guitar hero

Chris Knight's avatar

The big news coming out of the video game industry today is Activision shutting down the Guitar Hero series: once one of the most insanely popular set of video games in recent history. The company cited declining sales as being the biggest factor in the decision to bring the “music ‘n rhythm” series to a halt.

This reminds me a lot… a whole lot even… of the “video game crash” that took place between 1983 and 1985. This might come as a shock to the younger readers of this blog (ooh-boy am I dating myself here :-P) but once upon a time, video games were not “hip” at all. Ya see, in 1982 the Atari 2600 was the king of home video gaming. It seemed nigh-invulnerable. But within a year or two the home video game industry hit rock-bottom hard.

What happened? Mostly it was a market way...

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Chris Knight's avatar

I’ve talked about Rock Band a lot on this blog (‘cuz Lisa and I play it together all the time) and we’re eager for Rock Band 2 next month, but I’m also a big fan of the Guitar Hero games. Lisa got me Guitar Hero III for my birthday a few months ago. Now if only I can get past Slash…

Well, the next few months are going to be pure crazy on the rhythm gaming front, with Rock Band 2 and then Guitar Hero World Tour fighting for the coveted space under the Christmas tree. Today Activision released gobs of new info about Guitar Hero World Tour, including how Ozzy Osbourne will be a playable avatar in the game.

Activision should program an “Easter egg” that lets you bite the head off a live chicken on stage while playing Ozzy. It would triple sales of Guitar Hero World ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

A few weeks ago it was announced that there would be an Aerosmith version of Guitar Hero in a few months. Now comes word that the Beatles may be getting their own edition of the popular music video game.

I don’t think this is a good idea. Aerosmith I can understand, but the Beatles had a whole ‘nother vibe going than their guitar style (even though they were great guitarists). But now that the Beatles catalog will soon be available via iTunes, who knows: maybe we’ll soon see some Beatles hits as downloadable content for Rock Band too, which would make a lot more sense than Guitar Hero.

(Credit goes to Electric Pig for their awesome pic of Paul McCartney with a Guitar Hero controller 🙂...

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