Filed under: Gaming

Ah, how easily phrases can be misconstrued when you’re not absolutely precise in what you say. While the intarwebz have been ablaze with speculation about the elusive “new peripheral” on the forthcoming Guitar Hero: World Tour title, Neversoft project director Brian Bright has delivered a copious amount of non-potable water to the scene in the form of this sobering news. There actually won’t be any new “instrument,” per se; rather, the PS3 version of the game will include a MIDI import feature that gives PC-using musicians the ability to import rhythm guitar, lead guitar, bass, keyboards and drum tracks in as a GH Tunes song. For undisclosed “hardware reasons,” the Xbox 360 version can only handle the skins. Eh, 2 stars.

[Via Xbox 360 Fanboy, image courtesy of GameZone]

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Filed under: Gaming, Robots

Not that we haven’t seen robotic Guitar Hero masters before, but Cyth Systems’ egotistically named Cythbot is just a full cut above the rest. Boasting some of the most advanced, high-dollar equipment known to mankind (okay, so maybe that’s a stretch, but just barely), the creation uses a highly sophisticated viewing method to determine which notes to hit, and it can even decide whether slamming the whammy bar is a good idea or not. Too bad you’ll be entirely too distracted by the introverted hosts to even notice how awesome this thing is, but the video’s in the read link if you care to try.

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Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

Living room arenas around the world will soon become even more cluttered with toy instruments thanks to Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero: World Tour. Axes for the two respective franchises haven’t gotten along on the Wii, and while we’re still not sure whether the next generation will cooperate ezGear is hoping to bring some peace (and eliminate some clutter) for current Nintendo rockers with its ezJam Combo Guitar. Inside its baby-blue Strat-esque styling there’s port to plug in your Wiimote when playing Guitar Hero III as well as an integrated wireless transmitter for Rock Band. At $70 it’s a little more expensive than other third-parties like the Nyko Frontman, but playing lead in two bands instead of one is totally worth it.

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Filed under: Gaming

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Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

The folks at G4 have a juicy tidbit on the upcoming Guitar Hero World Tour cacophony of simulated instruments: there might be another one in the works. G4 cites Neversoft’s Brian Bright, who let slip that a new peripheral is coming, and will be designed specifically for the music-creating Studio mode (pictured above). The logical choice is a keyboard, since it’s the preferred method for entering melodies and other mundane tasks by boring people, but we’re secretly gunning for Guitar Hero Bassoon — check out the video after the break to see why.

[Via Joystiq]

Continue reading Another Guitar Hero World Tour peripheral in the works?

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Filed under: Gaming

Continue reading Guitar Hero DS hack lets you shred on a full-size guitar

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Filed under: Gaming

It’s sad that the petty bickering between Activision, Harmonix, and Konami required console makers to step up and ensure that gamers didn’t end up with piles of redundant plastic instrument controllers, but things are starting to get better — just as Sony did yesterday, Microsoft announced that it’s requiring Rock Band 2, Guitar Hero: World Tour and Rock Revolution to be cross-compatible on the Xbox 360. The post on Redmond’s Gamerscore blog isn’t chock-full of details, but we’ll commend Microsoft and Sony for getting involved to make sure that all the lawsuits and infighting don’t adversely affect their customers — now if they could only find a way to make those drumkits actually fit into a living room, we’d be all set.

[Via Joystiq]

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Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

With all the incompatibility out there among Guitar Hero / Rock Band instruments, it’s a real treat to see something like this. The Director of Publisher Relations at SCEA has posted an update that promises compatibility between instruments and software for upcoming titles; for instance, Guitar Hero: World Tour’s guitars and drums will work with Rock Band 2 and Konami’s Rock Revolution software, and Rock Band 2’s guitar and drum set will work with Guitar Hero: World Tour and with Rock Revolution. Furthermore, the team is still “working hard to ensure compatibility between the Guitar Hero and Rock Band titles currently on the market,” though we are told that an announcement on that could surface “shortly.” Rock ‘n roll harmony, baby.

[Image courtesy of BeSportier]

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Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

If you didn’t think every single third-party peripheral provider would try to snag a piece of the band game pie, we guess you thought wrong, huh? With outfits like Mad Catz and Ion already jumping in, it was only a matter of time before Logitech threw on its tightest jeans, blacked out its blond hair and threw up some horns. Details are admittedly scarce, but the company has promised to provide “premium instruments” for Guitar Hero: World Tour on PS2, PS3, Xbox 360 and the Wii. Rockers can expect the new gear to start shipping “later this year,” though prices, designs and pretty much anything else of importance remains a mystery.

[Via NintendoWiiFanboy]

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Filed under: Gaming

Good news, plastic rockers — Activision announced at E3 today that its upcoming Guitar Hero: World Tour game will work with Rock Band’s controllers, including the drumkit, and that Guitar Hero: Aerosmith on Xbox 360 has received an update that “should” make the game compatible with Harmonix’s axes. Nothing too wild on the Aerosmith tip, as the guitars should just work now (finally!), but Activision’s had to do some work to make World Tour play nice: the game is designed for a five-pad drumkit, but it’ll compress down to four to work with Rock Band’s set. See? Friends all around. Is that so hard, guys?

Read - Guitar Hero: Aerosmith updated
Read - Guitar Hero: World Tour

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Filed under: Gaming

Sure, Guitar Hero and Rock Band have fake plastic Gibson and Fender controllers, but cheap plastic ain’t exactly rock’n'roll — which is why this new StarPex PS2 / PS3 guitar controller looks pretty sweet. The ersatz Strat features a hardwood body and neck crafted by “a leading guitar manufacturer” (we’d bet $100 it’s made by Samick), as well as solo buttons, an Overdrive / Star Power button in addition to the tilt sensor, and both wired and wireless capabilities. On top of that, the electronics are modular, so you’ll eventually be able to swap parts and build your own custom axe. Sounds great — but you better start singing in the subway, since this thing’ll set you back $179 when it goes on sale late next month. Yeah, maybe we’ll stick with the plastic axes after all.

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Filed under: Gaming, Robots

We’ve seen a lot of Guitar Hero bots in our time, but we’re pretty certain that Mechanized Rock’s take on shredding automatons is something special. The system — dubbed DeepNote — actually watched the on-screen action with “eyes” that it uses to analyze notes, which the bot then plays in real-time. Using photodiodes aimed at the screen, the components pick up changes in light within eight nanoseconds, then converts that information to brazen, parent-shocking, full-throttle rock n’ roll. As you well know, pictures say a thousand words (and video is prone to run-on sentences), so watch DeepNote in action in the clip after the break.

Continue reading DeepNote Guitar Hero bot ‘watches’ the game, rocks you within an inch of your life

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Filed under: Gaming

Well, what do you know? That Guitar Hero axe that was spotted a few months back on How I Met Your Mother was actually a sneak peek of the six string that comes bundled with the new Activision title. The unwavering rockers over at FW Labs were able to secure a copy of the game in Chile before most everyone else on the planet, and rather than enjoying their fortune without telling a soul, they decided to snap a host of photos and even upload a few videos of the experience. The new toys in the attic are right there in the read link.

[Thanks, David]

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Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

We’ve already seen plenty of Guitar Hero World Tour’s drums, but while we’ve heard rumblings of a touchpad for the new guitar, this is the first time we’ve seen it in the flesh. IGN has a preview of all the new gear, and says the strip will be used for fiddling around with notes during sustains, tapping to play notes, and for interfacing with the new music creator. The guitar is also larger than its other toy guitar predecessors. In other news, the drums are pressure sensitive, the mic is pretty plain, and the music creation software is completely off the chain. Unfortunately, you won’t be allowed to record vocals for songs, but otherwise you can pretty much build anything you’d want with the software. In even better news, the Wii version of World Tour will share all these features, and while we promised ourselves we wouldn’t install two full sets of fake band gear in our living room, we’re starting to get some serious cravings here.

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Filed under: Gaming

If you’ve been wondering just how you’re going to play Guitar Hero on the DS, the answer is upon you. For the extreme in cringe-worthy videos, we present the Guitar Hero: On Tour promo, replete with some of the worst faux-rock music and singing your ears and eyes have ever been subjected to. If this doesn’t make you want to impale yourself on the nearest sharp object, nothing will. We’re not sure if they were going for irony here — all we see is fail… oh, and the game looks pretty impossible to play too. Video after the break.

[Via Digg]

Continue reading Guitar Hero: On Tour promo video makes grown men cry

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A little earlier today Activision CEO Bobby Kotick debuted Guitar Hero World Tour to the audience at D — but he wasn’t content doing something trite like picking up a guitar (or drums) and playing himself. Oh no, he trotted out Paula Abdul (to judge), and Tony Hawk and Brody Jenner as the front-men for the virtual band. The video’s after the break; it’s a little bit front-heavy during the introduction, but there’s certainly enough gameplay footage in there to get a basic idea of what to expect: Rock Band.

Continue reading Guitar Hero World Tour debuted

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Filed under: Gaming

Now that we’ve been enticed with what Guitar Hero World Tour will look like, GameStop has revealed the upcoming rock simulator’s price and release date. $189.99 will get you the Guitar Hero World Tour “Band Kit” with drum kit, guitar, and microphone. Meanwhile, the “Guitar Kit” at $99.99 will come with just the guitar controller. For those of you who want to use your current controller (assuming current controllers will work), the game-only version will run $59.99 (or $49.99 for the PS2 and Wii). The game’s ship date, as of now, is set at 10/27/08.

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Filed under: Gaming

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Filed under: Gaming

Screen grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today’s movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dt com.

Everybody knows us bloggers are a bunch of pantsless hooligans, but a lesser known fact is that Guitar Hero: Aerosmith comes with a new pants-free mode, as demonstrated in a lengthly sequence on this week’s episode of How I Met Your Mother. Problem is, Jason Segel — who we most fondly remember as Nick the drummer from Freaks and Geeks — likely wouldn’t be caught dead playing Aerosmith on the guitar, so stop trying to mess with our heads CBS. We know the truth.

[Thanks, Jeff]

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Filed under: Gaming

When it comes to sussing out info on Guitar Hero IV, we’ve seen blurry images and scanned pictures, but now Activision is getting all official on us with a Fall release date and complete feature list. So here’s what we know: Guitar Hero: World Tour (as it’s called) will include a drum kit with cymbals, a new guitar controller, and a microphone. In terms of game modes, look for a Music Studio music creator that will let you compose, record, edit, and share your own music — fear that — and an 8-player “Battle of the Bands” should keep things interesting both on and offline. They’re calling it “The Guitar Hero experience reinvented” and we can’t argue with that, at least until the game actually comes out in Fall 2008 for Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, and PS2. Peep the official trailer and Lenny Kravitz ubiquity after the break.

[Via Boy Genius]

Continue reading Guitar Hero IV gets a name, official features, and release date-ish

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