guitar hero iii: legends of rock

activision

Guitar Hero Wii Mono Lawsuit Settled

You may remember the class action lawsuit filed against Activision this past November on behalf of owners of the flawed, mono-only version of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. The lawsuit, submitted by Samuel Livingston of California, sought "actual damages, individual restitution, equitable relief, civil penalties, costs and expenses of litigation, including attorney's fees, and all further relief available." Well now Activision and Livingston have settled out of court, and Livingston made millions! MILLIONS! Okay, so he didn't get millions. What he, and every other owner of the defective version of the game got, was an extension on the replacement program until August 2008, and a free faceplate - the same faceplate they were already sending out anyway. Oh, and Activision promises not to make the faulty version of the game anymore. Wow. Next time Sam? Just fill out the damn form.

Activision settles mono sound suit [GameSpot]

8:00 PM on Mon Apr 7 2008
By Mike Fahey
1,846 views, 24 comments

Latest by Benjo: What an idiot. more »

controversy

Guitar Hero Vs. Open Mic Night

Guitar Hero tournies have been floating around bars since the game's inception, and the trend has only grown since. But not everyone is so happy about the popularity of drunks pretending to be rockstars on stage—namely musicians. And while these comments were just from one guy who liked to jam at one bar, we have a feeling that he speaks for a multitude of others.

Yea, it's fun. Yea, it's cool and difficult to master (nowhere near on the level of a real musical instrument), and yea it's an escape from your miserable existance [sic] but it's not something I want to see LIVE ONSTAGE in a venue that should have a REAL musician Performing! Anyone who has even the slightest bit of culture and refinement would agree. GUITAR HERO belongs in the home, at house parties or in a Frathouse basement but it DOES NOT BELONG AT HUMPY'S GREAT ALASKAN ALEHOUSE, REPLACING OPEN MIC MONDAYS!!!!!

Oh, and Humpy's actually exists, by the way. This only gets better.

More »

1:40 PM on Wed Feb 13 2008
By Mark Wilson
7,317 views, 222 comments

Latest by demonknightinuyasha: soooo im currently at one of the fabled and dieing "open mic night's" and i can see why guitar hero is taking over :p nah seriously though some of these guys are pretty good and some are hippies......nuff said -_- more »

announcements

GameStrata Launches Today, Tracks Your Stats

For stat junkies, a new site is launching that will track your every move during online gaming sessions. Called GameStrata, the free site will follow your progress in console and PC games by the currently partnered companies Capcom, EA and Sega. What seems so promising is that the service doesn't just track simple kills or wins and losses. Instead, the site aggregates tons of detailed information, like shots fired per match, total amount of damage dealt or frags per minute. More »

10:40 AM on Tue Jan 29 2008
By Mark Wilson
4,742 views, 25 comments

Latest by NINgod: ehem...I do believe that The Club is coming out on PS3 as well... Don't forget you black and silver friend. Anyway i also agree with FUCHIKOMA that games are for fun. Not your...well...status. ps i do love ellipses more »

npd data

Activision - We Are The Champions

Activision is having a banner year, and they've got the NPD data to prove it. The company issued a press release this morning to announce that NPD Group data has placed them as the top U.S. console and handheld publisher from January to November of 2007, increasing its market share to a record 16.8% in the eleven month period, up 7.9% from the year before.

"We continue to see strong consumer response to our wholly owned and internally developed titles — Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare," said Robert Kotick, Chairman and CEO, Activision, Inc. "We are well positioned to continue our leadership position through the remainder of the year and are on track to delivering another record year of revenue growth and the most profitable year in our history."

Now that Activision has a larger market share than EA, how long before we get to start calling them an evil empire? Let me know, okay? I've got some great t-shirt ideas. More »

9:00 AM on Mon Dec 17 2007
By Mike Fahey
1,928 views, 35 comments

Latest by Soldier_CLE: If they made a T-Shirt with this cover, my retro "OMGZ, I B BLINDZ LOLOLZ!" outfit would be complete!* *Just add florescent yellow sunglasses, inmate orange parachute pants, a fanny-pack, cross colours hat tilted backwards, and those Nike Skate or Die more »

guitar hero

Wireless GHIII Guitars Early Next Year

Those of you hunting for official wireless guitar controllers from Activision to supplement their Guitar Hero III experience can stop looking, because they aren't out yet. I was expecting them to be out on shelves with the game itself, but Activision has announced that wireless controllers for all four console versions will be heading to retail outlets in early 2008. This is excellent news for owners of the PS3 and Wii versions of the game, who at this point have to buy additional copies of the full package in order to get an extra wireless guitar, which works on paper - specifically Activision sales papers - but in execution kind of hurts players' tender wallets. Probably for the best that I wasn't able to find one, as I already have four fake guitars cluttering up my living room as it is. What I need is a guitar controller rack to display my instruments of destruction. More »

8:20 AM on Mon Nov 26 2007
By Mike Fahey
8,746 views, 48 comments

Latest by Y2Jason: Reiterating what the previous posters have stated, these guitars are freely available at all retailers throughout Australia. I am told however, that stocks are limited. more »

downloadable content

Two Guitar Hero III Packs Go Live

It has begun. Prepare to argue over song value in the comments section as two new Guitar Hero III song packs hit Xbox Live early this morning. The Foo Fighters Pack contains "The Pretender", "All My Life", and "This Is A Call", while the Velvet Revolver Pack consists of "She Builds Quick Machines", "Slither", and "Messages". All of the songs carry the "as performed by" label, which means that they are ~~crafty approximations of said songs and not original recordings~~ the original songs (pardon my initial confusion). Both packs carry the same old price tag of 500 Microsoft Points as piece as well. As Luke so succinctly put it, just as shitty as Guitar Hero II's DLC. Similar packs will hopefully be showing up soon on the PlayStation 3 version, only with a real money value attached to them, which will hurt more.

In Game Content: Guitar Hero III [Xbox Live's Major Nelson]

9:20 AM on Thu Nov 8 2007
By Mike Fahey
23,048 views, 107 comments

Latest by cheezydee: I found this page when I was looking out info on the download content for GH III. I have GHII for the PS2 and was thinking either get another one for the PS2 or switch over to the 360. It more »

control freak

Blockbuster Renting GH Guitar

This is certainly something new for my local Blockbuster Video store, though your results may vary. The Blockbuster my roommate works at is renting the Guitar Hero controller for the Xbox 360 starting today. The controller rents separately of the game itself at $7.99 before tax, so, for the total package, you'll have to shell out $16 of your hard-earned monies. I cannot remember another time in the history of major retail game rentals that they've had a separate rental—or rental at all, for that matter—of a gaming peripheral. It's a testament to the popularity of the Guitar Hero franchise, I suppose. Keep in mind that Blockbuster tends to have its head up its ass when it comes to ordering games at their non Game Rush stores, so call ahead before rushing out to have your heart broken.

8:40 AM on Tue Oct 30 2007
By Mike Fahey
2,635 views, 29 comments

Latest by AroundTheFur: i rented a superscope from blockbuster back in the day. shit was awesome! more »

guitar hero iii: legends of rock

Guitar Hero III Guitar Problems

Forums on GameSpot and the official Guitar Hero site are getting hit with a number of complaints about faulty Guitar Hero III controllers. Apparently some of the buttons will flake out over time with some controllers. It seems that a lot of gamers suspect that the guitar's detachable neck is to blame.

There's a lot of speculation so far, but no official word from Activision or RedOctane, which is unfortunate. I contacted the company this morning for a comment and they've yet to get back to me. We'll update or do another post once we hear some sort of official word. What about you, have you had any problems? The 360 I demoed with was fine and the Wii guitar had a momentary problem but seems fine again.

Guitar Hero III: Problems with the Detachable Neck [Law of the Game]

7:00 PM on Mon Oct 29 2007
By Brian Crecente
37,863 views, 160 comments

livestreaming

Playing Wii Guitar Hero III

I know that Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock is already out in stores, but I thought it might be interesting to check out the Wii version for those who haven't decided which system to buy the game for yet. I'll be unboxing and playing for about 30 minutes or so. Hit the jump to comment.

K, show's over folks. Thanks for watching and commenting.

2:40 PM on Mon Oct 29 2007
By Brian Crecente
10,052 views, 91 comments

guitar freaks

Hot Guitar Hero Patents Exposed

When Harmonix released the first Guitar Hero on the PlayStation 2, many rhythm game fans wondered exactly how the company would fare once Konami's legal team smelled the patent violations in the water. Harmonix was noticeably quiet on comparisons to Konami's Guitar Freaks franchise, clearly an influence on Guitar Hero, but no indication that any bad corporate blood between the parties was ever publicly evident. More »

6:20 PM on Fri Oct 26 2007
By Michael McWhertor
10,017 views, 32 comments

activision

Guitar Center Selling Guitar Hero III

One of our tipsters, who happens to work at national music retailer Guitar Center and will remain anonymous, let us know recently that his employer will be one of the many retailers stocking Activision's fake guitar playing game this holiday season. It appears to be the megastore's first attempt at selling video games, understandably, but, based on the pics we've been sent of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock arriving at the stock room, they're not just dabbling—they're buying in big amounts. The game also gets the front page treatment on GuitarCenter.com, with only the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 2 versions appearing to be stocked.

It looks like an interesting experiment for Guitar Center, one that might have great crossover potential in-store. It will also surely push the number of times the question "Why don't they just play a real guitar?" is asked well into the billions.

3:40 PM on Fri Oct 26 2007
By Michael McWhertor
3,159 views, 32 comments

Latest by darthnihilist: umm, i like games more »

xbox live

NFS ProStreet And GHIII Demos Live

In a rare moment of synergy between the two competitors, EA and Activision have managed to bring the delicious combination of fast cars and rock and roll together on Xbox Live today, as demos for both Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock and Need for Speed ProStreet are both now available for your tiny dose of gaming pleasure. The GHII demo is a modest 545 MB while the racer clocks in at 655 MB. I'm currently downloading both, so if I any of my posts show up later on with missing images or spelling errors, you can blame one or both of them. Also live today is the European demo for Eternal Sonata, easily the prettiest RPG on the Xbox 360, and the best video game Chopin learning tool in the history of the gaming.

8:20 AM on Tue Oct 23 2007
By Mike Fahey
2,073 views, 25 comments

Latest by TheBrianIsAstonishing: GH3 is definitely a step down in terms of difficulty, but I don't know... it feels more fun than 2. Maybe it's just the songlist... but I felt myself rocking out a lot more. more »

clips

Guitar Hero III Even Flow

GameTrailers just posted a slew of Guitar Hero II gameplay videos, including this one for Pearl Jam's Even Flow, a peppy, upbeat song about homelessness, along with videos of Pat Benatar's Hit Me WIth Your Best Shot and Lay Down by Canadian band Priestess. I chose Even Flow because it is the song I am most likely to fail at every time because I'll be busy doing my Eddie Vedder impression, which involves mumbling, rolling my eyes back into my head, and grinning like Batman's arch-nemesis the Joker. Not that I would have done too well in the first place, for as far as I am concerned that orange button on the guitar doesn't actually exist.

10:20 AM on Tue Oct 16 2007
By Mike Fahey
3,131 views, 35 comments

Latest by XenonXylophone: @TRT-X: Poor editing. more »

golden fiddle

New Guitar Hero III Tracks Revealed

Looks like that leaked Guitar Hero III track list from a couple weeks back might be closer to reality than we thought. While the new press release from Activision doesn't reveal specific song tiers, it does add seventeen new songs, all of which were included on the rumored list. Still the leaked list has seventy songs, while I am only counting fifty-nine in the press release, so I'll leave it to you junior detectives to work out the discrepancies. Seven of the new songs are master tracks from the original artists, including Sonic Youth's 'Cool Thing', Aerosmith's 'Same Old Song and Dance", and The Killers' 'When You Were Young', which will be stuck in my head the rest of the day. Covers include White Zombie's 'Black Sunshine' and 'Devil Went Down To Georgia' made famous by the Charlie Daniels Band. Living in the south, I can tell you right now that if the Devil cover sucks the folks at Activision better start keeping an eye out for suspicious looking pickup trucks in their vicinity. You don't screw around with a song so important that it's projected onto a mountain with lasers every weekend. Hit the jump for the full list, new and old. More »

8:20 AM on Wed Oct 3 2007
By Mike Fahey
10,252 views, 59 comments

Latest by peet: lol @ Cult of Personality. That song is so cheesy. more »

clips

Everybody Loves Guitar Hero

RedOctane held a press event today, with company president Kai Huang on hand to make sure everyone knew that Guitar Hero III was coming out in a month. Nick McGlynn was on hand to get the crowd's opinion on the Guitar Hero series. He covers a nice cross section of the public here, from the very old to the relatively hot, to Maxim employees that don't qualify for either category. The appeal of Guitar Hero is near universal, even if you don't play. It's that karaoke crowd that Activision has to watch out for.

Thanks to Nick McGlynn for the video!

2:00 PM on Wed Sep 26 2007
By Mike Fahey
7,693 views, 24 comments

Latest by MikeSheehan: I won't bother counting how many people posted to point out their 'individuality' in not loving guitar hero... in fact some even HATE it. Hyperbole, a concept sadly lost on the masses. For the record, I'm in the love guitar hero camp, more »

rumor

Leaked Guitar Hero III Track List

Over at Aeropause they've posted what they claim to be the final track list for Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. The list contains all 8 tiers complete with boss battles and encores both co-op and solo, as well as an extensive list of bonus songs. It's an excellent list of tunes, and despite mad sad knowledge of music in general, I recognize every track in the main playlist, while outside of The Stone Roses I don't recognize a single band much less song in the bonus tracks. It pains me to see two of my favorite songs, One and Number of the Beast, are way down in tier 8, meaning that I'll be lucky to get to them on easy, nevermind anything higher. Curse my snausage fingers. It'll also be interesting to see how they handle The Devil Went Down To Georgia's fiddlicity, which is a new word I just made up. Use of said word costs a quarter. Hit the jump for the full alleged list. More »

2:00 PM on Thu Sep 20 2007
By Mike Fahey
123,148 views, 129 comments

Latest by Dawkins20: they could pick a lot of bettter music then this guitar hero 2 had better music more »

pc gaming

Guitar Hero III Rocks The Mac And PC

Rocking out with a big plastic guitar will soon no longer be purely the privilege of the console owning masses, as Aspyr announces an exclusive deal with Activision to develop and publish Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock for the PC and Mac platforms this fall. Not only does this open up the game to a whole new segment of players, but if you've got a nice gaming laptop it essentially makes this the first portable version of Guitar Hero. On top of all of the regular features of the game, Aspyr's version will allow PC and Mac users to battle against each other in online multiplayer, perhaps allowing us to settle the Mac versus PC debate once and for all in glorious rock combat! Bring it on! More »

10:00 AM on Tue Sep 11 2007
By Mike Fahey
100,258 views, 58 comments

Latest by janell25: I think this is a super idea. My bf is always on the main tv playing Halo. It would be great if I could play guitar hero on the computar instead of fighting for the tv. That and ppl with more »

fve tracks

Guitar Hero III 360 Demo With Tony Hawk

Well if this doesn't sell Tony Hawk's Proving Ground, nothing will. Activision has announced that the Xbox 360 version of Tony Hawk's latest magical skateboard adventure will ship on October 9th with a five song demo of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. The same demo will be hitting Xbox Live two weeks later, but 14 days sure is a lot of missed practice time, isn't it? The demo will take place on the Desert Rock Tour stage and will include the floowing tracks:
Lay Down (by Priestess)
Even Flow (by Pearl Jam)
The Metal (by Tenacious D)
Hit Me with your Best Shot (as made famous by Pat Benatar)
Rock You like a Hurricane (as made famous by Scorpions)

Mmmm, early Tenacious D. The other songs are nice to of course, but The D! Smart move, Activision. Very smart move.