Guitar Hero Live
Guitar Hero Live is a music video game developed by FreeStyleGames and published by Activision. It was released for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Wii U, Xbox 360, and Xbox One in October 2015 and to iOS devices including Apple TV in November 2015. As with previous games in the series, the goal is to use a special guitar controller to match fret patterns displayed on a scrolling note pattern on screen in time with the music.
Guitar Hero Live
In addition to songs that were shipped on disc, additional songs are introduced to the game through Guitar Hero TV (GHTV).[12] On starting GHTV mode, the player is given a choice of a number of themed channels, which broadcast playable songs curated programs on a rotating schedule similar to a radio broadcast. One such channel always present new songs that have been added to GHTV.[18] Songs in GHTV are played over the music video for the song or live concert footage of the band playing the song, instead of the custom visuals for the main single player game. The player can pick up and play on any song that is being shown, but they also are able to use earned Plays to replay a specific song outside of the channel's rotation.[18][19] Alchemy: Dire Straits Live
Alchemy: Dire Straits Live is a double album and the first live album by the British rock band Dire Straits, released on 16 March 1984 by Vertigo Records internationally, and by Warner Bros. Records in the United States. Recorded at the Hammersmith Odeon in London on 22–23 July 1983, the album features well-known songs from the band's first four albums, the ExtendedancEPlay EP and Knopfler's "Local Hero" soundtrack. Many of the songs have reworked arrangements and extended improvisational segments. The album cover is taken from a painting by Brett Whiteley. "Alchemy: Dire Straits Live" was remastered and re-released on 8 May 2001. Guitar Hero Live
The game is playable via an app on iOS mobile devices, including the fourth-generation Apple TV. This version supports both "touch" mode and support for an optional Bluetooth-enabled guitar controller that provides "[the] full game in an uncompromised way" according to Activision.[12][13] When in touch mode, the note display geared towards the 6-button controller is replaced with four touch-screen buttons but otherwise retains the same gameplay; with the controller, the game otherwise plays the same.[14] Due to the size of the game relative to storage space on most mobile devices, Guitar Hero Live on iOS units requires a persistent Internet connection as all songs, including those that are normally part of the console on-disc soundtrack, are streamed from Activision's servers when played.[14] Guitar Hero
A sequel, "DJ Hero 2", was officially announced in June 2010 for release in the last quarter of 2010, featuring more than 70 mashups from over 85 artists. The game includes several new gameplay modes, including an "Empire" career mode, head-to-head DJ battles, social multiplayer modes, and a jump-in and out Party Play mode similar to "Guitar Hero 5". The game also includes more vocal options for singing and rapping to songs, and a freestyle mode for players. Lived a Lie
On 2 September 2013, the band announced and premiered the first single to be off the new record, titled 'Lived a Lie'. The album was also revealed to be titled "Cavalier Youth". The album would contain 12 tracks, including an interlude track. The music video to 'Lived a Lie' was made available to the world on the band's Vevo channel and UK fans can download the new track on iTunes shortly after. The song is featured in football video game "FIFA 14" and the 2015 video game "Guitar Hero Live". Guitar Hero
In 2005, RedOctane, a company specializing in the manufacture of unique game controllers, was inspired to create "Guitar Hero" based on RedOctane's experience creating hardware for Konami's "Guitar Freaks" arcade game. They enlisted Harmonix, who previously developed several music video games, for development assistance. The first game in the series was made on a budget of $1 million. The series became extremely successful, leading to the acquisition of RedOctane by Activision in 2007. Harmonix was acquired by MTV Games and went on to create the "Rock Band" series of music games in the same vein as "Guitar Hero". Activision brought Neversoft (primarily known for their "Tony Hawk" series of skateboarding games) on board for future development duties. Additional companies, such as Budcat Creations and Vicarious Visions have assisted in the adaptation of the games for other systems. Cultural impact of the Guitar Hero series
"Guitar Hero" has made several appearances in popular culture.
"Guitar Hero II" is the centerpiece of an episode of "South Park" titled "Guitar Queer-O", in which Stan and Kyle overindulge in "Guitar Hero II" and become treated as though they were real-life rock stars. The episode was first broadcast on November 7, 2007, ten days after the American release of "Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock". "Metalocalypse" (created by Titmouse Studio, who also provided cutscene animations within the "Guitar Hero" game) has made reference to "Guitar Hero"; in one example, the episode "Dethkids," a sick child composes a song for Dethklok rhythm guitarist Toki Wartooth using a "Guitar Hero" controller. Ellen DeGeneres has played "Guitar Hero" several times in 2008 during the monologue of her syndicated talk show. In the January 25, 2008, episode she is seen playing along to "Barracuda", which segues to Heart performing the song for the audience. During the season 7 finale of "American Idol", finalists David Cook and David Archuleta appeared in separate commercials for the games, where they each parodied Tom Cruise dancing to "Old Time Rock and Roll" in the movie "Risky Business". This parody has been used by director Brett Ratner to create advertisements for "Guitar Hero World Tour", featuring celebrities such as Kobe Bryant, Tony Hawk, Alex Rodriguez, Michael Phelps, Corbin Bleu, Heidi Klum, and Marisa Miller. Guitar Hero
"Guitar Hero 5", the fifth main entry in the series, was confirmed in December 2008. It was released on September 1, 2009, and includes 85 songs from 83 different artists. The game includes new game modes and features, including its 'Party Mode,' which gives players the ability to drop-in and out and change difficulties in the middle of a song. Artists including Johnny Cash, Matt Bellamy, Carlos Santana, Kurt Cobain and Shirley Manson appear as playable characters in the game. Guitar Hero Live
Most reviewers praised the risk of changing up the gameplay of Guitar Hero with the new controller design, contrasting to Rock Band 4's reliance on its established gameplay mechanics. Chris Carter of Destructoid considered the change a reinvention of the series, and though he had to relearn how to play the controller, enjoyed the experience and "the increased emphasis on chords and fancy finger-work".[10] Griffin McElroy of Polygon also praised the new controller, finding that the higher difficulties in the game present "the most challenging fake guitar-playing" that he's seen, and having to relearn the new playing style through the game's difficulties levels was a "delight".[70] Matt Miller of Game Informer found the six-button layout was not any better than the traditional five-button one, but "nails a different dynamic" as it feel like one was playing more realistic guitar chords.[65] Though Game Revolution's Nick Tan was impressed with the challenge of the new controller, he felt the buttons themselves were too small and tight on the neck of the controller, and the new challenge may cause more casual players to forgo attempt to learn the new system and go back to Rock Band and the traditional layout.[66] Guitar Hero 5
The game was well received by reviewers, who appreciated the improvements in the accessibility of the game, allowing players to immediately jump in and play without spending excessive time in the game's menus. The game also sold well, however, it sold about less than 50 percent of "Guitar Hero: World Tour's" sales, specifically selling 1.2 million copies across all platforms. Improvements to both the Career and competitive multiplayer modes were also highlights of the game. However, the game's track list was considered to be too broad, and controversy arose over the ability to use the avatar of Kurt Cobain to perform in any other song within the game. Guitar Hero (video game)
"Guitar Hero" started with "super-basic "Pong"-style graphics" for the game display. The final game art was led by Ryan Lesser, using the art team's involvement in the music scene. Based on the experience from "Frequency" and "Amplitude", the team realized that "people dont necessarily relate to really abstract visuals", and included the depictions of live performances as previously used in "Karaoke Revolution". House of Moves were used to assist in creation motion capture for the on-screen animations. The appearance of Star Power was made to resemble electricity, both to reflect the use of the electric guitar as well to conceptually demonstrate the excitement of the performance and the virtual audience. Gibson Moderne
The Gibson Moderne is featured in the PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360 video games Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero 2 in 2006 as unlockables. It was also featured in the Nintendo DS video game . Because of their very limited production and forward design, Modernes are highly sought by collectors. However, in 2012, Gibson re-released the Moderne as a part of their production line. Guitar Hero
In 2015, Activision announced the first new title to the series in 5 years, "Guitar Hero Live", released in October 2015. The title is considered a reboot of the series, with development being performed by FreeStyleGames, who had developed the "DJ Hero" games previously. As of December 1, 2018, Activision disabled the GHTV servers for Guitar Hero Live, reducing playable content from approximately 500 songs to 42 on disc tracks. Guitar Hero (video game)
The game and its sequels have created interest in young adults and children in learning how to play a real guitar, and has been considered as a "cultural phenomenon" that has created a significant cultural impact. At the end of 2009, several journalists, including "Wired", G4TV, CNN, the "San Jose Mercury News", the "Toronto Star", "Inc.", "The Guardian", and "Advertising Age", considered "Guitar Hero" to be one of the most influential products of the first decade of the 21st century, attributing it as the spark leading to the growth of the rhythm game market, for boosting music sales for both new and old artists, for introducing more social gaming concepts to the video game market, and, in conjunction with the Wii, for improving interactivity with gaming consoles. Guitar Hero II
Like in the original "Guitar Hero", the player uses a peripheral in the shape of a solid-body electric guitar to simulate playing rock music as notes scroll towards the player. Most of the gameplay from the original game remains intact, and provides new modes and note combinations. The game features more than 40 popular licensed songs, many of them cover versions recorded for the game, spanning five decades (from the 1960s to the 2000s). The PlayStation 2 version of "Guitar Hero II" can be purchased individually or in a bundle that packages the game with a cherry red Gibson SG guitar controller. The Xbox 360 version of the game is offered in a bundle that packages the game with a white Gibson Explorer guitar controller. Guitar Hero (video game)
"Guitar Hero"'s main mode of play is Career Mode, where the player and in-game band travel between various fictional performance arenas and perform sets of four or five songs. Completing songs in this mode unlocks the songs for play within the other game modes. Players can choose their on-stage character and their guitar; these elements have no effect on gameplay but affect the visuals during the performance. In Career Mode, players can earn money from their performances that is redeemable at the in-game store, where bonus content, such as additional songs, guitars and finishes, can be unlocked. Quick Play mode allows the player to play any unlocked track, selecting the difficulty, the character, venue and guitar. After successfully completing a song in either Career or Quick Play mode, the player is given a score and a rating between three-five stars, depending on his or her overall performance. Guitar Hero (video game)
According to Rob Kay, the game's Lead Designer, the idea of "Guitar Hero" was directly inspired by Konami's "Guitar Freaks" arcade game, where the player used a guitar-shaped controller to interact with the game. At the time, "GuitarFreaks" had not seen much exposure in North America. RedOctane was making dance pads for games like "Dance Dance Revolution" for home consoles and also operated an online video rental service similar to Netflix. RedOctane's Kai and Charles Huang recognized the popularity of "GuitarFreaks" in Japan through their rental service, and planned to create guitar controllers to bring the game to North America. The Huangs raised $1.75 million for the effort, despite being turned down by some investors who "thought [the idea] was too weird". Greg Fischbach, one of the founders of Acclaim Entertainment, noted, regretfully several years later, they had passed on "Guitar Hero", questioning "Who's going to buy a peripheral like that?" The Huangs approached Harmonix, who had previously made music video games such as "Frequency", "Amplitude" and "Karaoke Revolution" about making a guitar-based video game for those controllers. With a budget of about one million dollars (which Kay noted was "pretty tiny for a video game"), the two companies worked together to develop "Guitar Hero". Kay noted that "No one had any notions about it being a massive success; we all just thought it would be fun to do." Harmonix's president Alex Rigopulos also claims that former Microsoft vice-president of game publishing Ed Fries indirectly influenced the game's creation, who had previously told Harmonix when they were pitching "Frequency" to Microsoft that no music-rhythm game would succeed without custom hardware for it, prompting Rigopulos to investigate the "Guitar Hero" opportunity when it arose. Guitar Hero II
The Xbox 360 version was released on April 3, 2007 in North America and Australia, and then on April 6, 2007 in Europe (only as a bundle containing the game and a wired Gibson X-Plorer guitar controller). It was released as a stand-alone game for the Xbox 360 in the UK on January 25, 2008. The arrangement of the songs were also altered, and the graphics were slightly improved. Guitar Hero 5
Guitar Hero 5 (initially referred to as Guitar Hero V) is a music rhythm game and the fifth main entry in the "Guitar Hero" series and the twelfth overall (ninth on home consoles). The game was developed by Neversoft and published by Activision, and released internationally in September 2009 for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360 consoles. Similar to the preceding title, "Guitar Hero World Tour", "Guitar Hero 5" is geared towards playing in a four-person band experience, including lead and bass guitar, drums, and vocals. The game is available as a standalone title, allowing players to use existing compatible instrument controllers, and as a bundle that provides these controllers. "Guitar Hero 5" adds several new features, such as drop-in/drop-out play, bands composed of any combination of available instruments, a Rockfest competitive mode consisting of several various scoring mechanisms, and both song-specific and general Challenges to unlock new avatars, clothing, and other extras in the game. Many of these changes were added to make the game a more social experience, allowing players across a range of skill levels to be able to play cooperatively and competitively against each other both locally and online. List of songs in Guitar Hero Live
A player can access a Premium Show either through playing specific songs already in the "GHTV" catalog or through microtransactions. Completing Premium Shows can earn the player in-game rewards such as a decorative item for their player card or on-screen fretboard. The week after their introduction, these songs are added to the on-demand playlist, and after another week enter into the "GHTV"s rotation of songs. At the release of "Guitar Hero Live", Activision announced plans to add 70 new songs to "GHTV" before the end of 2015. DJ Hero
DJ Hero is a music video game, developed by FreeStyleGames and published by Activision as a rhythm game spin-off of the "Guitar Hero" franchise. It was released on October 27, 2009 in North America and on October 29, 2009 in Europe. The game is based on turntablism, the act of creating a new musical work from one or more previously recorded songs using record players and sound effect generators, and features 94 remixes of two different songs from a selection of over 100 different songs across numerous genres. List of songs in Guitar Hero Live
Between August 2017 and April 2018, only one song was added to GHTV and on June 3, 2018, Activision confirmed that the servers will be shut down December 1, 2018. Guitar Hero
Activision and Konami, who had previously worked together to make sure that the "Guitar Hero" series meets with Konami's patents on music games, developed an arcade console version of the game, titled "Guitar Hero Arcade", distributed to arcades in early 2009. The game is completely based on the "Guitar Hero III" gameplay, but reducing some of the features such as the use of the Whammy bar, Star Power Button (Star Power may only be activated by lifting the Guitar) and Practice Modes, but keeping the ability to download new songs for the cabinet from the Internet. The arcade game has come under some scrutiny by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), who believe the use of the game in arcades is equivalent to "public performances" and seek additional fees to be paid by operators of the game. Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock
Sales of "Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock" were weaker than those of "Guitar Hero 5", with combined sales of the game and "DJ Hero 2" through the end of 2010 being 63% lower than the sales of "Guitar Hero 5", "DJ Hero" and "Band Hero" through the end of 2009. Initial shipments of "Warriors of Rock" were also bundled with a copy of Soundgarden's compilation album "Telephantasm"; based on its distribution with copies of the game, "Telephantasm" became the first album to receive a Platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America based on distribution alongside a video game. As a result of the underwhelming sales, also credited to the oversaturation of the music game market, the "Guitar Hero" franchise was ultimately shuttered until the 2015 unveiling of a reboot, "Guitar Hero Live". Guitar Hero Live
The task of developing the new game was given to FreeStyleGames around 2012. FreeStyleGames had developed both DJ Hero and DJ Hero 2, and while both games were critically praised, the latter was released on the downward trend of the music game genre.[37] FreeStyleGames had suffered some layoffs as a result of the hiatus of the Guitar Hero series, though remained an Activision studio and financially viable due to their work for the Wii U Sing Party. As the development of Sing Party wrapped up, the studio created an internal research and development department to begin brainstorming what their next game would, with input from Activision. Hirshberg had encouraged the team to reconsider Guitar Hero, noting the fan dedication to the series, but noted that the game needed innovation to be successful.[37] Activision gave the team freedom to develop the game without relying on the previous titles in the series.[36] The core gameplay of Guitar Hero Live was rebuilt from scratch; developer Jamie Jackson explained that the goal of the game was to bring "big innovation" to the franchise rather than continue with the same format used by previous games. He explained to his staff to only "think of [Guitar Hero] as a name. Think of it as a music game with a guitar peripheral, but pretend that nothing else has ever been done."[5] The team brainstormed on what had made the Guitar Hero series fun, and recounted the earlier titles of the series which were designed to enable the player to envision themselves as a superstar guitarist, subsequent design choices were made around recreating that experience. The team also cited fellow Activison franchise Call of Duty as an influence towards the goal of providing an immersive, first-person experience.[5][36] Guitar Hero II
On April 13, 2007, Activision revealed that the issue was not a problem with the hardware, and that the guitars were "not" defective. The cause of the problem was anti-cheat protection software, and Activision released a patch on Xbox Live on April 14, 2007 to remedy it. However, this patch may have caused some unintended side effects. Starting on April 16, 2007, numerous users began reporting lockups and failures of their system after downloading and installing this patch. RedOctane stated, "We're aware of the problem and we're looking into it." List of songs in Guitar Hero Live
"Guitar Hero Live" is a 2015 music video game that's developed by FreeStyleGames and published by Activision. It is the first title in the "Guitar Hero" series since it went on hiatus after 2011, and the first game in the series available for 8th generation video game consoles (PlayStation 4, Wii U, and Xbox One). The game was released worldwide on 20 October 2015 for these systems as well as the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and iOS devices including the Apple TV. Harmonix
At this time, RedOctane, a peripheral manufacturing company who had enjoyed Harmonix' previous games, approached Harmonix about developing the software for a game that would be based on a guitar-shaped controller, inspired by the "GuitarFreaks" which was popular in Japan. This relationship led to the creation of "Guitar Hero", published by RedOctane in 2005. The game features similar gameplay elements to "FreQuency" and "Amplitude". "Guitar Hero" uses a guitar-shaped controller designed uniquely for the game. Specifically, the "Guitar Hero" controller was designed with five color-coded "fret" buttons and a "strum bar". "Guitar Hero" became largely successful, both critically and commercially, resulting in the well-received 2006 sequel "Guitar Hero II", also developed by Harmonix. Cultural impact of the Guitar Hero series
"Guitar Hero" has also been considered to have made the use of special peripherals more commonplace and acceptable for consumers for games that followed, including Nintendo's Wii console and games such as "Mario Kart Wii" and "Wii Fit".
Fan sites have also arisen to provide news and forums related to the "Guitar Hero" series. Scorehero is one such site that includes both forums and informal tracking of players' scores for both the "Guitar Hero" and "Rock Band" series; the site has received donations from Harmonix president Alex Rigopulos, and site members have been invited to pre-release demonstrations of upcoming games, often leading to information about tracks in these games.
"Guitar Hero" now holds a place in the Guinness World Records in their Gamers Edition, tracking the highest score on a single song (Dragonforce's "Through the Fire and Flames") in "Guitar Hero III"; the record has held by both Chris Chike and Daniel Johnson, each outdoing each other in subsequent attempts; Johnson is the present holder of the record. Chike has received additional notice for performing a full combo playthrough of Dragonforce's "Through the Fire and Flames". Both players' reputations have earned them spokespersons deals, Chike for The Ant Commandos, a third-party peripheral controller maker, and Johnson for eMazingGaming.com, a video game event promoter. Guinness also awarded the series ten world records in the Gamer's Edition 2008, including "Best Selling Guitar Based Game" and "Biggest Funeral for a Fictional Object", when in November 2006 a funeral for the air guitar was held in London, England as a publicity stunt for "Guitar Hero II"s release. Band Hero
Band Hero is a spinoff video game as part of the "Guitar Hero series" of music rhythm games, released by Activision on November 3, 2009, for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii and Nintendo DS consoles. The game is structurally similar to "Guitar Hero 5", and supports full band play (lead and bass guitar, drums, and vocals) including the drop-in/drop-out and in-song instrument and difficulty change menus, and additional multiplayer modes as "Guitar Hero 5". The console versions use instrument-shaped game controllers, while the DS version uses either the "Guitar Grip" introduced with the or a new Drum Skin that comes with the game. Like previous games, virtual avatars of Taylor Swift, Adam Levine, and the band No Doubt are presented in the game. Guitar Hero
Upon release, the first game was seen as an unexpected hit, earning over US$45 million with about 1.5 million copies sold. "Guitar Hero II" was significantly more financially successful, with over 1.3 million copies sold and sales over US$200 million. "Guitar Hero III", according to Activision, was the first single video game to sell more than US$1 billion at retail, with nearly 3.5 million copies sold during the first seven months of 2008. "World Tour" continued the series' high sales records with 3.4 million units sold in the United States during 2008. More than 60 million downloadable tracks have been purchased across the series as of February 2010. Both "Guitar Hero III" and "World Tour" were listed on a March 2011 list from the NPD Group of top-grossing games in unadjusted sales in the United States since 1995; "Guitar Hero III" tops the list with total sales of $830.9 million. Guitar Hero Live
The full-motion video aspect of GH Live was not as well-taken as the core gameplay. GameSpot's Scott Buttersworth found that he often ignored the motion video as he was too focused on the gameplay, and when he did notice it, felt it appeared "so campy [that] it borders on parody" as it "absolutely trips over itself to sell you on the idea that you're a totally super cool rockstar".[67] Tristan Ogilvie of IGN also felt that the live action footage was "overly cheesy vamping", and further felt no connection to the band and bandmates he was to be playing along with as there was very little context given between sets.[8] Ben Griffin of GamesRadar found that the crowd and bandmates only seemed to have two states, "fawning and furious", making the transition disconcerting when the game switched between the two states simply based on his performance.[68] Brandon Jones of GameTrailers believed it was difficult to "take the actors seriously" in part due to the duality of the crowd reaction as well as that the song was still based on studio recordings, sounding off in the concert setting. Jones further commented that the fictional bands were well-matched to the songs they played, and that the pacing of the presentation, moving quickly between songs, made the experience feel more like a real concert.[69] McElroy acknowledged the presentation can potentially be "cringe-worthy", but felt that the video was put together with self-awareness of this factor to make it more charming, noting some of the extra details that FreeStyleGames and the actors used to fully take on their roles.[70] Guitar Hero Live
Activision shuttered the GHTV mode on December 1, 2018, reducing the available Guitar Hero songs from almost 500, to 42.[2][3] Plays Live
Plays Live is the first live and fifth album overall released by the English rock musician Peter Gabriel. This album was originally released as a double album and longplay cassette in 1983, with sixteen songs. It was re-released in 1985, as a single CD version called "Plays Live (Highlights)" with only twelve songs, some of which are edited from their full-length versions, so that the album could fit on a single CD. It was eventually re-released in its entirety as a double CD set in 1987. In 2002, a remastered version of the "Highlights" version was re-released. Guitar Hero Smash Hits
All 48 tracks in the game are master recordings of songs previously featured in the first five published games of the "Guitar Hero" series: "Guitar Hero", "Guitar Hero II", "", "", and "". "Freya" and "Cult of Personality" are re-recordings performed by The Sword and Living Colour, respectively, while two other songs are taken from live concert recordings; all other songs are based on original studio recordings. Although the game supports user-created songs through the "GHTunes" service (common to "Guitar Hero World Tour" and "Guitar Hero: Metallica"), other existing downloadable content does not work with "Smash Hits". Songs in either the Career single player or band mode are arranged in tiers roughly in order of difficulty for the particular instrument, with different orders for each of the five Career paths. However, all songs are playable from the game's "Quickplay" mode without completing any Career goals. Twenty-one of the songs were exportable to both "Guitar Hero 5" and "Band Hero" for a small fee, with music licensing limiting which songs could be exported. The songs included in the game are as follows. Live (Gipsy Kings album)
Live is the first live album by the Gipsy Kings, released in 1992 in Europe and the US. Both versions of the release are identical. Guitar Hero Live
In a July 2011 interview with Forbes.com, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick stated that they were going to try to "reinvent" the series,[44] but a former teammember of Vicarious Visions has stated that as of 2012, all development of Guitar Hero has come to an end within Activision.[45] Another source close to Vicarious Visions had reported to Kotaku that while Guitar Hero 7 was in development under an Activision studio, the game was considered a "disaster".[46] The cancelled game omitted the additional instruments and used only a guitar peripheral, redesigning the unit to include a 6-button mechanism replacing the strum bar; the resulting unit was considered too expensive to manufacture and purchase.[46] The developers had started from scratch to try to create new characters and venues that would be more reactive to the actual songs being played, to give the feel of a music video, but ultimately this proved too much of a challenge and had to be scrapped.[46] Further, with a limited budget, the song selection was limited to "low-budget" hits of the 1990s, or at times reusing songs that had previously been included in Guitar Hero games.[46] Though the team had a two-year development cycle, it was closed down after Activision president Eric Hirshberg had seen the current state of the project at the one-year point.[46] Daniel Dilallo, a developer for Vicarious Visions at the time of cancellation, stated that he had come up with an idea of revitalizing the series using a first-person perspective approach, and had developed a prototype that he had called Guitar Hero Live at the time, though neither Activision nor FreeStyleGames have confirmed if this prototype was used as inspiration for the revived series.[47] Guitar Hero Live
In addition to regular content, GHTV has been used to provide specialty programming. GHTV can offer uniquely curated music video shows with host segments wrapped around playable songs; the first such show features songs selected by the band Avenged Sevenfold and will include commentary by the band on these selections.[25][26] Def Leppard used GHTV to premiere their new music video for their single "Dangerous" in January 2016.[27] Activision offered a contest for players to win prizes by participating in a special "Shred-a-Thon" premium show, highlighting the addition of Dragonforce's "Through the Fire and Flames" - one of the most notoriously difficult songs that has appeared in other Guitar Hero titles - to the GHTV setlist.[28] Cultural impact of the Guitar Hero series
"Guitar Hero" is a series of rhythm video games published by Activision in which players use guitar-shaped controllers to mimic the playing of numerous popular rock music songs in a score attack gameplay; later games in the series have included support for both drums and vocals and playing as a full band. With over $2 billion in total sales worldwide, the game series has made a significant cultural impact, becoming a "cultural phenomenon" and recognizable in the popular culture. The series has been found to influence younger players into learning real instruments, and has found application within the health care industry to help recovering patients. Guitar Hero
Another potential "Guitar Hero" project was discovered by the archival site Unseen64 for a game titled "Hero World", a massively multiplayer online game that would link the "Guitar Hero" and "DJ Hero" games. The game had been developed by FreeStyleGames, sometime after the release of "DJ Hero 2", with the main development duties passed to Virtual Fairground, using their platform The Ride, an Adobe Flash-based platform that would let the game be played in a web browser. The game was cancelled in 2011 along with other pending "Guitar Hero" projects. List of songs in Guitar Hero Live
Two hundred songs were initially available on GHTV on the game's release on 20 October 2015. Slingshot Cartel
Slingshot Cartel was founded by Jamie Jackson, David Osbourn, Jonathan Napier and Gareth Morrison. All four were previously employed at FreeStyleGames, where they held positions as studio heads, development director and assistant art director, respectively, while Jackson and Osbourn were also two of the six founders of that studio. Based in Leamington Spa, within Warwickshire, England, Slingshot Cartel was incorporated as a limited liability partnership, at the United Kingdom's Companies House, on 9 September 2016, while its opening was announced on 31 January 2017. Under Activision as their parent company, FreeStyleGames had been responsible for the development of "Guitar Hero Live", a refresh of the "Guitar Hero" series, which was released in 2015. While "Guitar Hero Live" received positive reviews, it failed to succeed commercially, as a result of which, Activision announced on 1 April 2016 that they would restructure FreeStyleGames, laying off 50 staff and putting the company into a solely supporting role for other Activision-developed projects. Jackson, Osbourn, Napier and Morrison decided to leave the company, with the prior two expressing their disappointment with how typical developer/publisher interactions that led to such situations; Jackson stated "We were a bit fed up of how that worked." Guitar Hero
"Guitar Hero" was created from a partnership between RedOctane, then their own company that produced specialized video game controllers, and Harmonix, a music video game development company who had previously produced "Frequency", "Amplitude" and "Karaoke Revolution". RedOctane was seeking to bring in a "Guitar Freaks"-like game, highly popular in Japan at the time, into Western markets, and approached Harmonix about helping them to develop a music game involving a guitar controller. Both companies agreed to it, and went on to produce "Guitar Hero" in 2005. The title was highly successful, leading to the development of its successful sequel "Guitar Hero II" in 2006. While the original controllers for the first "Guitar Hero" game were designed by Ryan Lesser, Rob Kay, Greg LoPiccolo and Alex Rigopulous of Harmonix and built by the Honeybee Corporation of China, subsequent iterations and future controllers were developed inhouse at RedOctane, with development led primarily by Jack McCauley. Guitar Hero Live
The career mode is broken up into a dozen-some show sets, each set consisting of about 3-5 songs. The video for each set includes the band's introduction, banter between the band and crowd between songs, and final ovations on conclusion of the show. The player must unlock each set in order as to move forward.[16] Once a set is complete, the player is shown the game's ranking of their performance and for each song, based on factors such as percentage of notes hit correctly, the longest streak of properly played consecutive notes, and how long they kept the virtual crowd excited about their performance.[17] The player then unlocks the ability to play the individual songs outside of sets.[8] Guitar Hero Live
New songs to GHTV are typically introduced via limited-time "Premium Shows", which run for a week or more; these songs are then moved into the on-demand catalog and later into the normal GHTV rotation.[22][23] Access to Premium Shows can be purchased with Hero Cash, or by completing several specific songs in either on-demand or on rotation play. Within the Premium Shows, players complete in the same manner as with normal GHTV songs and can earn unique in-game rewards, such as coins or alternate skins for the on-screen note "highway".[18][19] Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock is a music rhythm game, the third main installment in the "Guitar Hero" series, and the fourth title overall. The game was published by Activision and distributed by RedOctane. It is the first game in the series to be developed by Neversoft after Activision's acquisition of RedOctane and MTV Games' purchase of Harmonix, the previous development studio for the series. The game was released worldwide for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360 in October 2007, with Budcat Creations assisting Neversoft on developing the PlayStation 2 port and Vicarious Visions solely developing on the Wii port respectively. Aspyr Media published the Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X versions of the game, releasing them later in 2007. List of songs in Guitar Hero World Tour
"Guitar Hero World Tour" is the fourth major release in the "Guitar Hero" series of music video games, a series that has sold over 24 million units and earned more than $1.6 billion in retail sales. The game was released in October 2008 for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360 game consoles in North America, and a month later for PAL regions. It was released in Europe and on a limited basis in North America for the Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh platforms. The game was developed by Neversoft, with assistance from Vicarious Visions and Budcat Creations for the Wii and PlayStation 2 versions, respectively, and distributed by RedOctane and Activision. "Guitar Hero World Tour", like the other games in the "Guitar Hero" series, focuses on the use of special game controllers to mimic musical tracks from popular rock songs that date from the 1960s to contemporary hits. While previous versions of the series have only used a guitar-based controller for lead and bass guitar tracks, "World Tour" adds in drums and vocals, allowing up to four players to create a virtual band. For each instrument, the player scores points by matching controller actions with note gems on the game screen to avoid a bad performance that may end the song prematurely. In addition to the on-disk songs, the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii versions support the ability to obtain new songs through downloadable content. A new music creation system also allows users on the same systems to gain new user-created songs through the game's "GHTunes" service. Live! (Guitar Wolf album)
Live!! is the first live album by the Japanese garage punk band Guitar Wolf. It was released in Japan in June 2000. The album is assembled from four different performances, including a show on October 31, 1999 at CBGBs. It also includes a MiniCD featuring a remix of "Jet Virus." Guitar Hero Live
Guitar Hero Live was released to generally positive reception, with critics praising the new controller design for providing trickier and more realistic gameplay in comparison to previous Guitar Hero games, as well as the wider variety of content available via the GHTV mode. The main Live portion of the game received mixed reviews, with critics panning its weak soundtrack, lack of multiplayer, and describing the live action footage as being self-aware, exaggerated, and "campy". The GHTV mode also received mixed reception for its reliance on microtransactions, and the inability to permanently purchase songs to own. Guitar Hero World Tour
New venues in the game include virtual recreations of real arenas, such as Ozzfest, Amoeba Music, Live Nation's House of Blues, Sunset Strip and San Francisco's AT&T Park. One venue showcases the trademark art style of Tool and was developed in collaboration with the band. "World Tour" is the first Activision game on the PlayStation 3 to support dynamic in-game advertising provided by IGA Worldwide; similar advertising for the Xbox 360 version is provided by Massive Incorporated. Guitar Hero: Aerosmith
On February 15, 2008, Activision announced that one of their two new "Guitar Hero" installments would be "Guitar Hero: Aerosmith", and would be released in June 2008. "Guitar Hero: Aerosmith" was developed by Neversoft for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions, the Wii version of the game was being developed by Vicarious Visions, and the PlayStation 2 version was developed by Budcat Creations.
The idea for "Guitar Hero: Aerosmith" came about during the development of "Guitar Hero III". Originally, a cover version of "Same Old Song and Dance" was present in the game, but Neversoft president Joel Jewett noted that the quality of the recording was poor. After getting in contact with Joe Perry, Perry was able to provide the original masters for the song, and, according to Neversoft developer Alan Flores, "that sort of established the relationship." This also came at a time where Activision was attempting to expand the "Guitar Hero" franchise, and fans expressed a strong interest in playing a game focused solely on Aerosmith's works, according to RedOctane's Dusty Welch. Another producer for the game, Aaron Habibipour, stated that Aerosmith was one of the five "holy grail" musical groups as polled by Activision. "Newsweek" reported that Aerosmith's license allows for exclusive use of their songs within the "Guitar Hero" series for a limited amount of time, preventing their use within other rhythm games such as "Rock Band". This is not the first time Aerosmith has appeared in a video game. The band was previously featured in both "Quest for Fame" and "Revolution X". Guitar Hero
The large number of "Guitar Hero" and "Rock Band" titles on the market is considered to be partially responsible for the sharp decline of music game sales in the latter half of 2009, along with the effects of the late-2000s recession. The market for rhythm games was $1.4 billion in 2008, but dropped to $700 million in 2009 even though more titles were available that year. Former Neversoft project director Brian Bright noted that at one point in 2009, they were responsible for the release of three games that year ("Guitar Hero 5", "Metallica", and "Band Hero") and supporting other studios for the development of two additional games, causing the studio to lose focus both in development and marketing efforts. According to Bright, sales of all the "Guitar Hero" games released in 2009 totaled the number of sales of the 2008 title "World Tour", demonstrating the dilution of the marketing. Though Activision had originally planned on tripling the offerings of the "Guitar Hero" series in 2010, the company readjusted their plans, reducing the number of offerings and focusing more on selling digital downloadable content for the series. Only two titles, "Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock" and "DJ Hero 2" were released in 2010, both scheduled for the "back half of 2010". Analysts believe that the market will evolve to support a smaller number of titles each year, averaging at a "healthy" value $500–600 million in revenues annually. Kotick believed that part of the downfall of "Guitar Hero" was due to Activision's introduction of "DJ Hero", which they gave too much focus and left the core "Guitar Hero" games without the "nourishment and care" needed to continue to innovate in the series. Guitar Hero (disambiguation)
Guitar Hero is a series of music video games published by RedOctane. Guitar Hero Live
In an interview with Fortune magazine, Activision's CEO of Publishing Eric Hirshberg found that even after five years without a game, the Guitar Hero brand still enjoyed high social media attention, with over 10 million followers on the Guitar Hero's Facebook page.[50] However, Hirshberg stated that Activision realized they needed to reinvent the series so that consumers would not consider it much the same as previous games and to help sway those that were turned off by the earlier saturation of music games.[50] Guitar Hero
The Guitar Hero series (sometimes referred to as the Hero series) is a series of music rhythm games first published in 2005 by RedOctane and Harmonix, and distributed by Activision, in which players use a guitar-shaped game controller to simulate playing lead, bass guitar, and rhythm guitar across numerous rock music songs. Players match notes that scroll on-screen to colored fret buttons on the controller, strumming the controller in time to the music in order to score points, and keep the virtual audience excited. The games attempt to mimic many features of playing a real guitar, including the use of fast-fingering hammer-ons and pull-offs and the use of the whammy bar to alter the pitch of notes. Most games support single player modes, typically a Career mode to play through all the songs in the game, and both competitive and cooperative multiplayer modes. With the introduction of "Guitar Hero World Tour" in 2008, the game includes support for a four-player band including vocals and drums. The series initially used mostly cover versions of songs created by WaveGroup Sound, but most recent titles feature soundtracks that are fully master recordings, and in some cases, special re-recordings, of the songs. Later titles in the series feature support for downloadable content in the form of new songs. Guitar Hero World Tour
Activision created a series of television advertisements directed by Brett Ratner based on the famous scene from "Risky Business" where Tom Cruise dances to Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock and Roll" in a shirt and underwear, each featuring a different set of celebrities lip synching to the lyrics while using the new instrument controllers. The first ad included athletes Kobe Bryant, Tony Hawk, Alex Rodriguez, and Michael Phelps. Another ad spot featured model Heidi Klum; two versions of Klum's ad exist, one a "director's cut" where she is wearing less clothing. A subsequent commercial featuring model Marisa Miller was banned from airing as too racy.
A YouTube viral video entitled "Bike Hero" showed what appeared to be a teenager riding a bike along a route marked with symbols similar in appearance to the in-game note tracks with LED lights on the handlebars blinking in time to the notes to the song "Prisoner of Society" by The Living End. The video was later determined to be the work of a viral marketing company Droga5 in cooperation with Activision to promote the "Guitar Hero" games. The viral advertisement was considered a success, with about 3.5 million views since its release. Ubisoft Leamington
The first game the company developed under Activision's ownership was "DJ Hero" (2009), a spin-off of the "Guitar Hero" series, in which players used a turntable-based controller to mimic the actions of a disc jockey across numerous songs. The title was considered successful, and they completed "DJ Hero 2" the following year, though around that time, the rhythm game genre was suffering from a glut of releases and was in decline, and Activision had decided to end further production of any "Guitar Hero" title. The company had to lay off some employees during this time, but still were financially viable with success of "Sing Party" (2012). As "Sing Party"s development was wrapping up, Activision approached FreeStyleGames to have them consider how to reboot the "Guitar Hero" franchise. FreeStyleGames developed a new guitar controller atypical of ones that has been created to that point, and crafted a different approach towards presenting the game to players through a first-person perspective full-motion video. This work culminated in "Guitar Hero Live" (2015), the first new "Guitar Hero" title for the eighth generation of video game consoles. Guitar Hero: On Tour series
"Guitar Hero: On Tour" was officially announced on September 7, 2007, at the Austin GDC '07, and released on June 22, 2008. During a conference call on May 8, 2008, Activision revealed that the game would be sold as an individual game (along with the "Guitar Grip") as well as bundled with the DS hardware itself. In North America, Nintendo released a bundle which included "Guitar Hero: On Tour" and a limited edition Silver/Black Nintendo DS Lite branded with the "Guitar Hero" logo. This bundle was available with the release of "Guitar Hero: On Tour" in the United Kingdom. This is the first third-party DS game to be included in such a bundle. When pre-ordered in certain stores, the consumer received either a special Guitar Hero: On Tour set of headphones, Nintendo DS Lite "wrap" pack (two stickers for use on the console) or an exclusive guitar pick stylus. The headphones and stylus feature the Guitar Hero: On Tour logo. On June 14, Toys "R" Us stores across the US hosted a "First to Play" event, where players tried out the game more than a week before its release. Also at the event, anyone who attended received a free Guitar Hero sticker, a temporary tattoo, and a special dog tag. Guitar Hero
Prior to the release of "Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock", Activision worked with the iTunes Store to provide more than 1300 tracks of "Guitar Hero"-related music across more than 20 compilations, including most of the tracks from the games in the series, called ""Guitar Hero Essentials"". These compilations, such as ""Killer Guitar Solos"" and ""Guitar Anthems of the '80s"", include songs related to but not contained within the "Guitar Hero" series. Dusty Welch of RedOctane stated, "Where there’s music, there’s "Guitar Hero", and with iTunes, we are able to provide fans with a central location for downloading their favorite rock anthems." Following the merger of Activision and Blizzard, the new company announced plans to create an alternative to iTunes based on the "Guitar Hero" brand that would allow for downloading songs and their associated note tracks for the "Guitar Hero" games. Guitar Hero Live
Guitar Hero Live follows similar gameplay to previous installments in the series, requiring players to use a guitar-shaped controller with buttons and a strum bar to match notes on a scrolling "highway" corresponding to notes played in a song. In contrast to the previous five-button design, the Guitar Hero Live controller features six buttons arranged into two rows of three. The frets are represented by a "note highway", three scrolling lanes on-screen, containing either black or white notes representing the two rows. Lower difficulty levels use one row of buttons, while higher difficulties may include "chords" that use a combination of buttons from both rows.[4][5] The game typically maps out power chords to use the top row of buttons, while modifications of those chords include others from the bottom row.[6] Notes may be held and sustained, indicated by trailing lines after the note markers, during which the player can use the guitar's whammy bar to alter the held note's pitch for effect.[7] Fast-moving sections of songs may employ the use of hammer-on and pull-off notes, marked with a special outline, which can be played without using the strum bar.[8][9] The game also retains the concept of open strumming introduced in previous Guitar Hero titles, represented as a horizontal bar across the lanes and requiring the player to hit the strum bar without pressing any fret keys.[6] The player is able to select one of four difficulty levels which affect the number and complexity of the note patterns they have to hit, and the speed at which the on-screen display scrolls.[10] Guitar Hero Live can also be played by two players, both playing on separate guitar controllers with split-screen separate note highways, competing for the better score.[10] Songs in GH Live mode (below) also includes vocals, allowing players to sing along in tone with the song's lyrics using a connected microphone.[11] Guitar Hero: On Tour series
Guitar Hero: On Tour is a series of music video games based on the "Guitar Hero" series for the Nintendo DS handheld game system. The series is developed by Vicarious Visions and distributed by RedOctane and Activision. Three games in the series have been released since June 2008: "Guitar Hero: On Tour", "Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades" and "Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits". List of songs in Guitar Hero Live
Forty-two songs are featured on disc as part of the game's main "GH Live" career mode. Players progress though the career mode by playing one of several continuous sets of three to five songs, with each set presented as part of a concert performance. During a set, the game shows the note highway, the on-screen fretboard which represents the notes the player should play in time to the music, and other gameplay elements. This is shown atop live-action footage taken from the first-person perspective of the lead guitar player of one of several fictional bands, performing on stage and watching the reaction of the crowd and their bandmates. The live-action footage is manipulated by the game to reflect how well the player is performing. Once the player has completed a set, all songs from that set are available in a quickplay mode, allowing the player to perform a single song at a time which they can use to practice the song or attempt to achieve a better score. Greatest Hits Live (The Who album)
Greatest Hits Live is a compilation of live songs recorded by the Who throughout their history. The album was released exclusively on the iTunes Store on 19 January 2010. This collection was released as a compact disc on 23 March 2010. Carlos Santana
Santana is featured as a playable character in the music video game Guitar Hero 5. A live recording of his song "No One to Depend On" is included in game, which was released on September 1, 2009. More recently, in 2011, three Santana songs were offered as downloadable content (DLC) for guitar learning software Rocksmith: "Oye Como Va", "Smooth", and "Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen". In the same year, Santana received the Billboard Latin Music Lifetime Achievement Award. Guitar Hero Live
Additional songs are provided through GHTV. Two hundred songs were playable on GHTV at launch, and the developers plan on adding new songs to GHTV on a regular basis.[35] There is no backward compatibility with songs or controllers from previous editions of the franchise; FreeStyleGames' developer Jamie Jackson justified the decision, explaining that Guitar Hero Live was a "completely new game" that existing content would not work with due to the change in core gameplay.[4] There is not any traditional downloadable content for the game in the form of additional songs, instead using the streaming nature of GHTV to provide new songs.[36] FreeStyleGames does not expect to make GHTV content available for offline play.[37] Guitar Hero
In the first two games and the 2007 expansion "", the majority of the songs on the main career mode set lists are covers of the original song; for example, a song may be presented as ""Free Bird as made famous by Lynyrd Skynyrd"". "Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock" introduces a much larger range of original recordings, and "World Tour" featured a setlist that contained all master recordings. The covers throughout the games are mostly recreated by WaveGroup Sound who has worked before to create songs for "Beatmania", "Dance Dance Revolution", and "Karaoke Revolution", making small changes to the guitar portions to make them more adaptable for gameplay. Almost all of the unlockable bonus songs are songs performed by the original artist for the game (the only exception is the song "She Bangs the Drums" by The Stone Roses, which is featured in "Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock"). Guitar Hero
Gibson Guitar Corporation, whose guitar likenesses have appeared in the "Guitar Hero" series from the first game to "Guitar Hero Aerosmith", informed Activision on January 7, 2008, that it believed the games infringe its . Gibson claimed that this covers technology that simulates a concert performance via pre-recorded audio and a musical instrument. In response, Activision filed a suit seeking a declaration that it was not in violation of the Gibson patent; Activision also asserted that Gibson had given an implied license by waiting to assert the patent and that the patent was invalid. On March 17, 2008, Gibson sued six retailers (GameStop, Amazon.com, Wal-Mart, Target, Toys "R" Us and Kmart) for selling "Guitar Hero" products. Subsequently, on March 21, 2008, Gibson also filed a lawsuit against EA, MTV, and Harmonix over their game "Rock Band" also for violation of its patent, to which a Harmonix spokesperson stated that Gibson's claims are "completely without merit". Activision lawyer Mary Tuck stated in their legal filings that they believe that Gibson initiated the lawsuit due to the fact that "Activision was not [interested] in renewing the License and Marketing Support Agreement" with Gibson Guitars.
In February 2009, the United States District Court for the Central District of California ruled against Gibson in their case against Activision, stating that the controllers are not musical instruments but "toys that represent other items", and that Gibson's patent only covers instruments that send out analog signals. Activision and Gibson settled the suit following this ruling. Guitar Hero
The series currently has ten major releases (seven "Guitar Hero" games, two "DJ Hero" games and "Band Hero") and five expansions on gaming consoles. There are spin-offs for Windows and Macintosh systems, mobile phones, the Nintendo DS (the "" series), and an arcade game. The "Guitar Hero" franchise was a primary brand during the emergence of the popularity of rhythm games as a cultural phenomenon in North America. Such games have been utilized as a learning and development tool for medical purposes. The first game in the series was considered by several journalists to be one of the most influential video games of the first decade of the 21st century. The series has sold more than 25 million units worldwide, earning US$2 billion at retail, claimed by Activision to be the 3rd largest game franchise after the "Mario" and "Madden NFL" franchises; the third main title of the series, "Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock" is also claimed by Activision to be the first single video game title to exceed $1 billion in sales. Live (Usher album)
Live is a live album by American singer Usher. It was recorded on October 15 and 16, 1998 in the singer's hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and released by LaFace Records on March 23, 1999. Both audio-only and video longform versions were released; it was distributed to break up the gap between Usher's second and third studio albums, "My Way" (1997) and "8701" (2001). Guitar Hero Live
Guitar Hero Live received mostly positive reviews. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the Wii U version 83.75% based on 4 reviews and 84/100 based on 4 reviews,[59][62] the PlayStation 4 version 81.91% based on 43 reviews and 80/100 based on 69 reviews[60][64] and the Xbox One version 80.93% based on 20 reviews and 81/100 based on 21 reviews.[61][63] Live at Leeds
Live at Leeds is the first live album by the English rock band The Who. It was recorded at the University Refectory, University of Leeds on 14 February 1970, and is the only live album that was released while the group were still actively recording and performing with their best known line-up of Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend, John Entwistle and Keith Moon. Initially released in the United States on 16 May, by Decca and MCA and the United Kingdom on 23 May, by Track and Polydor, the album has been reissued on several occasions and in several different formats. Since its release, "Live at Leeds" has been cited by several music critics as the best live rock recording of all time. Guitar Hero: On Tour series
"Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades" was announced on July 15, 2008, at the 2008 E3 conference, and released on November 16, 2008. Executive Producer David Nathanielsz stated that the short time between releases was to help give DS players the same depth of content as available to the console players of "Guitar Hero". Additionally, Vicarious Visions incorporated the ability to share songs between different versions of the game through the wi-fi capabilities of the DS in order to expand the number of potential songs to more than 50. Guitar Hero II
When Activision purchased RedOctane in , the company expressed strong interest in bringing the "Guitar Hero" series to "every significant new format" in order to take advantage of the next generation of consoles. The Xbox 360 version was announced on September 27, 2006 at Microsoft's X06. Dusty Welch of RedOctane stated that the Xbox 360 "provides an incredible platform for facilitating downloadable content" due to the integrated hard drive on the console. The Xbox 360 version of the game included 10 exclusive songs and additional content available for purchase through the Xbox Live Marketplace. Guitar Hero II
"Guitar Hero II" was originally announced for the PlayStation 2 on April 17, 2006. A demo version of the PlayStation 2 version of "Guitar Hero II" was released with issue #110 of "Official PlayStation Magazine" on October 5, 2006. Features of the demo included four playable songs on four difficulty levels for single player and co-op modes. Demo releases do not feature the ability to flip the notes for left-handed players. Demo versions feature the songs "Shout at the Devil", "You Really Got Me", "Strutter" and "YYZ". The retail game was released for the PlayStation 2 on November 7, 2006 in North America, November 15, 2006 in Australia, and November 24, 2006 in Europe. It was released as both a stand-alone game, and as a bundle containing the game with a cherry Gibson SG guitar controller. Vivo (Ricardo Arjona album)
Vivo is the first live album, It was released on October 5, 1999 by Guatemalan singer-songwriter Ricardo Arjona. List of songs in Guitar Hero II
"Guitar Hero II" is a music video game developed by Harmonix and distributed by RedOctane, and is a sequel to "Guitar Hero". The game was released first to PlayStation 2 in , but later released for the Xbox 360 in . "Guitar Hero II" challenges players to recreate the lead guitar portions of many rock music songs using a specially designed guitar-shaped controller, based on either a Gibson SG for the PlayStation 2 version, a Gibson Explorer for the Xbox 360 version, or else a standard console controller. As notes scroll down the screen towards the player, the player must hit both the fret buttons on the guitar controller and the strum bar at the same time in order to successfully hit the notes. Successfully hitting notes improves the player's performance in the game and also raises their score, while missing notes will reduce the player's performance, and a poor performance may end the song prematurely. Each song can be played at one of four difficulty levels: Easy, Medium, Hard and Expert. These levels reflect the number of fret buttons used and the number and frequency of the notes to be performed. Guitar Hero World Tour
"World Tour" sold more than 534,000 units during its first week of release, less than half of the sales of "Guitar Hero III" during the same period, with the Wii version selling the most with 183,000 units. During the month of November 2008, 978,000 units were sold, with 475,000 being for the Wii platform. The Wii version was the fifth best-selling game of December 2008 in the United States, selling in excess of 850,000 copies. The PlayStation 2 version was the 17th best-selling game and best-selling PlayStation 2 game of the same month in that region. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions did not rank, but ranked the sixth and fifth best-selling games respectively for their respective systems. "World Tour" sold 3.4 million copies across all platforms in North America during 2008. Full band bundles represented 41% of all unit sales of "World Tour" through January 2009, equating to 61% of the game's revenue, while 35% of unit sales and 27% of total revenues came from the guitar and game bundle. In a March 2011 list, the NPG Group placed "World Tour" as the 7th highest-grossing game in the United States since 1995. Guitar Hero World Tour
While the game continues to feature the use of a guitar-shaped controller to simulate the playing of rock music, "Guitar Hero World Tour" is the first game in the "Guitar Hero" series to feature drum and microphone controllers for percussion and vocal parts, similar in manner to the competing "Rock Band" series of games. The game allows users to create new songs through the "Music Studio" mode, which can then be uploaded and shared through a service known as "GHTunes". Guitar Hero: Van Halen
Guitar Hero: Van Halen is a music rhythm game in the "Guitar Hero" series. As with the previous games "" and "", the game features 25 songs from Van Halen along with 19 additional songs from selected artists that have been inspired by the group. The game was released in retail for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii systems on December 22, 2009, in North America, and in February 2010 for PAL regions. However, as part of a promotion with "Guitar Hero 5", the game was shipped to "Guitar Hero 5" purchasers in North America prior to its retail release. The game was developed by Neversoft with Underground Development assisting Neversoft on developing the Xbox 360 port and published by Activision. Genesis Live
Genesis Live is the first live album from the English rock band Genesis, released in July 1973 on Charisma Records. Initially recorded for radio broadcast on the American rock program "King Biscuit Flower Hour", the album is formed from the recordings of shows at Free Trade Hall, Manchester and De Montfort Hall, Leicester in February 1973 during the band's tour supporting their fourth studio album "Foxtrot" (1972). Guitar Hero
Another new title to the series, "Band Hero", was announced in May 2009. "Band Hero" features Top 40 hits aimed at family audiences, and include the full band play style of "Guitar Hero 5". The game was developed for the Nintendo DS, using the "Guitar Hero On Tour" Guitar Grip, a new "drum skin" to fit the DS Lite, and the DS's microphone to support the full band experience. Musician Taylor Swift appears as a playable character in the game, as do the members of No Doubt.
"DJ Hero" was announced by Activision in May 2009. Prior to the announcement, the company had purchased FreeStyleGames, a small developer of music games, to help produce localized downloadable content for "Guitar Hero" games and a then-unannounced music game, later revealed to be "DJ Hero". "DJ Hero" uses a special turntable-based controller for players to perform with on various song mixes in the game. The game also incorporates the use of a "Guitar Hero" controller on ten specially arranged tracks; Bright has suggested that future "Guitar Hero" games after "Guitar Hero 5" may include the use of the turntable control. Shadow Moses (song)
"Shadow Moses" received its worldwide premiere on BBC Radio 1's Rock Show with Daniel P. Carter on 4 January 2013, before it was released as the lead single from "Sempiternal" the following week in the form of a digital download. Due to the popularity of the song, the band's North American label Epitaph Records uploaded it to their YouTube channel a week earlier than they had planned. In addition to "Sempiternal", the song was also featured on the band's debut live video album, 2015's "Live at Wembley", as well as their second, 2016's "Live at the Royal Albert Hall". In October 2015, "Shadow Moses" was featured as a playable song on the music video game "Guitar Hero Live". Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s
"Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s" was initially announced by EGM in January 2007 as "Guitar Hero: 1980s Edition". Orange Lounge Radio claimed that the game would be released in June 2007, based on an Activision announcement, though no other source has cited this announcement. Activision officially revealed the first details of the game May 11, 2007, in addition to changing the game's title to "Guitar Hero: Rocks the 80s". Only a few weeks later, the game name was revised again as "Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s", as official artwork for the game was first released. Nevertheless, the word 'Encore' has been dropped from the title of the European releases. Guitar Hero Live
On 14 April 2015, Hirshberg and Jackson invited Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy and Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance to promote the game. Wentz performed his band's song "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark" in the Guitar Hero Live mode, while Way and Jackson dueled each other on My Chemical Romance's song "Na Na Na".[55] A commercial for the game was revealed in October 2015, starring Lenny Kravitz and James Franco.[56] In conjunction with Activision, The CW ran special promotional ads for Guitar Hero Live, featuring the actors David Ramsey and Candice Patton playing the game in the week prior to the game's release.[57] Activision arranged to have rapper Macklemore play Guitar Hero Live with FreeStyleGames' Jamie Jackson during the halftime show of the Seattle Seahawks home game on the Sunday prior to the release of the game.[58] Guitar Hero 5
The fifth main entry to the "Guitar Hero" series was announced in December 2008, with confirmation of its release by the end of 2009 coming in May 2009, along with the announcement of other new "Guitar Hero" titles. Some industry analysts questioned whether the proliferation of Guitar Hero games would soon glut the market. Guitar Hero spokesman Eric Hollreiser said consumer research showed continued strong demand for the various versions. Kenny G Live
Kenny G Live is the first live album by saxophonist Kenny G. It was released by Arista Records in 1989, and peaked at number 2 on the Contemporary Jazz Albums chart and number 16 on the "Billboard" 200.
This album was recorded live at Humphrey's Concerts By The Bay in San Diego, California. Guitar Hero Live
In the game's primary single-player mode, titled GH Live within the game, the player completes songs while experiencing full-motion video taken from the first-person perspective of a band's lead guitarist. The video includes shots of the audience and the band members. As the player performs the songs, the audience responds positively to good performances when few mistakes are made. If the player makes several mistakes in a row, the audience will become critical and start to jeer at the performer.[15] To win back the crowd, the player can either match more notes correctly, or can use collected Hero Power to rapidly regain their interest. Hero Power, replacing Star Power from previous Guitar Hero games, is collected by correctly playing marked series of notes on the track; Hero Power can be accumulated, marked as on-screen guitar picks next to the track, to be used at later times. The player can release Hero Power for a limited time by either tilting the guitar controller upward or hitting a special button on the controller.[16] Guitar Hero World Tour
According to the "Game Informer" preview, the addition of drum functionality came from work initially done towards the "Drum Hero" title. This work was later folded into the "Guitar Hero" series after Neversoft was chosen as developer of the series. Neversoft's Allen Flores stated that with the addition of the existing drum gameplay, the development of "World Tour" took under a year, starting development immediately after the release of "Guitar Hero III". The drum instrument controller was designed to be more realistic, with input from Chad Smith (of Red Hot Chili Peppers), Stewart Copeland (of The Police) and Travis Barker (of Blink-182), all of whom requested the elevated cymbal pads. The ability to open-strum the guitar was a feature that was planned for "Guitar Hero III" but was removed before release, finding that it was too difficult on the guitar tracks. However, they built this feature in from the start of "World Tour" development for the bass guitar tracks. Guitar Hero Mobile series
Originally, the "Guitar Hero Mobile" series was published by Hands-On Mobile and developed by MachineWorks Northwest LLC. For the first game, "Guitar Hero III Mobile", Hands-On Mobile received licensing from Activision to port 51 songs, two characters, three venues, and four guitars to the mobile version. The game was originally released on Verizon Wireless, but made available on other cellphone carriers in February 2008. The game was programmed by Robinson Technologies (shortened to RTSoft) in affiliation with MachineWorks Northwest LLC. The game graphics were developed in collaboration with RTSoft and MachineWorks Northwest LLC by Anthem Game Group. The audio was taken from the original audio files used by Activision for "". The audio files were reduced in file size, but remained multichannel; for example, separate channels were used for the guitar track, background instruments and vocals, audience, etc. Each song was reduced in length to two minutes to maintain shorter, "bite-sized" gameplay. To reduce the file size used by the phone, only two songs are stored at any time. Accessing other songs requires them to be downloaded via a cellphone network. A five button setup—like in console versions—was considered, but testing showed the game to be more entertaining with only three buttons. Rapid transitions and simultaneous button presses were included to add difficulty to the gameplay and compensate for the missing buttons. Guitar Hero: Van Halen
A demo of the game was released to Xbox Live on December 9, 2009, featuring two Van Halen songs, "Eruption" and "Panama", along with Weezer's "Dope Nose" and Killswitch Engage's "The End of Heartache". List of songs in Guitar Hero II
The Xbox 360 version of the game allows for the use of downloadable content available through Xbox Live Marketplace. These are typically released as packs of three, or as single song. These packs include songs from the original "Guitar Hero" for the PlayStation 2. Additional packs consist of songs that have not been featured in "Guitar Hero" before, and are masters, even though some are indicated as covers in the game. As of March 31, 2014, these songs are no longer available in the Xbox Live Marketplace. Are You Gonna Go My Way
"Are You Gonna Go My Way" was released as the lead single. The song peaked at number one on the Australian Singles Chart, and also peaked at number one on the US Mainstream Rock chart, becoming his first number one single in both countries, while it peaked at number 2 on the Hot Modern Rock Tracks. It was only released for airplay in the US and therefore did not chart on the Hot 100, but was a worldwide hit, peaking at number 4 in both the United Kingdom and France. The song is not only considered to be one of Kravitz's greatest hits as an artist, but also as one of the biggest anthems of the 1990s. Appears in the video games "" (in a GT Remix) and "Guitar Hero World Tour" as well as "Guitar Hero Live". Guitar Hero (video game)
Shortly after release, "Guitar Hero" became an unexpected hit; it was the second-highest-selling PlayStation 2 title in February 2006 according to the NPD Group. Game sales amounted to $45 million in . Since then, the game has sold about 1.53 million copies through December 2007. The success of the game has spawned a one billion dollar "Guitar Hero" franchise, including four sequels on several seventh generation consoles, seven expansions, a mobile phone-based version, and a portable version for the Nintendo DS. Harmonix no longer is involved in development of the series, due to its acquisition by MTV. Harmonix has since developed "Rock Band" using designs similar to those that based "Guitar Hero"'s success. Guitar Hero: Aerosmith
A departure from other games in the franchise, "Guitar Hero: Aerosmith" follows the career of Aerosmith, by playing significant songs in their catalog in a 'rough chronological fashion'. The gameplay follows the band through various periods in its history, spanning from its first show at Mendon Nipmuc Regional High School in 1970 to the 2001 Super Bowl XXXV halftime show, to their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 19, 2001. The player starts as Joe Perry, and will eventually be able to unlock Brad Whitford and Tom Hamilton. The game does not focus on the internal strife and stress within the band; Guitarist Joe Perry stated that the game would focus on the positive aspects of Aerosmith's history. Perry has stated that "Having a game built around Aerosmith has been a huge honor and really a great experience for us. We've put a lot of ideas into the game so that fans can have fun interacting with our music, getting inside our body of work and learning about the band's history." Live (Tig Notaro album)
Live [liv, verb] is the second live [līv, adj.] album by comedian Tig Notaro. It is a deeply personal set performed just four days after Tig was diagnosed with stage two breast cancer. The album was first released by Louis C.K. on his website in 2012 by download only. It was the first release that C.K. had on his website that was not one of his own works. The album is no longer on his site, but it has a link to iTunes. The audio of the album was originally recorded at Notaro's regular monthly stand-up show "Tig Has Friends" at Largo for an episode of the radio show "This American Life". Notaro did not want to put out the album at first, but C.K. convinced her to release it.  List of songs in Guitar Hero 5
"Guitar Hero 5" is the fifth main title in the "Guitar Hero" series of rhythm games, released worldwide in September 2009 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 2 and 3 and Wii consoles. In the game, players use special instrument controllers to simulate the playing of lead and bass guitar, drums, and vocals for rock and other songs. Players are awarded points by performing specific actions on the controllers to match notes that scroll on screen that correspond with the appropriate instrument. Successfully hitting notes increases the player's scoring and performance meter, while missing too many notes will lower the performance meter and may cause the song to end prematurely. Songs can be played either by oneself, competitively with other players in several game modes, or cooperative with up to three other players in their own virtual band. Although traditionally a four-player band can have one player on each instrument, "Guitar Hero 5" allows any four-player combination of these instruments to be used, such as a band composed of four drummers. "Guitar Hero 5" is considered by its developers to be an expansion of the series into more "social play", featuring modes such as Party Play, which allows players to drop in and out and change difficulty in the middle of a song without worrying about failing or losing points.
"Guitar Hero 5" is distributed with 85 songs on-disc, many being from artists that have yet to have their music featured in a rhythm video game, and more than half having been published in the last decade. The setlist was considered the weakest part of the game; although it was praised for its diversity, critics believed that the widely varying genres represented would mean that players would not enjoy every song in the game. "Guitar Hero 5" is the first game in the series to reuse content from previous "Guitar Hero" games. Most of the existing downloadable content for "Guitar Hero World Tour" can be reused in "Guitar Hero 5" without additional cost, while for a small fee, players can import a selection of songs from "Guitar Hero World Tour" and "Guitar Hero Smash Hits" into "Guitar Hero 5". Such content is incorporated into the main game modes. Critics praised the ability to reuse content from older games, but felt that more songs should have been transferable when the game was launched. Activision no longer provides new downloadable content for Guitar Hero 5 since the release of "" in September 2010. Guitar Hero II
Both the PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360 versions of "Guitar Hero II" feature the same core 64 playable songs (40 licensed, 24 bonus songs). Among the featured tracks are "You Really Got Me" by Van Halen, "Sweet Child O' Mine" by Guns N' Roses, "Girlfriend" by Matthew Sweet, "Woman" by Wolfmother, "War Pigs" by Black Sabbath, and "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd. The Xbox 360 version of the game contains 10 exclusive tracks not included in the PlayStation 2 version, including "Billion Dollar Babies" by Alice Cooper, "Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo" by Rick Derringer, and "The Trooper" by Iron Maiden. Additionally, the Xbox 360 version allows for downloadable songs to be purchased on the Xbox Live Marketplace. The Xbox 360 version also features a reorganized set list that provides a more balanced progression in difficulty. Guitar Hero Live
Pre-orders of the game offered access to a time-limited premium show featuring three live recordings by Avenged Sevenfold, including "Shepherd of Fire", "Buried Alive" and "Nightmare", filmed from their performances at the Download Festival in England and Mexico City.[32][33][34] Guitar Hero Live
Guitar Hero Live was considered to be a game that can be expanded upon in the future through content patches, as opposed to released new titles each year which had previously led to the music genre decline in 2009.[37] Though FreeStyleGames added vocals prior to the game's launch, there are no present plans to include other instruments such as bass guitar or drums in the title, with Jackson stating that the game is "all about guitars".[36] Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s
Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s (titled Guitar Hero: Rocks the 80s in Europe) is a music rhythm game and the third installment in the popular "Guitar Hero" series. It was released in July 2007 in North America and Europe, and in August 2007 in Australia.