If you’re keen on the ways of the music world, you may be interested: Metallica’s new album, Death Magnetic, will be released in its entirety on Guitar Hero III this friday. It’ll also have full compatibility with the upcoming Guitar Hero: World Tour on all instruments, and will feature two exclusive renditions of the song “Suicide and Redemption” featuring extended solos. It’ll cost $17.99 on PSN or 1440 MS Points, though I would hope they might offer it for free to people who blew money on St. Anger. If you haven’t heard the new songs yet, they’re actually a pretty good throwback to the “...And Justice For All” days, though perhaps not to the stuff they wrote before bassist Cliff Burton succumbed to a bad case of being crushed by a tour bus. Check out the full press release after the break.

Click to continue reading Metallica’s Death Magnetic Come to Guitar Hero III This Friday

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Rejoice, ye fans of backwards compatibility! Harmonix has just released the title update for Rock Band that will allow players to export the first game’s song list into Rock Band 2 at their leisure. 55 of the songs are slated to have the ability to transfer over ("Run To The Hills”, “Paranoid”, and “Enter Sandman” are exempt) - you just pay 5 semolians, follow the instructions, and the songs are then burned to your HDD as any other DLC song would. Plus, you can also delete individual songs, if there are some you didn’t particularly care for. Personally, after being forced to play “In Bloom” into eternity during the first game, I’ll take that as a very welcome addition.

Rock Band is slated to have over 500 songs available for download and play by the year’s end, which is relatively unprecedented. Where they’re going from Rock Band 2 is anybody’s guess, but there have been some rumblings about a music creation system in the works (though Guitar Hero: World 2 seems to have that base covered already).

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Very interesting - word on the street is that the Guitar Hero World Tour set list has been leaked onto the interwebs. If the list is to be believed, then World Tour is gonna have 87 tracks (14 of them being bonus tracks, 7 of them being sample songs), along with a few guitar battles that will make you go one-on-one with the likes of Sting and Ted Nugent. Obviously, no confirmation or anything on the validity of the list, but we certainly wouldn’t be disappointed if it turned out to be true. Check the full list after the break.

Click to continue reading Guitar Hero World Tour track list leaked?

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We are hard at work on getting our Nintendo video wrap-up posted, but in the meantime, we figured we’d hook you up with a massive image gallery featuring the highlights of the presentation. Within the images you will find shots of Animal Crossing: Town Folk, Call of Duty: World at War, Wii Sports Resort, and more. We’ve also got images of the Wii MotionPlus and WiiSpeak accessories. All in all, we’ve got over 70 images for you to check out and enjoy, so head on over to our Nintendo E3 2008 gallery.

Read More | Nintendo E3 2008 briefing gallery

Gallery: E3 2008: Nintendo Media Briefing photo gallery

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Oh, happy day, echochrome has arrived. In case you’ve been under a rock, echochrome is a delicious puzzle perspective game, which is simple and deceptive all at the same time. The graphics are simple, the concept is amazing, and we’ve been waiting for it since last year’s E3. It is now here, along with a few other pieces of content - like new Rock Band tracks - on this weeks PlayStation Store update.

Games and Demos
echochrome ($9.99) for PS3
echochrome ($9.99) for PSP
Dark Sector demo (free)

Expansions and Add-ons
Rock Band tracks ($1.99 per track) - “Zero” by Smashing Pumpkins, “Time-Sick Son of a Grizzly Bear” and “Red Tandy” The Mother Hips
Karaoke Revolution Presents: American Idol Encore tracks ($1.49 per track)

Videos
Battlefield: Bad Company “Redford Blog” video
echochrome trailer
Dead Space “Announcement” trailer
Dead Space “Ship Date” trailer
Kung Fu Panda trailer
NBA Ballers: Chosen One TV spot
Turok “Kane Gameplay” trailer
Turok “Bring It” trailer

Themes and Wallpapers
4 echochrome wallpapers
3 Kung Fu Panda wallpapers

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Looks like artist music is going to start becoming exclusive to specific brands, as it has been made public through Activision PR that all Aerosmith tracks are going to be exclusive to Guitar Hero. What this means is that, no matter how good the Rock Band Store gets (and it is very good), you will never see any more Aerosmith tracks appearing in that franchise. Sure, Rock Band owners do get one Aerosmith track, that being “Train Kept a Rollin,” but seriously, that is just a drop in the bucket.

What we are wondering is, as these music/rhythm-based games continue to flourish, how many other artists are going to sign on for the exclusive? What do you guys think?

Read More | Newsweek

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If you’re a fan of the Guitar Hero and Rock Band, we’ve got a T-shirt for you. The design on this tee bears a striking resemblance to the faux guitar that comes with those, games so you’re guaranteed to be the star of the show when wearing one. Or for ultimate geekiness, you can crank up some Led Zep and make like the lad in the photo above. But we suggest you only do that around those who truly “get you”. Available in both men’s and women’s sizes for only $12 USD.

Read More | Gifts.com

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Those of you lurking around the iTMS Games section may have noticed a recent addition for a Guitar Hero-esque iPod game named Phase: Your Music is the Game. The nice thing, though, is that this game isn’t just a rip-off of the GH formula, but a clever new game designed by the folks at Harmonix (and thus released by MTV/Viacom). One really cool feature of the game, as well, is that the rhythm action takes place to music you have stored on your iPod. Get it? Your music IS the game.

Phase is currently on sale for $4.99 at the iTunes Music Store.

Read More | iTunes

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A rumor began circulating yesterday that the full and final track list for Activision’s Guitar Hero III was available. The problem with the list was that while it seemed credible it lacked several bands who had previously announced their involvement with the game, notably Atreyu and Velvet Revolver.

We followed up with one of the original sources yesterday and he confirmed that the list was accurate but perhaps not 100% complete, which would leave room for additional songs to be announced closer to the release date or perhaps even kept under wraps until the game ships. In any case, the selection is shaping up nicely with a few unexpected inclusions.

Click to continue reading Expanded Guitar Hero III Track List Found

Read More | Aeropause

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There once was a game named Rez.  Developed by Tetsuya Mizguchi’s division within Sega, Rez was a hybrid music-shooter for Dreamcast and PS2 that sputtered in sales but turned some heads in the process.  Before long, the game was out of print and new copies were fetching a pretty penny on Ebay.  Many gamers kicked themselves over that twenty-dollar copy that they didn’t pick up at the time, because now the chance to play the game was pretty much gone.

Well now we all get a second chance.  Mizguchi, now of Q Entertainment (who brought us Lumines), has announced that Rez HD is coming to Xbox Live Arcade. 

“We are excited to announce that Rez will be given a new life, this time in digital form. The game will be presented in hi-definition and will be accessible to those who did not have a chance to experience Rez the first time around,” said Mizuguchi. “Personally, Rez has been and will always be a lifelong concept. I hope to take what I learned from the experience of creating the original game and look forward to taking it to a whole new level in the future.”

Featuring 5.1 sound and the usual HD enhancements, Rez HD will hit XBLA early next year.

Read More | 1UP

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