Activision returns to the stage with Guitar Hero Live
Coming as a surprise to everyone who paid zero attention to breaking news in the subject over the past year — Activision is making a new Guitar Hero game for this upcoming holiday season. Guitar Hero Live was announced on Tuesday morning, and it’s bringing some genuinely shocking developments to the genre. Most noticeably is through the use of live-action, first-person video to replace the traditionally animated background to the note chart. Through the eyes of a guitarist taking the stage, you’ll see the crowd react in real-time to your intense note streak or absolute botching of an iconic solo. The guitar itself is also getting a complete makeover, replacing the traditional five colored buttons for six buttons, now arranged in two rows. It’s a change that claims to better reflect playing a real guitar, but comes at a significant consequence. Unlike the upcoming Rock Band 4, you won’t be able to transfer in old DLC, or use old instruments. In its place is a system titled “Guitar Hero TV,” which will offer rotating channels of current music to play, backed with the associated music video. It’s hard to tell how Freestyle Games (who previously developed the masterful DJ Hero games) will stitch it all together, but we’ll know for sure this fall.
This week in Nintendo DLC – Baby Park’s Back, and Ryu’s coming to Smash
Dedicated Smash Bros fans who bought both the WiiU and 3DS versions of the most recent game got an early taste of Mewtwo this week, the first downloadable addition to the roster. A dedicated user on Reddit by the name of shinyquagsire123 decrypted the update, and found files that may reveal Nintendo’s future DLC plans for the roster of characters. Included were files referencing “Ryu” and “Roy,” each sound files that were quickly traced back to Street Fighter II and Fire Emblem accordingly. Following that trail, it seems that Fire Emblem’s Roy (who was in the series’ second installment, Melee) and Street Fighter’s Ryu Hiyabusa may be on the path to Smash Bros glory. Meanwhile, a new trailer for the second half of Mario Kart 8‘s DLC update appeared online, showing off which old tracks will be returning to the WiiU title. Included are Baby Park from Mario Kart: Double Dash, Neo Bowser City from Mario Kart 7, as well as two courses from Mario Kart: Super Circuit. The update will be available for download on April 28.
Battlefront shows its’ face at Star Wars Celebration
This weekend marks Star Wars Celebration, where hundreds of superfans from across the globe have gathered for any and all things Far, Far Away. The annual fan fest is bigger than ever in 2015, both due to the December release of The Force Awakens and the November release of Star Wars: Battlefront. The long-awaited reboot of the space combat game is coming from EA and DICE studios (most famous for the Battlefield series), and released the first trailer on this morning. An attached blog post also confirmed a few of the returning features for the upcoming franchise reboot – including the ability to play as classic heroes like Darth Vader & Boba Fett, and the ability to play in either first- or third-person perspectives.
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