Games: Guitar Hero 4

[wideawakewesley]

The June issue of Game Informer has an exclusive cover story on the fourth major entry in Activision’s top-selling Guitar Hero franchise.

Guitar Hero IV will follow closely in the footsteps of Rock Band, offering new instruments including a bass, microphone, and six-piece drumset that includes two cymbals. It is unknown whether or not the Guitar Hero IV instruments and Rock Band instruments will be cross-compatible.

Due to the recent falling-out between Gibson and Activision, Guitar Hero IV’s guitars will not be licensed and instead will be custom-designed by the developer. They will incorporate a currently unrevealed feature that will “directly impact the way you play Guitar Hero in the future.”

Rock stars can step into the studio to create their own songs and share them with other players online courtesy of the newly minted Guitar Hero Tunes service, but these tracks will be devoid of vocals.

Players will even be able to design their own musicians, album art, and instruments on-screen from scratch.

While no song titles were yet confirmed, Van Halen, The Eagles, Sublime, and Linkin Park will all be making appearances on the tracklist. All songs in the game will be master tracks.

The game is in development at Red Octane and Neversoft and will be arriving on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii by year’s end. Look for more details and the first media in the coming weeks.


Definitely the right move to try and emulate Rock Band. I wonder how much Jeff can comment on this as he's just played it for four hours today. Bet you have sore wrists now Mr. Cannata!

;)

Wes

[taozoo4u]

Definitely the right move to try and emulate Rock Band. I wonder how much Jeff can comment on this as he's just played it for four hours today. Bet you have sore wrists now Mr. Cannata!

;)

Wes

Is it good to dig up a dead horse just to beat it some more?

[trsjeff]

I wonder how much Jeff can comment on this as he's just played it for four hours today. Bet you have sore wrists now Mr. Cannata!

;)

Wes

I can confirm that yes, I have sore fingers, wrists, and eyes. I can also confirm that GH4 is awesome. The song list is rad. Can't say much else for now...

-Jeff

[az0madman]

You know, Guitar Hero should change their name to something that'll better fit what they're trying to do, like... Rock Band! It's getting a bit ridiculous. Six-piece drumset? I already hate having that Rock Band drumset taking up space so it better be compatible.

Jeff did say "wow" in his twitter, so hopefully it's not just Rock Band with a Guitar Hero label.

[wideawakewesley]

They'd be crazy to drop the Guitar Hero brand no matter what the game morphs into, it's just too powerful.

Wes

[dolson]

Jeff said wow in his Twitter because it comes with a cowbell peripheral and he said the tracklist is rad because it has Don't Fear The Reaper.

[iccanui]

While jeff's twitter did get me pumped for it, i have come to realize this simple fact. GH and RB are ALL about the songs. I would have bought RB if it wasnt so much money up front for the single reason that it seems a new song comes out every week. So ill have to see how the DLC goes. I really loved GH2 and would still play it if i didnt sell it with my xbox. But again, i didnt get GH3 cause it seemed their song list was much less ( and it was more hardcore then it should be ) and RB was just too much money.

[absolutemayhem]

I have the 360 GH2/3 and the rockband inclusive kit.. I think its the special edition set or whatever its called.

I dont mind GH going the way of RB, but ".. and six-piece drumset that includes two cymbals" Really? I already had to mod the RB drum kit to cut down on the wack-a-tack-wack noise of the drums, now symbols?

The only thing I really hope is they keep the GH song list format game advancement format. I liked being able to beat a song and go on. I did like the random set lists to add some flavor in BR when your friends were over.

Not to grip on BR, but I hope GH does not make the same stupid "group leader" mistake with the game make up like BR did, not being able to change teh group leader sucked.

Has GH4 released the official song list?

-MayheM

[tsmith15]

Some of the songs were listed in a recent issue of OXM, so you could probably find it somewhere on the internet.

[crater]

I was already over the genre before rock band came out. I don't think there is anything they could do, bar some sort of song importer that was free and worked well, to get me to pay them anymore of my money.

[darknessgp]

They will incorporate a currently unrevealed feature that will “directly impact the way you play Guitar Hero in the future.”

No, it won't. It'll have some stupid feature that will probably get rarely used... i.e. I will still push buttons and strum. I could see them adding a foot pedal, but whoop dee doo.

Guitar Hero IV will follow closely in the footsteps of Rock Band, offering new instruments including a bass, microphone, and six-piece drumset that includes two cymbals. It is unknown whether or not the Guitar Hero IV instruments and Rock Band instruments will be cross-compatible.

Yes, Guitar Hero will now try to clone Rock Band because they realized that just making the songs harder won't sell more copies of the game. Also, the instruments won't be compatible, unless they can't prevent it, like Microsoft forcing the controller standard. This just means non-XBox 360 users that have both will get screwed. It wouldn't surprize me if they picked the 6 piece drum set just to get around the 360 controller standard making it so rock band drums won't work on GH4.

Rock stars can step into the studio to create their own songs and share them with other players online courtesy of the newly minted Guitar Hero Tunes service, but these tracks will be devoid of vocals.

Rumors are spreading about this... but we all know it'll just be an input screen for note charts, and based off the charts it'll play a song... meaning no importing mp3's for songs and it'll probably sound like a midi.

If you can't tell, I'm not looking forward to this game, and won't be buying it. I honestly don't even want a Rock Band 2. I mean release patches that fix issues and minor adjustments to the UI, but if they continued with DLC and stepped it up even beyond 3 songs a week I'm sold.

[crash1337]

The thing thats annoying is that i have already got guitar hero and rock band, the devices dont work with both games, so now they are releasing another version and most likely im going to have to buy more hardware to play another game because im sure the rockband drums wont work with it.

[dolson]

I highly doubt I'll buy *any* music game that doesn't work with my PS3 Rock Band instruments. I don't have Guitar Hero 3, even though I want it. If they made the guitars compatible, I'd buy it with a guitar so that I'd have two. But, whatever. Their loss.

[bobafettjm]

I really like this idea, but I don't like the idea of even more plastic instruments taking up space. They should just swallow their pride and copy the Rock Band instruments and make them all compatible.

I also really like the idea of the create a song that I've read about.

[az0madman]

Looking at the picture for the new drum set, I wonder if or how they'll be utilizing the pedal. It had no color indication like the Rock Band drum does, and the one symbol seen in the picture had a yellow label on it, so I'd assume the other one would be orange.

I really do hope the instruments are compatible because I read that Sublime was going to be on the set list. Damn you Guitar Hero.

[damnedeyez]

Looking at the picture for the new drum set,

I don't suppose you have any links? I can't find anything on the web through google.



(...and it's 'cymbals', people. Symbols are like wingdings.)

[wils-jacob]

I just wonder if GH4 is going to be like Rock Band with the difficulty reduction due to the addition of new instruments and co-op play. That was the one thing about Rock Band that was a bit disappointing, but, it did make it a more accessible party game. Hopefully the difficulty will remain in GH4 so I can spend weeks fighting with it and being frustrated that "the game isn't registering!" or "I totally hit that note, that was BS!" (all lies).

[spark-rain-fire]

So, the wii version will be out in 2012 and be super crippled?

yes!

[absolutemayhem]

I found this, but dont know how valid it is

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c171/zygote7/5.jpg

[spark-rain-fire]

I found this, but dont know how valid it is



I just read that article, seems legit. I really like the new drum set. Symbols are sweet.

[damnedeyez]

playtesting is being done on a professional electronic kit rigged up to an Xbox 360 controller

now, if I could figure out an easy way to plug it into my set, I'd be very happy. (well, using the real ones for rockband or this, that is.)

[scootman]

man i wish i was one of those people that got to test it. anyway, this looks very cool. hopefully the drums won't be too complicated to play. i also hope GH4 has some songs that i actually know. a majority of songs on GH3 are a stranger to me

[az0madman]

Here's (http://s231.photobucket.com/albums/ee88/ImBillPardy/?action=view&current=GH4.jpg) a better pic showing both cymbals (finally got it right!).

So yeah, no pedal news. The one thing I like most about the new drum setup is star power doesn't rely on waiting for the opportunity, but you can hit the cymbals at the same time for it.

[dolson]

That's STUPID. I'm sorry, but Activision are really trying to screw over the consumer on this one.. I'm not buying it.

There's only one extra pad there - no real drum kit only has a snare, two toms, two cymbals and a kick... Even if one of those cymbals was a hi-hat, you don't get a pedal for the hats - and even then, it's still only good for jazz or barebones crap like P.U.S.A. or something. Boo.

[damnedeyez]

There's only one extra pad there - no real drum kit only has a snare, two toms, two cymbals and a kick... Even if one of those cymbals was a hi-hat, you don't get a pedal for the hats - and even then, it's still only good for jazz or barebones crap like P.U.S.A. or something. Boo.

it has all that's necessary...unlike Rock Band. Not that I'll get this one.

[wideawakewesley]

That's STUPID. I'm sorry, but Activision are really trying to screw over the consumer on this one.. I'm not buying it.

There's only one extra pad there - no real drum kit only has a snare, two toms, two cymbals and a kick... Even if one of those cymbals was a hi-hat, you don't get a pedal for the hats - and even then, it's still only good for jazz or barebones crap like P.U.S.A. or something. Boo.

Knowing nothing about drums all that went over my head, so all I can say is that the drum kit looks cool.

Wes

[dolson]

My point is this: they aren't going for true realism here, so why did they put only ONE extra pad? They could have put two cymbals, two pads, and the foot pedal, and then the Rock Band kit and GH4 kits would still be equal, and potentially compatible.

What they've done here is removed all doubt, and they aren't playing nice at all. ONE extra pad, just so that if you want to play GH4, you HAVE to buy their peripherals. What now, a sixth guitar fret?

I'm sorry I'm not excited about this, but I just spent $170 on Rock Band, and I'm not about to spend anywhere near that much again for another music game that essentially does exactly the same thing, only taking up even more space in my already crowded living room.

Here's a pic of my real MIDI drums:

http://rivironline.com/rivironline.com/en/img/studio-1.jpg

They're not the greatest, but as you can see, three footpedals, five pads (one acts as hi-hats, in co-ordination with the left-most pedal), two cymbals.. Probably doesn't clear it up any but w/e

[absolutemayhem]

two foot pedals would be sweet for GH4 ... metal songs would be oh so much nicer with two foot pedals!


-MayheM

[tamtamg]

@dolson, I don't mean to hijack this thread, but do you have any recommendations on a cheap(<$500) set of midi drums? After being able to play all the rock band songs on expert, i really want to learn the drums, but living in a apartment complex, real drums are not a option. also does learning on midi drums translate well to the real thing? much thanks

[dolson]

I split it out to here:
http://revision3.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18659