original guys that published the breakout Guitar Hero series (Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero 2) are being laid off. 30 or 40 members of the RedOctane staff are being let go, with only a few people being assimilated and reporting into Activision. The ones rumored to keep their jobs are the developers and hardware designers that bring you the awesome Guitar Hero controllers.
This rumored news is in response to Activison stating that they are going to be cutting back on the Guitar Hero SKUs from 25 in 2009 down to less than 10 in 2010. I personally see this as a good thing, with too much saturation in the market being a bad thing. Consolidate your titles and focus on making those better, isntead of pumping out another rendition of Band Hero. The two titles Activision is looking to back the most going forward is the new DJ Hero and of course Guitar Hero.
It’s really a sad day today. I mean, I know that most of the core developers from RedOctane left and started up the Rock Band series, but still, they must have had a few people left that worked on the original Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero 2 games. I’ll be sure to go home and play some Cowboys From Hell by Pantera or Bark at the Moon by Ozzy Ozbourne to mourn the loss.
Activision has been kind enough to give everyone some insight into just what the industry giant has in store for 2010 and mentioned two of their biggest moneymakers in the process. The foremost, the Call of Duty franchise, will have another title to be released in 2010, most likely towards the winter months. They did not say whether the game will be Modern Warfare 3, which is likely not the case. If their prior actions are of any relevance, expect a historical war genre game. Vietnam anyone? We will let you know as soon as we hear the deal on this.
The other tidbit that made the news was the rather large scaling back of music SKUs (stock keeping units) from 25 in 2009 to only 10 in 2010. Furthermore, there will be no more PS2 peripherals which may piss off a whole bunch of people. They also are planning on focusing solely on DJ Hero and Guitar Hero, and not the family friendly Band Hero. It may seem the music genre may have hit it’s pinnacle.
Rhythm games are getting a little long in the tooth. It’s going to take some innovation to keep people interested. Guitar Hero Van Halen doesn’t give anything new and, in fact, seems to strip previous features away. Taking the Guitar Hero 5 core gameplay and adding new character skins and songs, the game just doesn’t deliver.
This is what you get when someone loves Christmas, and video games, and giving the neigborhood children seizures. Nothing like freezing your balls off playing Guitar Hero as people drive by and call you a douche.
More Guitar Hero, this time will just Van Halen and bands like them. I doubt this will have anywhere near the level of impact as Guitar Hero Metallica, but I’m sure it’ll sell well. People love Guitar Hero and a large number of people love Van Halen. I don’t really fall into the latter category, but hey, who am I to judge.
I’m mostly Irish, so it goes without saying that I enjoy an alcoholic beverage every once in a while. It also goes without saying that I’m a big fan of the Dropkick Murphys. We used “I’m Shipping Up to Boston” as the entrance music for our wedding party, which was damn awesome. Now, that song is available in Guitar Hero World Tour. I have two words for you: FUCK YEAH!
It was an absolute no brainer to spend the 160 Banana Bucks to grab this on my Xbox 360. The song will be available later today for the PS3, so no one is left out (except Wii gamers, but you’re used to that already).
The song kicks major ass, so you better all be going out and buying it right now. Go ahead, go buy it now. I’ll wait. Maybe I’ll hum a little tune while you go ahead and buy the song. Oh you’re back already? Good job. Now go get online so we can play this as a full band (with me on drums, of course).
Activision dropped the full track list today for the upcoming DS title, Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits. If you have a DSi, you’re shit out of luck since there’s no GBA slot for the controller adapter.
There are some pretty cool tracks in the 28 that ship with the game, including Call to Arms by Angels & Airwaves, Falling Down by Atreyu, and Dashboard by Modest Mouse.
It’s a good thing I still have my DS Lite hanging around. My wife uses it for Tetris and Brain Age. I’ll have to steal that joint. Hit the jump for the full track list.
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