Get ready to ride into the Danger Zone because Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock is offering a free song download for the XBox 360 and the PlayStation 3. In celebration of Independence Day, Red Octane is offering free downloadable content through XBoX Live and the PlayStation Network. Guitar Heroes will be able to jam out to the theme of “Top Gun” while glorious explosions illuminate the night sky behind them.
UK Band, Muse, has been heard echoing their dark melodic riffs in films such as High Tension and 28 Weeks Later. Their unique British sound has been evolving for over ten years but is finally now hitting mainstream America. Reaching even further with audiences, they dropped “Knights of Cydonia” on Guitar Hero 3 but now find themselves even more available on a song pack release available May 8th on both 360 and Playstation 3.
The track listing on the Muse pack will be:
• Exo-Politics
• Supermassive Black Hole
• Stockholm Syndrome
 
Guitar Hero III on the Wii was always going to be a bit of a letdown in the graphics department and we were all pretty much prepared for the poor graphical performance of the comparably under-powered console. That was fine. It didn’t matter very much; the game was all about the fun and the controller modding anyway, graphics don’t play a huge role.
What was important was the sound - the sound has to be just right. It’s a shame then that the Wii version of the game has also turned out to be under-performing there too.
Apparently, despite declaring on the box that the game supports both stereo and Dolby Pro Logic 2 sound options, the Wii version actually only uses mono sound.
There’s been a fair amount of whinging about it, which is pretty understandable. Both the Wii and the game have mass market appeal by the bucket load and the Wii version of the game has proven very popular indeed, so there’s an awful lot of disappointed customers out there.
Activision has promised that it is looking into how to fix the problem and, thankfully, it looks as if the there’s some sort of software glitch which is preventing the game from running in stereo mode and it isn’t anything to do with the hardware. This means that a patch for the game could be distributed online in the near future if all goes well.
The inevitable has finally happened, and the creators of Guitar Hero are being sued by The Romantics.
The Detroit rock band has sued the publisher of the popular video game Guitar Hero, claiming the game infringes the group’s rights by featuring a sound-alike recording of the hit What I Like About You.
The lawsuit against California-based Activision, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Detroit, seeks unspecified damages for use of the sound-alike recording. It’s one of about 30 hit tunes featured on Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s, released in July for Sony PlayStation game consoles.
The band is also seeking an injunction against the game, which could take the bestseller off store shelves in the thick of the holiday shopping season. In the game, users try to play along to songs with a guitar-shaped controller. Activision has used a mix of original band recordings and cover versions in its Guitar Hero series, an award-winning line that debuted in 2005.
Copyright isn’t the issue for the Romantics. The band’s attorneys said Activision properly secured permission to use the song What I Like About You, which allowed it to record a cover version. But by creating an imitation so much like the Romantics’ original, they said, the company has infringed the group’s right to its own image and likeness.
