Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Today in the World of Guitar Hero....

Guitar Hero is in the news again and everywhere!! Honestly, it is just sad to me that once upon a time Guitar Hero was the underground hotness in 2005 and now it has turned to a mainstream moneyhat thanks to Activision's "let's Tony Hawk the franchise with more games every year" mentality.


Let's start with another FC of "Through the Fire and Flames" which is always remarkable and amazing to see. Yeah, I would curse after doing that...


Next up is a preview clip of the God of War song being exclusive DLC for the PS3 version of Guitar Hero III, which is out tomorrow and free. Yeah, the 360 version got that Halo song and now it is Sony's turn to get their exclusive song and it is actually pretty good (probably better than that Halo song - well I have to see the full notechart).

Okay, this is when I feel like ranting a bit. Kotaku has a story about Coldplay being in Guitar Hero III as DLC in a week or two. It is not yet confirmed in other sites, but I can see this being true with "Violet Hill" confirmed as one song. Who knows if there are two more to go along with like the #1 song on iTunes, "Viva La Vida" (Yeah, that song is pretty good), but once again if this was Guitar Hero World Tour, then I would say yes, but Rock Band is a better game for them so you can do your best Chris Martin impression when signing. In addition, expect these songs to be hella easy (as if Disturbed songs on Rock Band are challenging enough). I'm pretty sure some would flip out if they have to play piano parts with the guitar. I appreciate the variety if this Coldplay DLC is true, but sometimes some bands are not meant with Guitar Hero or even Rock Band.

Now this is when it is getting overboard. We have Miley Cyrus trying to be a true rockstar for the kids of smashing GH guitars in her new music video, which is more like another plug to me that Activision is pulling off here unless they're pissed their products are getting smashed.

I still wished Guitar Hero stayed underground, but maybe I should accept the fact it is a mainstream monster that can't be stopped at this point if people continue to buy them. It is just lame to witness the madness with all the band exclusivity talk, peripheral support, smack talk, and GH World Tour still being a Rock Band ripoff for now in the past year.

Okay, one more Miley pic for the kids....

DMC4 "Special Edition" is Coming (not on PS3 or 360)

The PC version of Devil May Cry 4 is getting closer towards release (a demo of the 2nd mission with Berial, and the Frosts is expected to be up for download tomorrow) and I think the feature set this version is offering is the definitive version of DMC4, which makes me wonder if this "new content" will show up as DLC on PS3 and 360 or as an auto-update of sorts. It gets the GFW Live treatment (achievements, etc.) and requires a beefy machine to run perfectly. The new Turbo mode is there along with a harder mode called Dark Knight Legendary. This legendary mode increases the enemy count to a staggering amount of dudes in one screen (This is I guess the PC advantage compared to the previous versions with better hardware to pull it off). The framerate is also ramped up as expected (Mass Effect PC runs pretty smoothly and I wished the 360 version had that smooth framerate) and supports those big monitors. I won't mind trying out this Legendary Mode, but I'm wandering if it applies to all difficulties (Devil Hunter, Son of Sparda, etc.) with the hoard of enemies on one screen and the only difference is just the enemy A.I. and how much damage they can deal and take. Capcom has been stepping up on the PC side with this and Lost Planet Colonies (Street Fighter 4, Bionic Commando, and Dark Void are also coming to PC) making them perhaps the only Japanese 3rd party that gives a damn about the success of the PC.


Off-topic - The other big action game, Ninja Gaiden II, is pretty awesome so far (Review next week for now).