Guitar Hero III, 80s Tracks Announced

claudia martinez writes "The Guitar Hero franchise is spreading its wings today with the announcement of Guitar Hero III, due to released across four platforms. This time around the title will feature boss battles and a new online multiplayer mode with world-wide leaderboards. Wireless controllers based on the Gibson guitar should be available for all platforms, and some of the titles already slated for the game have been announced. Tracks will include: "Paint It Black" (by The Rolling Stones), "Cherub Rock" (by Smashing Pumpkins), "The Metal" (by Tenacious D), "My Name is Jonas" (by Weezer), "Rock And Roll All Nite" (as made famous by Kiss), "School's Out" (as made famous by Alice Cooper), "Slow Ride" (as made famous by Fog Hat), and "Cult of Personality" (by Living Colour). More tracks from the 80s version of the title have also been announced with Poison, Skid Row, and Billy Squier rounding out the already impressive set list."

Maybe they'll continue the trend...

[danbert8 (1024253)]

Until we finally get to "Lyre Hero: The Music of Ancient Rome"

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[cpt kangarooski (3773)]

So for the very last encore, you get to see the city burn down around you while you play?

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[rizzo420 (136707)]

nooo... that's fiddle hero.

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[cpt kangarooski (3773)]

They didn't have fiddles then; that's an anachronism. But back in the day, there was a rumor that Nero sang and played the lyre during the fire of 64.

Actually, that would be...

[LKM (227954)]

GUITAR NERO!

Personally,

[PixieDust (971386)]

I'd like to see some Oingo Boingo, DEVO, Styx. David Bowie (Yes I know he's in the first one). I mean, the 80s gave us SO much tow ork with. Blondie even would be awesome. How about "Guitar Hero IV: One Hit Wonders" That would be fun.

Too bad MTV isn't going to develop it anymore (idiots for killing a golden franchise).

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[MozillaMike (889339)]

Too bad MTV isn't going to develop it anymore (idiots for killing a golden franchise).

I firmly agree, but if MTV continued to develop the franchise they might turn it into a hip hop or "reality" show themed version. It would turn into what their TV channels are now, little if any music videos, and a lot of low grade "reality" shows. I can see it now... Real World meets guitar hero, complete with drunk drama, and poor cutscenes.... oh yeah some guitar in there.

Insensitive Clods!!

[bckrispi (725257)]

Where's fuckin' SLAYER!!!!!!

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[pragma_x (644215)]

I agree completely.

Although, since you mentioned DEVO, wouldn't that be better off on "Key-tar Hero" instead?

Request

[tomstdenis (446163)]

Make the guitar more realistic, or god forbid use a real guitar and DSP the output to see chords they are playing.

I take piano lessons at a studio where a [what looks like] 10 year old kid is learning acoustic guitar. If a 10 yr old can strum and play chords, surely to god the target audience of 20-30 year olds can figure it out too.

That, or at the very least make the guitar silent, nothing like hearing the song + missed notes + *click* *clack* *click* *clack* as they button mash and strum. Real guitars d

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[by Anonymous Coward]

A real guitar would be too difficult. It takes a long time and a lot of practice to be able to hit chords with any speed at all. People want to play a game, not spend weeks and months just trying to get the basic stuff going. I also hate the microswitch clicking on that controller.

It would be cool if they made the controller more complicated though. More buttons on the neck that would at least attempt to simulate real chords better. It would be a lot easier than pushing strings but it could give you a

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[tomstdenis (446163)]

The problem with your comment is that people ALREADY spend months acing songs in GH.

At the very least the buttons should be across the bar and they should put several rows in. Make the easy songs use the first row, medium songs the first two, etc... Actually you could do that with a real guitar as well though, when you FFT the input just allow them to be off an octave [or whatever it is in guitar terms] when on easy.

I get that it's supposed to just be a game and all, but it's really looks like a playskule

Why?

[Otis2222222 (581406)]

Realism does not necessarily equate to "fun". They found a fun formula and it works. It is impressive to see someone ace a song on Expert setting, but not in the same way as watching someone play a real guitar well. Both are impressive, but in different ways and for different reasons.

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[Knara (9377)]

Every. Goddamn. Time.

Once again, and I say this as a guitar player (in addition to several other instruments), GH is not a teaching tool for anything except rhythm. Funny that, since it's not intended to be. It's intended to be a *fun* party game. If people wanted to learn to play guitar, THEY WOULD GO FRICKIN LEARN TO PLAY GUITAR.

Freakin' elitist dickwads.

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[Knara (9377)]

Yes, GH is a party game. You don't all sit and watch one person play. You go over to someone's house, you have two guitar controllers, and while other things go on people rotate through playing as interest dictates. GH songs run about the average length for songs that were singles, so rotation can happen frequently. Sure, if you pick Freebird, it's gonna be a long time, but comeon, use a little common sense.

Maybe the problem is that your "parties" revolve around everyone doing the same activity.

GH has

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[tomstdenis (446163)]

Well I'm sorry I don't go to parties with a bunch of planned activities. Of course, I'm also not 7. I go to a friends place and we play or do whatever is handy. And when you only have one TV anyways, it isn't like one crowd can play other games while a pair or solo plays GH.

At anyrate, to each their own. For me, GH looks like fun, but it's not a spectator sport. I don't like watching my friends play because there isn't much to do but sit on your thumbs. Combine that with, as I said earlier the fact tha

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[Knara (9377)]

And when you only have one TV anyways, it isn't like one crowd can play other games while a pair or solo plays GH.

Or or or, people could do things that aren't videogame related. If you did any more than skim my reply, you'd see that it's not planned activities I referred to, but rather the fact that a a party *people do many different things*. Often at the same time! Try it out!

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[broller (74249)]

I consider GH to be a lot like Karaoke. Sitting around watching my friends badly sing pop songs doesn't sound like a lot of fun to me, but it is.

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[poot_rootbeer (188613)]

Sure it's a game, but so are flight sims and look how realistic [as best as you can get on a home PC] they are.

I don't find realistic simulations to be all that much fun, myself. The learning curve is too steep and the activity often too mundane.

I would rather play a game like Afterburner than MS Flight Simulator; who cares about boring details like checking altimeters and retracting the landing gear after takeoff, I just want to get in a firefight with some Russian MiGs already, goddammit.

The same approac

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[Knara (9377)]

Yeah. I'd like to be an interstellar elite space warrior, but that takes a lot of work, too. According to some, I should just be working on becoming a REAL interstellar elite space warrior, instead of wasting time playing a game based on the idea. ;)

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[Mattintosh (758112)]

It takes considerably less practice (IMO) to play piano well (or at least well enough to hear a recognizable tune). And GH is more like playing piano than playing guitar. The only difference is the strum-bar triggering when the note is played rather than playing it when you hit the key. Other than that, those five fret buttons make for a really dinky piano keyboard.

If someone would invent a keyboard that you play like a guitar (not those dumbass keyboard-guitar things from the 80's, though!) it would probab

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[dunkelfalke (91624)]

to be honest i found piano much more difficult because
1) you have to play with both hands
2) guitar is more about patterns which are easy to memorise

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[tomstdenis (446163)]

As someone who plays the piano [royal conservatory series] I find your comments a bit misleading. Sure it's not hard to pick up pop or rock tunes, but most of them are not very hard anyways (re: coldplay). Mostly just a question of rhythm.

Real piano is fairly hard, and takes serious theoretical and plain experience to do well. For example, I'm playing level 4 pieces now, sure I can read the notes, and after several weeks play the pieces hands together with some dynamics, but a lot of the finishing touche

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[Mattintosh (758112)]

I took 3 years of piano lessons when I was in my early teens. Much of that was music theory training and a weekly practice regimen. I've been out of that routine for so long, I guess I've started to take the music theory stuff for granted (I've used it for far more than just playing piano).

It's worthwhile to note, also, that I can't read notes in real-time. Reading notes is a pain in the ass, honestly. Just play what you feel and you'll be happier. That's mostly why I gave up on piano lessons. That, and I p

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[tomstdenis (446163)]

I found even with the 9 year gap that I could still read music but the co-ordination took a while to get back into. When I stopped playing I was level 7 RCM, I started in December of 2006 at level 3. Now I'm more on the ball but still wrestling with the finer elements of phrasing and dynamics hehehe.

Tom

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[EMeta (860558)]

Personally, I like Gran Turismo better than Burnout or Need for Speed. But I understand that most gamers don't, and I understand why. They're not playing these games to drive, they're playing them to have fun. And as such an emphasis on damage and jumping is far more important than the effects of a limited slip differential. (I find that nitpickery fascinating, and in that way fun, but it is nitpickery).

Playing a guitar is hard work. It kills your fingers (yes much more than Guitar Hero makes them cr

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[tomstdenis (446163)]

Yeah, but you could totally scale it down even on a real guitar. Make it so easy uses the first positions, and as it gets harder you use more of the guitar. That's how you learn guitar [and indeed most instruments] anyways.

Tom

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[the dark hero (971268)]

I hear your argument, but remember that adults don't really learn as well as children do. Also, GH has never been about guitar simulation. It's just a game with a novel controller that people find entertaining. Most people don't have the patience to learn guitar and stick with it long enough to learn a song.

I totally agree about the noise the guitar puts out. they should really find a way to dampen that.

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[tomstdenis (446163)]

I know that adults learn a bit slower than kids but I should point out that adults can learn too. I used to play piano as a kid, stopped when I was 16, picked it up again when I was nearly 25, and am doing fairly well (finished level 3 in 4 months, zooming through level 4, starting to pick up on the technique and theory side of things, etc).

My case is a bit different since I played as a kid, but keep in mind the gap between me playing is longer than most kid students have been alive.

Tom

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[the dark hero (971268)]

Agreed. Adults can learn rather well. We're not as capable as children, but that's not what hinders us. It's our lack of patience and drive to learn something completely new or advanced. Many adults give up too easily because they just don't want to spend time, but kids have all the time they need.

Bring us Piano hero!

[jacobw (975909)]

As another adult who took piano lessons as a kid but then gave them up... I really wish somebody would come up with Guitar-Hero-style music game that used an actual keyboard and actual notes, thereby teaching you piano while you played. I've played a lot of DDR and Guitar Hero, and reading the "notes" on them is now second nature to me. I wish I still had that sight-reading capacity at the piano.

And before you say the piano is too complicated to teach in this way... Like a lot of people I know, I learned

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[iainl (136759)]

Let me guess, you don't see why anyone would ever buy Ridge Racer when Gran Turismo exists, or choose to play Sensible World Of Soccer instead of Pro Evo?

Just because a videogame is based on a specific real-world activity, doesn't mean it needs to simulate it in every way.

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[tomstdenis (446163)]

If you're going to devote so much time to something that is ever so close to being a real world activity, why not do it for real?

Especially since a real guitar isn't that expensive [at least a run of the mill kind].

Racing games, and even most sport games have the penalty of costs. Sure, why don't I drive a 1.3 million dollar car 120 mph the wrong way through Italy, why didn't I think of that.

Tom

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[bigstrat2003 (1058574)]

I do both, and I can easily see why people just want to play Guitar Hero. Guitar Hero is just plain fun, you don't even have to get up to expert level to have a lot of fun with it. Hell, the only reason I'm at expert level is because over the summer, my roommate and I had absolutely nothing better to do than play Guitar Hero constantly. But they really are two different experiences, and just because it's a blast to rock out on Guitar Hero doesn't mean you'd have fun playing a real guitar.

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[poot_rootbeer (188613)]

Racing games, and even most sport games have the penalty of costs. Sure, why don't I drive a 1.3 million dollar car 120 mph the wrong way through Italy, why didn't I think of that.

Whereas a $300 electric guitar and a $60 guitar-shaped game controller actually cost the same amount...?

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[jZnat (793348)]

I don't know about your experiences, but in mine, some songs *coughCarryMeHomecough* are harder to play on expert in Guitar Hero than on an actual guitar! This is why I love this game; it's a rhythm game that resembles playing guitar, but is actually more challenging when compared to the same song on guitar.

Re:Request

[tlhIngan (30335)]

The simplified control scheme lets people who just have a good sense of rhythm and basic finger control play the game. If I had to hit some of those chorts in real life and use a real whammy bar instead of the soft one on the controller I'd probably never pick it up after my first couple of tries.

I wonder if anyone playing it has gotten interested in learning in real life. The first Guitar Hero said, during a loading screen, "At some point you might want to look into a real guitar" or something like that.

I bought Guitar Hero for the 360, and when the owner of a sandwich shop I frequent saw it, he commented on how interested he was in it (he practices with a real guitar at the back when I come in). Next week when I'm getting my sandwich, I find out he's bought it and used it to not only have some fun, but also improve his technique. So I'd say it may help those struggling with some things to relax and try to replicate what happens in GH in real life. Turns out he wasn't strumming properly and thus his whole arm hurt after practicing for real. But with GH, he "learned" to strum better, so he's not hurting so badly after practice.

So I can say that real-life guitar students might just want to check it out just to see if it might help them. If not, it's a great way to just have some fun playing songs that one wants to play - those practice songs get old quick, and everyone wants to try to play their favorite song one day or another.

My request - I wish they'd have the Top Gun theme in there. Movie was OK (Cruise, 'nuff said), but have to admit, that theme is fairly distinct and definitely guitar-heavy.

Funny fact

[savage1r (856578)]

99% of the people playing this game STILL can't really play a guitar

Re:Funny fact

[grub (11606)]

99% of the people playing this game STILL can't really play a guitar

99% of the people playing Quake STILL can't fire a rocket launcher...

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[Sciros (986030)]

The thing is, though, that playing a real guitar is also fun and well within reach for anyone who can afford a 360 and the game. You can't even liken it to a racing game, because driving fast IRL is a usually illegal, and Ferraris are pricey. Forget about the rocket launcher :-P

To be fair, Guitar Hero isn't really about guitar playing at all. It's about pressing buttons on command. Much like DDR isn't about dancing at all. They're "music games" and anyway nobody who plays Guitar Hero or DDR pretends they're

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[ari_j (90255)]

DDR has much more in common with dancing than Guitar Hero does with playing guitar. However, I agree with the gist here: if you enjoy Guitar Hero, then play it.

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[shinma (106792)]

Have you seen someone actually playing DDR on hard or so?

There's nothing dancelike about it... Epileptic, maybe. :P

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[Mathonwy (160184)]

Yeah, um, that's pretty much what games are for.

Pretending to do something that you don't normally get much of a chance to do. Like be a counterterrorism agent, alien supersoldier, or rock star giving a concert at stonehenge.

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[yanos (633109)]

99% of the people who didn't played this game yet are STILL unable to see that this is a GAME we're talking about.

PC version planned?

[kevinroyalty (756450)]

Is there a PC version of the GH franchise planned? Anyone know? Kevin

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[Schuler (821676)]

I don't think there's a PC version planned but you should really check out Frets on Fire [sourceforge.net]. It's a guitar hero clone for the computer. It says it is also compatible with the actually guitar controller although I can't verify this myself.

If you run a search for "frets on fire song pack" you'll also find links to torrents on some songs to download. They even have the Guitar 1 and 2 songs.

I've been playing with it the past couple days and it seems pretty good.

Wiki Link [wikipedia.org]

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[Walpurgiss (723989)]

With a USB adapter, like the one redoctane themselves sell for PS2 controller to USB, you can use the GH I & II controllers with fretsonfire. And it can rip the GH I songs (maybe GHII) right off the ps2 disc. On top of that, you can create your own songs using whatever mp3s you have and laying down the button sequences and combos on a scale looking thing. Its kind of hard at first though. Gameplay is somewhat difficult though, fretsonfire is much less forgiving in terms of timing and ho/po.

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[jonwil (467024)]

Unfortunatly the greatest guitar game of all time is missing one of the greatest, if not THE greatest Aussie ever to play the guitar, Angus Young. Come on guys, how can you make such a stupid omission :(

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[OldeTimeGeek (725417)]

Because:

1. They couldn't get the rights to AC/DC music

- or -

2. It just doesn't work without the kilt and and the thought of middle-age rockers jumping around them grossed out the development team.

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[poot_rootbeer (188613)]

Unfortunatly the greatest guitar game of all time is missing one of the greatest, if not THE greatest Aussie ever to play the guitar, Angus Young.

I hear they tried doing an AC/DC Guitar Hero track where the player performs as Malcom young, but they found that it was too easy to get a perfect score by just going "chunka chunka" on eighth notes for 3 minutes straight.